Rev. Dr. Drexel N. Mitchell, Sr. currently serves Presiding Elder for the Fort Worth Texas District in the Eighth Episcopal District of the Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church under the leadership of Senior Bishop Lawrence L. Reddick, III.
Thank you for the opportunity to interview you. We would like to give everyone the opportunity to know a little more about you.
Where were you born? I was born and raised in the motor city, Detroit Michigan. I lived there up until the age of 17, when I joined the Navy.
Please share with us your educational background. Graduated from Park University in Parkwood Missouri with an associate in office administration and a bachelors of science in management human resources. I then graduated from University of Phoenix with an MBA then I graduated from Pfeiffer University in North Carolina with a Masters of Art in Practical Theology with an emphasis in church administration. I am currently working on my final project at Wesley Theological Seminary. My degree will be a Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) degree with a concentration in church leadership.
Can you tell us about your calling into ministry? I have been preaching since I was 7 years old. I excepted my call at age 17 at the Grace CME church in Detroit.
Why do you feel called to serve the CME church? I am a life long CME. I was born and raised in the CME church. The CME church is all that I know.
As a Presiding Elder do you struggle with the most? I don’t think I struggle with anything at the moment. I am just still trying to find my way in terms of knowing my way and trying to know people. I don’t think I am necessarily struggling with anything. I am probably more surprised at the different places that our churches are at. I pastored for about 20 years. I know what kind of churches that I have pastored and know what my challenges were there. But now looking at it from a district view, I am amazed. I am amazed at some of the conditions of some of our buildings, some of our memberships. If I am concerned about anything, I am concerned about our enthusiasm level for doing ministry, and our desire to do it with excellency. It’s like when you go to a church as a pastor, and every church has its own culture, but you deal with people’s identity of what they want the church to be, and what the church aught to be and all those things. You work through all that because they view you as an outsider. When you go as a presiding elder, and now you get a balcony view, of the inside of the church. It’s interesting how you see people claim ownership, but not to a level where they necessarily want it to change. It’s always about what can you bring us. What can you do for us and this is what we need. And so when you start talking about doing ministry, and doing ministry efficiently and making disciples and going to the streets, then there is a whole different dynamic that starts to turn.
What are the top three responsibilities of a Presiding Elder in your opinion? Training, training, training. The reason I say training, training, training is because, what my experience says to me and what I see is that, it’s a great revolving door. What we like to do as pastors is to go in and say this is my goal, this is what I am going to work on and after I achieve this I am going to move to here. Which is great. But if people keep coming, then you have to go back and do the same thing because you have new people that don’t know. So, you have to always find yourself in a training mode at various levels and be able to create people to help. I’m going to use the word disciple people to become disciples of other people, to help that evolution go. Otherwise you get stuck with doing it all. For instance, I was doing a quarter and the people suggested well we need training. Would you come train us? I said sure if your pastor wants me to come and do that. Your pastor may have someone to do that and say “here is your trainer right hear”. You really doing have to look beyond the walls, if you except the leadership that you have here, and follow that leadership, you may have just what you need. Now is the pastor want’s me to come in and do it, I will gladly do it. It is not my place to come in and say I am going to do the training. There is a need to do it. That is why I say training, training, training, so people know who we are. Because we have a great heritage as CME’s that we doing talk about and we don’t lift up. As much as we keep trying emulate other people’s ministry, which doesn’t work for us in the long run. I don’t know when we are going to get that it doesn’t work. If we would just go back to our roots. Because if we go back to our roots and understand them. Some of these ministries that we view as successful are doing the basic things that we have been called to do that we just don’t do no more. Back to basics.
Tell us about your leadership philosophy and how it influences the culture of the Pastors under your care and the CME church? To sum up my leadership philosophy in one phrase, would be, to thy own self be true. You know what you can do, you know what you can’t do. Be good at what you do. Work at what you cannot do and try and get better. But always give the best that you can. As long as you know that you have given your best, that is all that matters. And with that comes everything else. I don’t do well with excuses. Excuses for me are only good for the person who gives it. Which mean that I have to have very much compassion sometimes, and understanding. That has just come by way of understanding that everybody is not at the place that I am at. And the other part of it, which for me goes far before my 25 years in the Navy. It really started back in the third grade and second grade with teachers who didn’t except excuses. Teachers who were role models who I can call out their name. So, when I decided to may that change is was not a bid culture shock. The Navy wasn’t asking anymore of me than my teachers had asked of me in 12 years of school, they were building upon it.
This concludes our interview is there anything else you would like to share with the readers
