You'll remember Sheyonna Watson,

the person who told us about her work with a group of HIV positive women.

We will hear from her again in our next unit,

when she will tell us about her work as a case manager for HIV positive clients.

In this session, Sheyonna Watson shares some of her thinking and

experiences in reaching out to African-American ministers in

an effort to engage them in education and action about AIDS.

This is a critically important effort, for the African American community has been,

and continues to be, hard-hit by the AIDS epidemic.

The churches in that community are central,

critically important institutions.

Sheyonna is a person of deep Christian faith.

She is also a minister.

She therefore engages the ministers as a co-religionist,

a person who shares many of their commitments.

Some students in this course will not share Sheyonna's religious beliefs, but

even if you are one of them I think you will find that there is

a great deal to be learned from Sheyonna's approach and work.

Another excerpt of my conversation with Sheyonna Watson.

>> Why don't you, why don't you start by telling us about your work at HARC?

>> So, I started off as a HARC as a intern, a AmeriCorps intern, and so

I did that in 2007, and I was doing more outreach.

I was doing work on the outreach vehicle.

I was doing HIV testing and counseling, and doing work with churches, so

trying to engage churches to host-attested events.

So around the HIV-AIDS awareness dates,

like World AIDS day National Black HIV Awareness Day, or National Women and

Girl's Testing day, try and get churches to host an event, so

testing, outreach, or maybe even table an event.

>> When you were in AmeriCorps ,-

>> Mm-hm. >> Were you already a minister?

>> I was in seminary-

>> You were, uh-huh. >> When I started AmeriCorps, yes.

So an undergrad when I was here at U of M from '02 to '06,

I did a lot of campus ministry, and I felt led to go seminary.

So right after undergrad, I attended an Ashen Theological Seminary and

during my first year of seminary, I started AmeriCorps.

>> I see, so that, that's some background to explain why you

had a particular interest in getting churches to become involved in.

>> Yes. >> In AIDS events.

>> Yes, so I became a licensed minister in 2004, and then started a seminary in

the fall of 2006, and so I've really had a heart and passion for churches.

And especially the Black churches, since they are a stakeholder in the community,

to do something, at least learn more about HIV and AIDS.

If not, holds a testament that's because people may not be very proud to go and get

tested at let's say at HARC or at Planned Parenthood or at their doctor's office.

They may feel some shame in that, but

if your pastor's getting tested, what shame is there in that?

So. >> Did you feel that the Black churches in

the community had, had to play catch up?

>> Yeah, they did, definitely.

I mean, people were still using very outdated terms still not

really understanding that you can't get HIV from saliva.

Or some pastors would be apprehensive about offering testing because they're,

they would say, oh, well you can only do test in our Sunday school and

there's kids there.

So why?

You, you can't test there.

Why would it be okay to test somebody there when we have to, you know,

have kids there on, on a Sunday morning worship.

But we're, we're testing and we're providing, you know,

universal precautions so there aren't any opportunities for transmission.

You know, we're not just leaving buckets of blood, you know, out and about.

So, you know, it's really a lot of education about transmission that is

not just being around someone that's positive.

It's, you know, certain behaviors that leads to transmission.

So, having very real and frank conversations about the basis of HIV

really honest conversations of surrounding stigma, surrounding scripture and

just really engaging passages to understand, you're providing education.

And if the heart of your ministry is to love people,

the heart of your ministry is to serve people, the heart of your ministry is

that you see people have life in that more abundantly, according to scripture.

Why not provide them with the most information, accurate information, so

that they can have life, and abundant life, life without a chronic illness?

>> One of the things that's always interested me about your work is that

you do approach ministers and other members of

the Christian community from a scriptural, religious point of view.

>> Mm-hm, mm-hm.

>> What about attitudes that the ministers and

other church members have towards gay, gay people?

Has that been difficult for you to work with?

>> It has been difficult because if you already see someone as less than as,

if you're condemning them to Hell already, you don't have much of

a motivation to see that person redeemed, because you see them as unredeemable.

You see them as other, you see them as outcast, you see them as,

you know being involved in the sin that God just abhors, just hates.

So, people are less likely to care about HIV,

let alone someone who's a part of the LGBTQ community, because you've already

labeled them as being unredeemable, unrepentant, less than.

Being underneath God's grace and mercy.

>> And how do you work with that?

>> So, some pastors are just, you know,

stuck in their ways, and, and, unfortunately.

>> And you're not going to make progress.

>> Right, well, so you're just not going to make progress, and so,

that's the unfortunate thing, that you do have some people who have yet to progress,

have yet to really allow themself to be engaged in that.

So those people, I mean honestly, you just kind of pray for them.

[LAUGH] And you kind of keep it moving.

But for others who are willing to have at least a conversation.

I talk about their view of God, and that you have a very limited view of God,

if you feel as though there are some people who are unredeemable, that you must

have a very small God that you serve, that grace must be something that you earn.

And if grace is something that you earn, then it's not grace.

So if we're talking about people that you consider sinful,

if you're talking about people you consider unredeemable,

then you have a very misguided view of who God really is.

If you truly believe in Christ saving all and

then Christ coming to save the world, the world includes people who may

have a different sexual orientation than yourself.

And have there been ministers who've,

whom you've dealt who have heard that and have responded?

>> Yeah, they did, because it, it really to me challenges what we view as

tradition and what we view as really good, sound doctrine.

There's a lot of traditions in the Black church that are not rooted in

solid doctrine.

And so it's really a conversation to have about the, the scriptures, and

what those scriptures mean, and how we're supposed to apply those to

our lives because the Bible, I mean, honestly is an old, antiquated text.

But that old, antiquated text has very universal truths in it.

It has very good word in it that applies to

our current situation, it's timeless word.

So what can we glean from the Bible that we know is tradition and antiquated text

and history, and what can we glean from the Bible, that we know is the infallible

word of God that has universal truth, that can apply to our lives right now.

And from that we know from Genesis to Revelation, it's God and God's grace and

his love, and for us to love and serve others.

That's the truth.

How we apply that truth is different based on doctrine,

it's based on tradition, based on preference.

And so it's really engaging pastors to say,

okay these are our non-negotiables, non-negotiable, 'kay, God is real,

Christ loves us, Christ loves the church, we love others.

And, you know, the, the number one rule and

the commandment that God gave us is to love others and to serve him, great.

If that's our non-negotiable, what can we do to build from there?

Everything else is negotiable is based on your doctrine, based on your tradition,

based on your faith.

But if we can agree on the non-negotiables, then we can engage and

really approach the HIV/AIDS sexual health arena in a really open and honest way.

And can understand how that applies to your ministry.

You can find a way to add an HIV into your ministry if we all agree at

those same non-negotiables.

>> You're sounding pretty persuasive.

>> [LAUGH] Well thanks, I try to be, and

it's taken a lot of conversations with pastors to get there.

It's taken a lot of prayer and study and research on my own to get there myself.

To really understand how we all can come together at the table because I

think it's possible.

No matter what your faith is, no matter what you believe the word of God to say,

there are certain things that we hold to be true no matter what.

>> As long we're beginning our conversation by focusing on,

on the faith aspect of your approach to HIV/AIDS why don't you tell us

about the organization that you're working with now called Gospel Against AIDS?

>> Yeah, so I became aware of Gospel Against AIDS when

I was doing my AmeriCorps internship at HARC.

I would do certain outreach and programs in Detroit, and I did a outreach event

with Gospel Against AIDS, I believe it was for National Black HIV Awareness Day.

And I met the executive director, Rosalind Worthy, then.

And we've always kind of stayed in touch,

the more I've been involved in this field because after, excuse me,

I did the internship, I was hired on at HARC full time to do case management.

And so I've always been in connection with her.

And so when I decided to go back to school at U of M for the School Social Work,

I was so happy that she was willing to take me on as an intern.

And what I'm doing in social work is not in a personal micro-work.

It's more macro-administrative.

And so I really want to understand policy systems, and evidence-based approaches and

interventions and how can we use those in the faith community.

>> And how is that working out at Gospel Against AIDS?

>> It's working out really well.

I'm learning a lot.

It's different when you're on the, you know,

doing grassroots, doing the outreach, you know, feets in the pavement kind of work,

versus the macro, understanding all the systems that come into play,

understanding the policy, the intervention.

So, what Gospel Against AIDS are working with Rosaline Worthy,

who is the executive director, as well as Dr. Larry Gant.

He's a professor in School Social Work.

He's done a lot of research and work with through an HIV/AIDS and

a faith-based approach.

And so he is also one of the supervisors that I work with.

And one of my intern assignments is to really pull together all

the different methods of interventions that gospel Gospel Against AIDS use, and

create a policy manual,

an updated manual that really is all inclusive of the services that they do.

And I'm learning more about the intervention model that they use,

which is called the popular opinion leader.

And that intervention model pretty much is that you're utilizing the stakeholders in

the community and you are educating them, getting them invested in the work

that you're doing and using them as, you know, ambassadors into the community.

>> And then, and in this case are we talking mainly about ministers?

>> Yes, yes.

So, the intervention is not necessarily a faith-based model, but we're using it for

faith-based interventions.

So we use that model to engage ministers and and pastors, and

so really educating them first, inviting them to the table first to

get tested having a lot of relationship building with them.

And then they will go out and be ambassadors about Gospel Against AIDS and

about HIV and then they can, you know, educate their ministerial staff and

then educate their congregation.

>> We heard Dr. Oveta Fuller talking about work that she did in Africa.

>> Mm-hm.

>> With ministers helping them to understand HIV/AIDS so

that they would be more effective educators for their a, as pastors.

It sounds like a very similar approach.

>> Yes, it is a very similar model and I think Dr.

Fuller, hers is more kind of science-based and biology-

>> Yes. >> She does a lot of work kind of

epidemiology and the biology and the science behind HIV.

Ours probably is more social, psychosocial support because some of

the ministers in the ministries that we work with,

they do develop a pastoral care for people who are HIV positive, so

it's more of a psychosocial support system versus a scientific approach.

06.08 - Outreach to African-American Ministers

AIDS: Fear and Hope

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