"Wow, that’s great. So everyone out there knows about New Kingdom Temple and it’s charismatic pastor,” after a couple of beats, her voice dipped an octave when she added, “and First Lady."

"You’re so kind," Jeremy said.

Those weren’t the words I would have said, so I just kept my smile in place.

Angela continued, "But for the two people out there in America who may not know about you,” she giggled as if what she’d said was funny, “can you share a little bit about how you got started? If I remember correctly, you didn’t go to school to be a pastor, did you?"

"Actually, I did not," Jeremy began. "I always wanted to be a pastor, but I went to Dillard because that’s the school my father attended. They didn’t have a Divinity program, so I majored in Mass Communications and had planned to get my Masters in Divinity."

"Oh, I didn’t know that."

"Yes, but just a few weeks after graduation, this opportunity came up."

"Yes," I began, picking up where I always did in these joint interviews. "We’d just gotten engaged," I paused and gave Jeremy our rehearsed loving gaze, "had just graduated, and Jeremy had just accepted the offer to attend Duke University."

"Oh," Angela said, "Impressive."

Jeremy picked up. "But then, I got a call from New Kingdom. It was a relatively new church, small membership, less than one hundred, but they were looking for a new pastor with a new vision.”

It was my turn. “The founding pastor, Cecil Donnell, had passed away suddenly. They were so new, they were afraid the church would disband. But one of the members of the church we attended in New Orleans, Mary Logan, had a cousin who attended New Kingdom Temple and it was Mary who brought Jeremy to the New Kingdom’s board’s attention.”

"Wow, that was serendipitous."

Jeremy said, "It was. I was the only minister they interviewed, and one of the pastors from the church I attended in New Orleans, Reverend Archie Lewis, agreed to mentor me. So it seemed like a low risk for the church and it was a complete blessing for me."

I nodded with a smile because that was always the best I could do when Jeremy said that.

He told no lies — New Kingdom Temple had been a complete blessing for him. When they’d made the offer and he’d accepted, the church was ecstatic. The board, which consisted of three members at the time, didn’t care what degrees Jeremy held or what he didn’t have — he’d come with a high recommendation from Mary Logan and one of the mothers of the church, Beatrice Hayden, told everyone that God had spoken to her and Jeremy Williams was the one.

And Jeremy didn’t care that there were only 81 people on the membership rolls. The fact that New Kingdom Temple was in DC, where I lived, made Jeremy believe this was all God-ordained.

“This is God’s stamp of approval on our lives,” was what Jeremy told me back then.