Pastor R.D. Bernard is trying to address what he views as the biggest problem facing America today. It’s not the national deficit, or health care reform, or even systemic poverty.
To him, it’s the disintegration of the nuclear family.
“I know that people say it’s education, some say it’s poverty, we need job opportunities, but really it’s family,” Bernard said. “Poor doesn’t equate to criminal. Poor doesn’t equate to ‘I can’t graduate from high school.’ From that family structure, I can do great things.”
Bernard and his King Solomon Baptist Church congregation have set out to bring awareness to this through three days of workshops and activities hosted by the church called Family Empowerment Weekend.
The event, scheduled for Aug. 15-17, is in its fourth year and has recently started to gain traction among the Vicksburg community for its dedicated approach to improving family life in the area.
“People now know what it is,” Bernard said. “When you say Family Empowerment Weekend, they know, and they say, ‘Yes, I want to participate. I want to help.”
The activites will began Friday at the Convention Center with dinner and a theatre production starting at 7 p.m.
The play will touch on topics affecting family life, from illegitimacy to violence to sexually transmitted diseases and the generational effects of those subjects.
“It will draw the role of the religious community into what’s going on socially,” Bernard said. “All of these themes and sub-themes will be present there in that dramatic presentation and it will leave each person to kind of figure out where they are in that and what role they play; and are they satisfied with that role or do they need to step up and play another role.”
On Saturday, the Oak Ridge branch of King Solomon will host a marriage and family workshop from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. before concluding the weekend with three separate church services at both the Oak Ridge and Farmer Street King Solomon locations.
“Family Empowerment Weekend is really centered on educating the community in this area about the dangers of the corroding and eroding family structure in this community and in this country,” Bernard said. “Statistics tell us that the majority of children in this country are born into homes without their father being present.”
According to the U.S. Census, 43 percent of all American children live without a father in their homes. The Center for Disease Control puts that number at 73 percent for African American children.
“The one thing that links most male prisoners is fatherlessness… We see this fatherlessness and this pattern, and even in our community, many of the social issues such as violent crime, have — at their core — a young, violent person who is the product of a single parent home,” Bernard said.
“We don’t say that, and I don’t say that, to castigate or to denigrate any portion of our populace, but it’s high time that we understand the ramifications and results of our actions generationally.”
The three-day event will also dissect and discuss the positive influence of marriage and ways the community can “get back to the basics of family,” Bernard said.
“Statistics have shown that people who are married and bring their children into marriage, they plan more, they save more, they’re naturally more optimistic and they live longer,” he added. “We want to remind people in certain segments of our community that cohabitation without the benefit of marriage is more popular than marriage.”
Bernard believes the main focus of the weekend hinges upon reflection and enlightenment as he and his clergy staff attempt to make attendees look intrinsically to improve behavior within their family.
“This is not about the mass movements of the past where you get great big groups together to march and protest and to become aware,” he said. “Illumination is something that happens personally, individually. It’s something that each individual must feel responsible for, to do his or her part.”
The pastor linked many problems the country faces to a lack of family cohesion and said he hopes this weekend will not only bring awareness, but also a personal responsibility to do better.
“Like every other generation, people in this generation are searching for significance. It’s man’s eternal quest to mean something, and it is only through his service to mankind, beginning with those in his home, that he really finds his place in the world,” Bernard said.
“It’s really through the servicing of those who are right in my little circle. I don’t have to go halfway around the world to do what’s right. What’s right needs to start in my home to those who are closest to me.”