Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I'm on the phone with Bishop Hezekiah Walker. How are you, sir?
[00:00:05] Speaker B: I am good. How are you?
[00:00:07] Speaker A: I'm doing fantastic off the air. I was telling you, it has been such a long time since we've had an interview, and I'm so excited to do this today because it's a big deal.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: Well, that's good. You know, I feel honored to be with you today.
And you write, it's been a long time.
And, you know, this is the timing of God.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: Yes, for sure. And let's start with the single. It's called Favor. And what made this the right song or the right season in your life and ministry?
[00:00:39] Speaker B: You know, I. You know, I keep my ear to the community, and I keep my ear to the culture and also the culture of the church.
And so, you know, I've been praying, asking God, you know, what song should I put out now? Because every time I do put a song out, I want it to be relevant, and I really want it to touch the hearts of people, but I want to be able to speak to the culture of the church and the culture of our people.
And so, you know, with the climate of our world and our government, what's going on with our government, we are really in a time of despair for our people.
And I was in prayer the other month, and the Lord spoke to me and said that we've come a long way. You know, our people, the church, have come a long way. The culture of our people have come a long way. And. And we've come this far by faith and favor.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: Yeah, for. Oh, that's good.
[00:01:34] Speaker B: Come this far by faith and favor. And because of our faith, he put a portion of favor on us. Amen. That's going to bring us to the next level in our lives. So I wanted to put that out for people to understand that although we're living in a time of desp, regardless of what's going on in the White House, regardless of what's going on in our house, you know, we still got the favor of God.
[00:01:59] Speaker A: Yes. Amen. Amen. Well, what was it like bringing the choir Love Fellowship choir together, especially for a new generation of listeners?
[00:02:09] Speaker B: It was amazing, you know, because we haven't really did anything since. Every praise. Yeah, better.
And so that's been a couple of years now. So, you know, I just didn't want to rush. You know, some people rush. I'll put music out.
And so I. I've never been one to rush and put a single out or put a record out, you know, just to put it out.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: I wanted to wait because I just really wanted God to give me the right song and the timing. And it seemed like this is it. Because the emails and the phone calls and everybody's calling fans. This song is right on time. I needed it. I needed to know what was on me. You know, I looked at it as a prophetic utterance, like, you know, because every now and then somebody gotta remind you what's on you, you know?
[00:02:57] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:02:57] Speaker B: I. I thank God. I grew up in a home where my teachers and. And sometimes, you know, the people that we're around will put labels on you. But then when you got home, your mother said, this is who you are.
[00:03:10] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: You know, and whatever your mom and dad said, that's what you believe, right?
[00:03:15] Speaker A: M.
Absolutely.
[00:03:17] Speaker B: That's what I feel about God. God is saying to us, I don't care what nobody is thinking. Nobody's saying, I don't care what you don't have. You have me and you have my favor. And, you know, favor puts you in the room with people who you thought you would never be in the room with.
Favor will put you in front of people that you thought you would never be in front of. You know, and it doesn't have anything to do with your gift. It doesn't have anything to do with your talent. Because remember, the scripture says that Jesus had favor with God and man.
[00:03:54] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: And. And, and. And man is only attracted to you because of your gift and your talent. So you can get the favor from man if you're gifted and if you're talented. But the only way that you're gonna get favor with God is through your heart. Oh, Jesus gotta be right with God. And when your heart is right, he'll put that favor on you. You are preaching.
[00:04:15] Speaker A: Let's listen to the song right now on the Detroit Praise Network.
[00:04:20] Speaker B: Over my life,
[00:04:24] Speaker A: Bishop Hezekiah Walker. The name of the song is Favor on the Detroit Praise Network. Sir. Sir, you back favor?
[00:04:33] Speaker B: Favor is all over you. Favor is all over me. And I want everybody to know that favor is all on you, you know, And. And it's important for us, as the favor is on us, to go tell somebody else about the favor. I remember the story about the woman at the well after Jesus did what he had to do for her and put that portion of favor on her. The Bible says she ran into the town and told everybody, come see a man. That told me everything about myself.
[00:05:05] Speaker A: I absolutely love it. Listen, I have to talk to you about something else. You got a couple of great things going on.
I love that your ministry has expanded beyond the music and the pulpit, and you have something really tangible. It's called he House Apartments in Brooklyn. And what made you say, okay, let's do some housing instead of the church building?
[00:05:29] Speaker B: That is such a great question.
And we actually purchased some property a few years ago. And, you know, I guess every pastor's heart is to put up a greater church.
And my heart was to put up a big old church in New York City where everybody in New York City can come and worship and have a good time. And we was having so many problems with the builder's department.
Every time I put the. Put the architect drawing into the building department, they would kick it back out. There was always something. And then the pandemic hit. So that slowed us up. So after the pandemic, I prayed and said, God, what you want us to do with this property? Right, Because I'm trying. I'm trying. And the Lord spoke to me and said, do not build a church. He said, put housing up for the community.
And I was like, wait, wait, wait, you know, And I was like, maybe this is me, or maybe this the devil talking, you know, so.
But the Lord said, this is me. This is I. I'm speaking. Put up the commute, Put up housing for the community. And I. And to my surprise, I went to the church and told the church what the Lord told me. And everybody' stood up and started clapping. Oh, wow. I had a lot. I had a lot of pullback from a lot of my preacher friends, a lot of my pastoral friends who told me, nah, I don't think you should do that. You should still build your church. But I followed God instructions, and here it is a few years later, the building is up, 239 apartments, 12 floors to the building. And. And I prayed about it because I was like, lord, what you want me to do? And. And I don't know nothing about housing or building any housing, right? And the moment I say, yes, Lord, three days later, the city of New York called me about the property and said that they want to partner with me to build housing. And I am seriously. They put a contract on my desk that I could not refuse.
[00:07:25] Speaker A: That's.
[00:07:26] Speaker B: God couldn't refuse it. I could refuse it. So here we are. Our grand opening is in October, October 21, and we have about 60 families in there now. And let me say this.
Last week, I went there to check on everything, and there was a young lady coming in the building with her three children, and someone told her that I was Hezekiah Walker. And she ran over to me, fell in my arms and cried. She said, hezekiah, I've been in the shelter for four years. Jesus and my kids. And she said, thank you for putting this building up because I was able to get this apartment. My kids are happy. I'm happy. She said that she wasn't able to smile for four years.
And just to hear that, yes. It's like, I know. God told me to do that.
[00:08:16] Speaker A: Absolutely. Absolutely. Congratulations on that one. You got so much going on. I just read that you're heading the Choir Fest at sea. What is that about?
[00:08:28] Speaker B: Oh, man.
So, you know, we do a choir fest every year. We just got finished doing one for the Color War weekend, and it was amazing.
So this time around, we said, let's do Quiet Fence at sea. So we're sailing. Amen. We're calling it Quiet Sea. And we'll be sailing from Miami in December, December 5th through the 12th. And we got some great ports that we're going to. And we're inviting all choir members, all choir directors, anybody just want to sing, anybody that love the choir sound. We're asking everybody to come and be on board with us. It's going to be a great time. We got Fred Hammond coming with us.
[00:09:07] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:09:08] Speaker B: Aiken, we got J.J. harrison. We got Anthony Brown. We got Will Johnson.
[00:09:13] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh.
[00:09:15] Speaker B: And it's just gonna be. It's just gonna be amazing for us to be singing gospel music on the water.
[00:09:20] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. It sound like something Randy Miles need to be at.
[00:09:25] Speaker B: That's right. Come on. Come on.
[00:09:28] Speaker A: I'll host a few things for you.
[00:09:30] Speaker B: Come on.
Is so amazing. Anybody that want to come, all you got to do is go to inspirational travel.com forward/vhw. That's inspirational travel.com forward slash bhw. And the bhw stands for bishop Hezekiah Walker.
[00:09:48] Speaker A: Yes. You have so much going on. I just can't get to all of it. But I know that you're going to be in Cape Town, too.
[00:09:56] Speaker B: We'll be in Cape Town in October. We're actually dedicating a new project that we're doing. We wanted to put up a music school and a music performing arts center for all of the people in Cape Town where they have some place to go and to do gospel music and to learn about music and to learn about gospel music. So we're going in October to dedicate that property. So you pray for us. A lot of things going on, but you know what? When favor is on your life, this is what happens.
[00:10:24] Speaker A: Amen. Amen. I just appreciate your ministry, the communities that you've helped build, and your legacy as well. So thank you so much for spending some time with me today.
We can catch you on social media. And I am so thrilled about this song, too.
[00:10:41] Speaker B: Yes. So thank God. Always remember that favors on your life, sweetheart. Always.
