The Rev. Phillip Pointer is grateful for what he calls “the ministry of Saturday Night Live.”
After the guest host, musical guest(s) and regular cast of the comedic, late-night NBC variety show gather for their curtain call, and the credits roll ... Pointer, senior pastor of Little Rock’s Saint Mark Baptist Church, takes over in a taped broadcast, preaching on KARK-TV at midnight every Saturday. His commanding voice and the passion with which he delivers his message — that delivery reaching a crescendo fit to hold the attention of the staunchest nonbeliever — belies his relative youth.
After Saturday Night Live, Pointer says, “is a wonderful time slot.”
He can be anywhere — in Walmart, at a retreat, at a restaurant in another city — and “constantly hear people of all races and socioeconomic classes and educational levels say, ‘We watch you every Saturday.’ … It’s a blessing to have that lead-in for the message and ministry of this church, which is the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Saturday Night Live has been going on 44 years. Pointer notes that Saint Mark’s broadcast has followed the show for years — “people have been able to laugh and then to think. And that’s a good order to take yourself to sleep at night.”
What about the fact that Saturday Night Live regularly offers material that isn’t exactly, well, church-folks-friendly? “We’re there to help clean your mind,” Pointer says.
The Rev. Lamarr D. Bailey, executive pastor of Saint Mark, couldn’t think of a more suitable person to initiate that mind-cleaning than the 40-year-old Pointer. Bailey is impressed with what he refers to as Pointer’s “amazing ability to teach and explain the Bible with clarity and precision.”
“He takes his calling to the ministry very seriously, which is evident in his detailed preparation and presentation,” Bailey says. “I have grown tremendously under his leadership and consider myself blessed to have him as my pastor.”
Since 2012, Pointer has led the 127-year-old Saint Mark Baptist Church at 5722 W. 12th St., one of the largest predominantly black congregations in Little Rock. With a membership of nearly 9,000 the church, whose slogan is “You. Grow. Here,” hosts three Sunday services, two Wednesday services, a broadcast television ministry and what it refers to on its website as “a robust community outreach ministry.”
Today — which some call Easter, others call Resurrection Sunday — the church wraps up Holy Week 2019 with gospel recording artist Kirk Franklin appearing during the 8, 10 and 11:30 a.m. services.
For Pointer, representing Saint Mark requires constant awareness of the importance of balancing its high status in the community with its divine mandate to serve the community.
“There is a significance to Saint Mark and its history,” Pointer says. “Saint Mark has a unique standing and responsibility to demonstrate what it really means to be the church. So [we are] not to celebrate ourselves and to pat ourselves on the back and say how wonderful we are.”
Pointer references Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:14: “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.”
“The idea is that those who are traveling are able to find safety because of the lights of the city … When there’s elevation and when there’s influence, it must be wielded properly for the good of those around us.
“That’s the real sense of what it means to pastor a church like Saint Mark. It’s understanding the responsibility to the community, to the city, to the state as a whole.”
THE TRIUMPHS
Of Saint Mark’s outreach initiatives, one of the biggest that has been birthed under Pointer’s watch is its Children and Youth Building, along with the programs that go on there.
“The Saint Mark members pulled together to put our children first,” Pointer says. “And not just the children who attend our church, but the children in our community.” The church has partnered with the Little Rock School District to serve those children.
“All of the kids in this community are our kids … and they need a safe place. … Our kids were being suspended at a high rate. So we needed to do something — again, that unique responsibility to take care of the most vulnerable. That’s why we built the Children and Youth Center.”
Opening in summer 2016, the 50,000-square-foot center is just northeast of the sanctuary. “And it’s used every day,” Pointer says. Children and teenagers in the church use it for worship services and Bible study as well as for social events and to simply hang out. The Center also is home to Tendaji, a community development corporation whose name is Swahili for “making things happen.” Tendaji offers educational after-school programs complete with hot evening meals; educational enrichment programs; arts education in conjunction with the Timmons Arts Foundation; and leadership development programs. Tendaji serves more than 200 children from 22 schools.
“Every day we’re doing something to touch the lives of those kids and those families,” Pointer says. “We want to put our kids first in our ministry; put our money where our mouth is as it relates to helping the next generation find God, find Christ and live on a high level — the level that God intends for them.”
Also offered through Tendaji — via a partnership with the school district and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock — is Reclaiming Scholars, a program that serves students who have been suspended from school. Enrollees receive behavioral enrichment along with academic help to make sure they don’t fall too far behind.
“We’ve seen a nearly 90-something percent success rate as we partner with our school district in that way,” Pointer says. “We’ve seen kids literally turn their behavior around by implementing the skills that they learn in Reclaiming Scholars.”
In addition, Tendaji provides breakfast daily for the homeless, for whom wraparound services are available at the church. “We’ve seen our homeless get jobs, those who are veterans get their benefits, get housing,” Pointer says. “We’ve seen some amazing stories, some amazing testimonies, through that.
“The accomplishment is not that we put up a building. It’s that the building is a place where we can build up the people,” Pointer adds. “Saint Mark has a long history of community engagement — and that’s what we’re trying to continue and expand on.”
THE PATH
Pointer’s own long history — of ministry, that is, began as a teenager.
The son of Alyce Marie Pointer of Little Rock and the Rev. Carey E. Pointer Jr. of Washington and the second eldest of five children, he was reared in Prince George’s County, Md., in the Washington area — “which is now very affluent for African Americans,” he says. “When I grew up there, it wasn’t that affluent. It was much more mixed, racially and economically.” His father pastored Mount Joy Baptist Church on Capitol Hill.
Pointer knew at the age of 12 what his path in life was meant to be, and he was less than enthusiastic about it.
“I come from a line of pastors on both sides — Baptist pastors, fourth generation on both sides,” he says. “Some people have a rose-colored view of ministry and church. I lived in a house where people knocked on the door in the middle of the night with tragedies and those kinds of things; calls in the wee hours of the morning; going to court cases and hospitals and those kinds of things. … So I didn’t have any type of false view of what it entailed — which is why I didn’t want to do it. … Wasn’t going to do it. But …”
But, Pointer soon realized that God wasn’t making a request.
“Ultimately, the Lord arrested my intentions and attention — and turned them toward ministry.”
At 14, Pointer began to do public preaching. He cringes when asked about his first sermon.
“It was horrible,” he groans. “It was the worst sermon anybody has ever preached at any time.”
He remembers its title and Scripture: “The Doors of the Church Are Open,” based on Acts 2:36-47. “I have no good words to say about it other than my family and friends and church were very supportive and encouraging,” Pointer continues. “Oh, gracious, what a horrible thing it was. … But the Lord has given me some grace to keep trying again.”
That he was destined to be a minister wasn’t too much of a surprise to his mother, either.
Hearing his early sermons, “I was very proud of him,” Alyce Pointer says. “He had something to say. He was very, I want to say, specific about everything. He knew what he was telling us about the Lord. He was a regular teenager, but he also knew that he had a special gift.”
It’s with special pride that she remembers the first time she saw him baptize someone. “I can’t tell you how that made me feel.”
Phillip Pointer continued to preach throughout high school. “People were patient, and they were encouraging to a young preacher who was trying to grow. They could see that God was doing something. And I’m so grateful for the wisdom of many pastors who poured into me.”
After high school, Pointer went to then-Washington Bible College in Lanham, Md., where he did his undergraduate work. He later earned a master of divinity degree from the Samuel Dewitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University in Richmond, Va.; and a doctor of ministry degree from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio.
At the age of 24, Pointer was elected to his first pastorate — that of St. John Baptist Church in Alexandria, Va., later known as Providence St. John after a church merger.
Pointer figured he’d retire from Providence St. John. “I love those people to this day. They were very kind and gracious and loving to me.
“But, the Lord had, obviously, other plans.”
THE ARRIVAL
He knew about Saint Mark, having seen the church’s TV broadcast, “but had no inkling” he’d preach or pastor there. But as it happened, a friend of his had rapport with the people of Saint Mark and he knew their hunt for a new pastor had begun in 2010. “When there was a need for a particular Sunday for someone to fill in, he asked me would I be willing” to come and share a message, Pointer says. “I said yes.”
That was in 2011. “Saint Mark was gracious enough to hear and receive me that Sunday. And there was a sense of connection in that first time we worshipped together.”
The following year, he was offered the pastorate. “My wife and I prayed, and here we are.”
The Rev. George L. Parks Jr., senior pastor of New Hope Baptist Church in North Little Rock and Conway, has known Pointer for 15 years. “What’s most impressive for me [are] his intelligence and knowledge across the disciplines” — theology, Bible, history and evangelical — “while never losing the common touch and making things plain.
“Secondly, his generosity is without peer.” Parks recalls how Pointer and his wife “literally took care” of him and his wife while Parks was in graduate school. “They would not let my wife, Joy, and [me] pay for anything in their presence.”
THE CHALLENGES
Pointer admits that shepherding such a large congregation comes with its challenges.
“Of course, there are high expectations,” he says. “I’m glad people have a high estimation of Saint Mark, and that high estimation comes with high expectation. But they think Saint Mark can solve every issue and fix every problem. And Saint Mark is one church. It’s a great church; it’s God’s church. God has used it for 127 years. But it’s not the only church God is using in Little Rock. There are some great pastors and churches in this city who are doing phenomenal ministry.
“We’re limited in what we can do and we’re limited in what we’re called to do.”
Another challenge, one at the other end of the spectrum: people who harbor negative perceptions and assumptions about large churches, period. And a third challenge: the young adults in the flock who leave Little Rock for greener career pastures. “We’ve got great hope with our new mayor and others who are working hard to ensure that Little Rock as a city is a great place to live with great opportunity and rising wages and awesome jobs,” Pointer says.
Then, he adds, there’s just the challenge of producing a “true Christian community in a very difficult world in which we live.
“But it’s one that God has called us to [and] that we try to meet with clear teaching of the word; with energetic and pure worship; [and] ministries and group life where people can find and connect in community — small groups and places where people can really become known. What seems to be a very big church becomes very small very quickly if you just get involved.”
Pointer balances meeting these challenges with family life. He and his wife, Keya, have three children: Gabriela, a sophomore at Baylor University, who will be 20 on Tuesday; Phillip Jr., “PJ,” who turns 14 next month; and youngest Elijah, 12.
Outside of church, “we’re movie people,” Pointer says. They are into Marvel movies and Star Wars. He loves reading classic mystery novels. And, “we love to travel. We’re travel people, we’re foodies … the reason we travel is to eat. We love engaging other cuisines in other countries.
“And then personally, I like to watch a game every now and again when I can finally sit in front of the TV.” Having grown up in the Washington area, Pointer roots for all the sports teams based there.
THE PRESS TOWARD THE MARK
By the way, getting back to that bad first sermon … what sermon did Pointer preach that made him feel he had “arrived”? He’s yet to preach that one, he says.
“I mean the gospel is so rich and vibrant and life-changing, I don’t think I’ve ever done it justice in my expression of it yet,” Pointer adds, the glint of tears coming to his eyes, his voice breaking a bit. “And I long for the day when I can.”
