via BCNN1/Ryan Sanders
Dallas Morning News:
On June 2, Grammy-award winning Gospel artist Mavin Sapp announced he is leaving the church he founded in Grand Rapids, Mich., to take a position as the senior pastor at Chosen Vessel Cathedral in Fort Worth. Still in the airport returning from his latest music tour, he spoke with The Dallas Morning News by phone about the reasons for that decision and his plans in North Texas.
You grew up in Grand Rapids and started a church there. Was this a hard decision to leave your hometown and the church you planted?
It was an extremely difficult decision and it was a decision that I actually fought. Whenever you birth something and you’ve watched it grow and been through challenges and ups and downs with it, it’s very difficult to walk away from something that you’ve worked hard to build.
But God said, “OK Marvin, it’s time for you to transition and it’s time for you to go someplace you’ve never been before and take on the mantle of a Joshua and go ahead and do what I’m telling you to do in a brand-new place in a brand-new season.” I tell people all the time that it’s easy to make life-changing decisions when you’re 22 or 32, but when you’re 52, you got to know it’s God.
How will it be different ministering in North Texas than it was in Michigan?
I don’t know if it’s going to be different. I’m just going to be who I am. I’m going to come with the gifts and the tools that God has given me. I’m just looking forward to trying to implement some of the things God has placed in my heart as it pertains to community outreach, making sure that there’s strong youth ministry and young adult ministry there and just really trying to bridge the different generational minds.
It’s one thing to be a global ministry — and I’ve been blessed to have that opportunity and that responsibility to be able to travel the world and preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ and sing gospel music; it has been great and it has been fun — but really my passion is to do things on the local level, so when I get to Fort Worth, even though I still have a global responsibility, I’m going to make sure that my top priority is my local focus.
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