Black Excellence: The Pastors III — The Shepherds Behind Corletta Vaughn, Cynthia Hale, Cindy Trimm and Philip Anthony Mitchell

Corletta Vaughn

Senior Pastor, Holy Ghost Cathedral & Presiding Bishop, Go Tell It Evangelistic Ministry Worldwide — Detroit, MI

Official links: Website · Facebook · X

Corletta Vaughn was called to preach in 1974, in a Baptist world that told her plainly that the pulpit was not a woman's place. She preached anyway.

Against her own church's strict rules — a story retold so often it gave us the phrase 'shattering the stained-glass ceiling' — she kept answering the call, and on November 5, 1995, in Nigeria, she was elevated to bishop, becoming Detroit's first African-American female bishop.

For 36 years she has served as senior pastor of Holy Ghost Cathedral in Detroit, and as presiding bishop of Go Tell It Evangelistic Ministry Worldwide she oversees more than 70 churches across the country and some 1,300 ministries globally.

National television audiences met her on Oxygen's Preachers of Detroit, but Detroiters had known her for decades: a preacher who heard every negative thing a believer could say about a woman in the pulpit, and carried on, in her words, without bitterness — determined to be the face and voice that brings the conversation to the table.

"I hope my foundation is a launch pad for girls to be the best they can be, no matter their circumstances or socio-economic backgrounds."

Vaughn's barrier-breaking has always pointed outward. She is the author of Teach Your Daughters to Fly, written to help fathers and single mothers raise daughters free of what she calls 'father hunger,' and she has served as a spiritual mother to thousands of women.

In 2018 she was elected a trustee of the Detroit Public Schools Community District, where, according to her seminary biography, she launched the 'Expect Respect' anti-bullying campaign, helped secure 12,000 coats for people experiencing homelessness, and helped establish a 24-hour emergency center providing food, shelter and clothing — work rooted in her adopted slogan about Detroit's children and the cold.

Ecumenical Theological Seminary — “Corletta Vaughn”
Go Tell It Ministries Worldwide — “Bishop Corletta J. Vaughn”
Chalkbeat Detroit — “How Corletta Vaughn got elected to Detroit's school board”

More from Bourgeois Society: The Pastors  ·  Travis Greene  ·  Cynthia Hale

Cynthia Hale

Founder & Senior Pastor, Ray of Hope Christian Church — Decatur, GA

Official links: Website

Cynthia Hale felt God's call as a teenager in Roanoke, Virginia, in an era when women were openly discouraged from becoming pastors — and she nearly walked away from it. At Hollins College she had never seen a woman preach, and she dreamed instead of singing opera.

Encouragement from a roommate and her home pastor, answered prayer for admission and a scholarship, and a youth-pastor internship at Duke Divinity School settled her calling. After graduation, a federal prison warden hired her as a chaplain, and she spent seven years with the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Then, in 1986, she founded Ray of Hope Christian Church in Decatur, Georgia — starting, as she tells it, with four people doing Bible study in her apartment.

The Ray grew into a megachurch that Duke's Faith & Leadership counted at 5,100 members, a remarkable achievement for any pastor and, as Duke noted, virtually unheard of among African-American women of her generation.

"Some people are just negative. They'll try to shut your dreams down. I've always believed that I, along with other people, could change the world for Christ."

Hale has spent her career clearing the path she once had to cut for herself. In 2004 she founded ELAH Pastoral Ministries to mentor pastors and para-church leaders, and in 2005 she convened the Women in Ministry Conference to develop, coach and mentor Christian women in ministry.

President Barack Obama appointed her to the President's Commission on White House Fellowships in 2009, and she delivered the invocation at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. In 2023 she received Duke University's Distinguished Alumni Award, and she has planned a bequest to Duke Divinity so future clergy can find the path a little straighter than she did.

Duke Faith & Leadership — “Ray of Hope for Black Women in Ministry from a Georgia Church”
Duke Divinity School — “Paying It Forward by Clearing a Path” (2025)
Howard University Chapel — “Rev. Dr. Cynthia Hale”

More from Bourgeois Society: The Pastors  ·  Corletta Vaughn  ·  Dr. Cindy Trimm

Dr. Cindy Trimm

Founder & CEO, Trimm International — Atlanta, GA

Official links: Website · Facebook · Instagram · X

Cindy Trimm's story starts in poverty in Bermuda. She was the sixth of seven children; her father left when she was two, and her mother raised the family alone.

Profiles of her life describe a rat-infested home with no running water, used clothing, shoes with cardboard soles, and studying by candlelight because electricity was costly — and a fifteen-year-old whose biggest dream was to become a hotel maid because they earned good tips. She put herself through college, and at thirty she was appointed to the Bermuda Senate.

She eventually left politics to follow her call into ministry, founding Trimm International in Atlanta.

From there she became one of the most in-demand speakers in the country and a bestselling author — Commanding Your Morning and The Rules of Engagement have sold, with her other titles, over a million copies — and Ebony magazine named her to its Power 100 list of the nation's most influential African-American leaders.

"The principles that I teach are principles that I use every single day of my life."

Trimm has turned her own rise into a curriculum for other people's. Through Trimm International and the Trimm Foundation she runs empowerment teaching, coaching and humanitarian work; an Ebony Power 100 announcement for her noted initiatives including the Edna Trimm House of Hope in India, a home for girls, and university curriculum reaching hundreds.

She describes her life's work, in her own words, as helping people regain their personal power and live on purpose — 'healing the world one soul, one situation, and one success at a time,' as her team puts it. Her books — more than 60 of them — remain her widest pulpit.

Greater Diversity News — “Cindy Trimm Publishes the Final Installation of Three-Book Series…”
BreatheCast — “Million-Selling Author/Motivational Speaker Cindy Trimm Is 'Ending Her Year Strong'”
Constant Contact / Trimm International — “Dr. Cindy Trimm named to Ebony Magazine's POWER 100 LIST”

More from Bourgeois Society: The Pastors  ·  Cynthia Hale  ·  Dr. Dharius Daniels

Dr. Dharius Daniels

Founder & Lead Pastor, Change Church — Ewing, NJ

Official links: Website · Facebook · Instagram · X

Dharius Daniels grew up in Kilmichael, Mississippi — a town of about 700 people, with, as he likes to recall, one full-time police officer, no stoplights, one doctor and one nurse. His father, a pastor, modeled leadership at close range and taught him the sentence that became his compass: your enlightenment, not your environment, determines your outcomes.

Daniels was headed for law — he earned his undergraduate degree in political science from Millsaps College — but walked away from the planned legal career for the pulpit, earning a Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary and later a Doctorate of Ministry from Fuller.

In 2005, after graduating from Princeton Seminary, he planted Change Church, a multisite, multi-regional congregation built to welcome people of all ages, backgrounds and incomes. The small-town preacher's kid became a bestselling author — Relational Intelligence — and one of his generation's most prolific communicators.

"I got clearer and developed a greater conviction around things I could do versus what others can do."

Daniels' giving-back runs through coaching. After an overwhelming schedule led to an anxiety attack in 2014, he sought life coaching himself, then trained in it — Princeton Seminary reports he has since trained and certified some 130 coaches.

His Daniels Den mentoring program, Transformational Coaching Group and 12-month Inner Circle Leadership Intensive serve thousands of members, and he has served as an adjunct professor at Princeton. Change Church itself, Princeton notes, has helped thousands transform and mend their lives since 2005 — Daniels' Kilmichael lesson, scaled: environment is a starting point, never a verdict.

Princeton Theological Seminary — “Adding Value to the Lives of Others”
Dharius Daniels (official) — speaker/author biography
AllPastors — “Dharius Daniels Biography”

More from Bourgeois Society: The Pastors  ·  Dr. Cindy Trimm  ·  Kimberly Daniels

Kimberly Daniels

Pastor, Spoken Word Ministries & Florida State Representative — Jacksonville, FL

Official links: Website

Kimberly Daniels titled her autobiography Delivered to Destiny, and the subtitle tells the story: 'From Crack Addict to the Military's Fastest Female Sprinter to Pastoring a Diverse and Multicultural Church.' The publisher's own summary of her life reads, as they put it, like a movie script — from witchcraft to world-class athlete to drug addict, and finally to international speaker and pastor.

Charisma's profile of her ministry, 'They Call Her the Demon Buster,' describes a church rebuilt from fewer than twenty faithful people in a 900-seat building, and a pastor still drawn to the 'tough cases' — her congregation home to everyone from former drug addicts to professional athletes, including a Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver who met her at a team Bible study.

She pastors Spoken Word Ministries in Jacksonville with a message forged in her own deliverance: if you've got a devil problem, you need a Jesus answer.

"IF YOU'VE GOT A DEVIL PROBLEM, YOU NEED A JESUS ANSWER!"

Daniels carried her pulpit into public office. She was elected to the Jacksonville City Council in 2011, then to the Florida House of Representatives in 2016, and — after losing her seat in 2020 — Jacksonville voters returned her to the House in 2022 and re-elected her in 2024, representing District 14.

She is the author of many Charisma House books, including Clean House, Strong House, From a Mess to a Miracle and Breaking the Power of Familiar Spirits, the last now used as a textbook at Jacksonville Theological Seminary, where she earned her master's and doctorate. Her ministry and her politics run on the same fuel: testimony as public service.

Charisma Magazine — “They Call Her the Demon Buster”
Logos Bible Software — “Delivered To Destiny” (publisher overview)
Wikipedia — “Kimberly Daniels” (political career and education)

More from Bourgeois Society: The Pastors  ·  Dr. Dharius Daniels  ·  Medina Pullings

Philip Anthony Mitchell

Founder & Lead Pastor, 2819 Church — Atlanta, GA

Official links: Website · Instagram · X

Philip Anthony Mitchell tells his own story without flinching. Born in Queens, New York, to immigrant parents from Trinidad who were believers, he wanted none of it: at 12 he was selling crack, by 17 he was robbing people at gunpoint, and he spent his 18th birthday on Rikers Island.

Legal trouble pushed him out of New York, and he ran the streets of North Carolina for roughly another decade. By 24 he had the luxury car, the girlfriend and money in the bank — and, as he told The Breakfast Club, no peace and no joy; he was suicidal and survived an attempt.

The turn came watching his girlfriend, unhurt after a car crash, pace their apartment praising God: 'I saw joy. I saw peace.

Whatever that was, I wanted that for myself.' He surrendered in a bathroom, ran from the call for four years, and finally gave in — the street kid from Queens became a pastor who never wanted to be one.

"When we launched 2819, I made a vow to God that I would just be faithful to whatever He placed in front of me."

Mitchell planted Victory Church in Atlanta and led it for a decade; at the ten-year mark, after COVID had hollowed the congregation out, he relaunched it in January 2023 as 2819 Church, named for Matthew 28:19.

What followed has been remarkable: from fewer than 200 people to about 6,000 weekly attendees, millions of sermon views, and, on October 10, 2026, 'ACCESS — That Powerful Hour of Prayer' at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, where an estimated 80,000 people gathered and free tickets were claimed in eight hours.

His book Contend, built on the letter of Jude, carries the same urgent message as his preaching: wake up, and contend for the faith.

RELEVANT Magazine — “'I Enjoyed My Sin': Pastor Philip Anthony Mitchell Tells 'The Breakfast Club'…”
RELEVANT Magazine — “Philip Anthony Mitchell Wants the Church to Wake Up”
The Christian Post — “80K believers gather for prayer, worship in Texas”

More from Bourgeois Society: The Pastors  ·  Medina Pullings  ·  R.A. Vernon

R.A. Vernon

Founder & Senior Pastor, The Word Church — Cleveland, OH

Official links: Website · Instagram · X

R.A. Vernon grew up in Cleveland's Longwood Estates public housing complex, and he knows the streets his congregation comes from: he was turned to Christianity at 15, when his uncle dragged him to church the morning after he was arrested for shoplifting.

After Cleveland State University and Moody Bible Institute, he became pastor of Second Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church in Cleveland, where his energy drew crowds — and rattled the old guard. In September 2000 the falling-out turned bitter: Vernon tried to fire the trustees, and the trustees locked him and his followers out of the church.

Many pastors would have quit the city. Vernon walked away with a few hundred followers and started over in the basement of Bedford Heights City Hall. Within a few years he had converted an old movie theater into The Word Church, packing thousands into back-to-back Sunday services — a locked door, answered with a building campaign.

"Pastors are beginning to meet all the needs of the community, more than just the spiritual needs. All you need can be in one place."

Vernon's vision was never just a sanctuary.

Religion News Service described his 'Word City' ambition in 2004 — a church surrounded by businesses meeting everyday needs — and Cleveland Scene found it taking shape on nearly nine acres in Warrensville Heights: indoor soccer fields, a fitness center, a restaurant, a bookstore and a child-care center, with some 7,000 people regularly attending.

The church feeds the hungry and offers GED classes, while Vernon himself owns construction, music and book companies alongside the for-profit Word in Action businesses. Today The Word Church also runs an Opportunity Corridor campus in Cleveland, and Vernon mentors some 200 senior pastors through The Shepherds Connection.

Religion News Service — “Megachurch Wants to 'Grow' a City”
Cleveland Scene — “God's Disneyland”
The Word Church (official) — “I'm New” / pastor biography

More from Bourgeois Society: The Pastors  ·  Philip Anthony Mitchell  ·  Rev. Dr. Gina M. Stewart

Rev. Dr. Gina M. Stewart

Senior Pastor, Christ Missionary Baptist Church — Memphis, TN

Official links: Website · X

Gina Stewart grew up in Christ Missionary Baptist Church in Memphis — she experienced her call there and was ordained there. In 1995 she was elected its senior pastor, becoming the first African American woman elected to pastor an established Black Baptist congregation in Memphis and Shelby County.

It was her own church, and still, as she told Faith & Leadership, 'They were OK with me as a minister, but the idea of me becoming their pastor, and their [senior] pastor, was a bit more than they could handle.' She stayed — for three decades now — and the church grew under her leadership in numbers, facilities and ministries.

In 2021 she was elected president of the Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Mission Society, the first woman ever chosen for the highest post of a Black Baptist organization.

Then, on January 23, 2024, in Memphis, she became the first woman ever to preach at the National Baptist Joint Board Session, the joint meeting of the four major Black Baptist denominations — a sermon watched more than 250,000 times on her church's Facebook page alone.

"I'm honored, first of all, for the privilege to lead and to serve."

Stewart has made a vocation of holding doors open.

A colleague at Christian Theological Seminary, where she is a PhD student in African American Preaching and Sacred Rhetoric, notes that she 'has often stated that she may be the first, but does not want to be the last.' She serves on the national board of the NAACP, co-convenes the Women in Ministry Conference, and founded Greater Works, Inc., a nonprofit devoted to philanthropy and ministry development.

In 2021 she received the President's Volunteer Service Award from President Joseph R. Biden. Her 2015 book title says it plainly: We've Got Next: HERstory in HIStory.

Christian Theological Seminary — “PhD Student Gina Stewart Makes Preaching History”
Religion News Service via Church Leaders — “Historic Sermon by Gina Stewart at Joint Black Baptist Meeting Draws Cheers, Controversy”
Duke Faith & Leadership — “Gina M. Stewart: Everyone needs an advocate, especially women leaders”

More from Bourgeois Society: The Pastors  ·  R.A. Vernon  ·  Sheryl Brady

Sheryl Brady

Pastor, The Potter's House of North Dallas — Dallas, TX

Official links: Website · X

Sheryl Brady's résumé begins with everything she didn't have. 'My story is that I was a 15-year-old high school dropout,' she told The Christian Post, 'and life was very hard for me because of the lack of education and of jobs and finances and all of that kind of thing.' Her father had died when she was twelve; a couple of years later her mother was in a serious car accident, and poor decisions followed.

She never went to Bible college and carried a deep sense of being unqualified. What changed her was walking into a service and watching Bishop T.D. Jakes preach — 'sometimes God gives us a glimpse into our future,' she says; she could see herself doing that.

Jakes recognized the gift in her before she did, and in 2010 he commissioned her to pastor The Potter's House of North Dallas. The church grew from a few hundred congregants to a few thousand — pastored by a woman the world had counted unqualified.

"I was a 15-year-old high school dropout and life was very hard for me because of the lack of education and of jobs and finances and all of that kind of thing."

Brady has spent more than thirty years preaching around the world — MegaFest, Woman Thou Art Loosed, Women of Faith — and she was the first woman ever invited to speak at Jakes' ManPower men's conference.

A recording artist whose work has been nominated for Grammy, Dove and Stellar awards, she is also the author of You Have It In You! and Don't Miss the Moment: How God Uses the Insignificant to Create the Extraordinary — the thesis of her own life, written for everyone who has ever felt ill-prepared for what they were called to do.

The Christian Post — “Interview: How TD Jakes Helped Sheryl Brady Become a Pastor”
PastorsBio — “Sheryl Brady Biography: Age, Net Worth, Family, Career and Achievements”
Sheryl Brady Ministries (official) — sherylbrady.com

More from Bourgeois Society: The Pastors  ·  Rev. Dr. Gina M. Stewart  ·  Tim Ross

Tim Ross

Host, The Basement with Tim Ross & Founder, Embassy City Church — Irving, TX

Official links: Website · Facebook · Instagram

Tim Ross built a ministry out of the things most preachers hide. He was sexually abused at eight by a teenage neighbour across the street — and, as he tells it, became a liar at eight to protect his family, certain his father would kill the boy if he knew.

At twelve he was exposed to pornography; by nineteen it controlled him.

He gave his life to Christ on January 14, 1996, but, as he preached years later at Embassy City Church, his transformation wasn't instant: 'I still had habits, I still had an addiction, I still had low self-esteem.' Ross founded Embassy City Church in Irving, Texas, and led it for nearly a decade — but the pulpit he is known for now is a podcast studio.

In 2022 he stepped down as senior pastor to host The Basement with Tim Ross, a show built on radical vulnerability, where guests — famous and ordinary alike — tell the truth about trauma, addiction and failure, and find out it isn't the end of the story.

"I was molested when I was eight years old by a neighbour that lived across the street from me, and I carried that pain into my teenage years. At the age of 12 I was exposed to pornography, and at 19, it was just controlling me."

The Basement's premise is Ross's own medicine: healing through confession, therapy and Jesus, as Australia's Salt 106.5 headlined his story.

The show passed 100,000 YouTube subscribers within months of launch and has grown into the hundreds of thousands, with tens of millions of views across hundreds of episodes; Ross has said he wants to build a whole platform aggregating voices of vulnerability, supported by his B-Side app company.

His books — Upset the World and Welcome to the Basement: An Upside Down Guide to Greatness — preach his philosophy of 'downward mobility': in the Kingdom, the only way up is down, and nobody has to hide to be loved.

Salt 106.5 — “Abused as a Child, Addicted to Porn as an Adult, Restored by Therapy and Jesus: Pastor Tim Ross”
Nothing Is Wasted — “Episode 324: Lessons from The Basement with Tim Ross”
Vanderbloemen — “Embassy City’s Founding Senior Pastor Succession” (case study)

More from Bourgeois Society: The Pastors  ·  Sheryl Brady  ·  Vaughn McLaughlin

Medina Pullings

Co-Founder & Senior Pastor, United Nations Church International — Richmond, VA

Official links: Website · LinkedIn · Facebook · Instagram · X

Medina Pullings was born and raised in the Bronx River Projects in New York, one of six children raised by her mother while her father battled drug addiction and was largely absent.

Her official biography picks up the thread there: her life was transformed when she became born again as a teenager, and, fueled by a passion to share the gospel, she began preaching on the subways of New York City — a teenager with a message, riding the trains.

She went on to co-found the United Nations Church alongside her husband, Bishop Orrin K. Pullings Sr., and the ministry has expanded to multiple locations, headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, with a congregation in Charlotte as well.

Affectionately known as a 'Jesus Girl,' she built a media presence across TBN, The Word Network, Daystar, BET and the Impact Network, and trademarked the name into a fashion brand — the girl from the projects, preaching first to commuters, now to millions.

"I want the world to know that I love Jesus and I'm serving Jesus and I'm loving it!"

Pullings' signature work is aimed at women and girls. She is the visionary behind the Jesus Girl Summit, which her church describes as a gathering of thousands of women for worship, preaching and empowerment sessions, and she founded the Princess Club to train and mentor young girls.

Through Medina Pullings Ministries and Jesus Girl Global — her fashion and lifestyle brand, built on her belief that women can be stylish, fabulous and modest at once — plus her Style and Grace boutique, she has turned her own story into infrastructure for the next generation of women finding their voice and calling.

MedinaPullings.com (official) — “About Medina Pullings”
United Nations Church (official) — “About”
PreachingWoman.com — “Pastor Dr. Medina Pullings: Serving Jesus and Loving It!”

More from Bourgeois Society: The Pastors  ·  Kimberly Daniels  ·  Philip Anthony Mitchell

Vaughn McLaughlin

Founder & Bishop, The Potter's House International Ministries — Jacksonville, FL

Official links: Website

Vaughn McLaughlin does not dress up his before picture. 'God saved me with a glass of Jack Daniels in one hand, and I was smoking a joint held in the other,' he confessed in a Sunday sermon, describing the moment of his surrender at 25; he believed, as one profile puts it, that the same God who saved an alcoholic, cocaine-snorting sinner like him could transform thousands.

An athletic scholar turned college dropout, he went on to earn master's and doctoral degrees in theology and was consecrated a bishop on March 6, 1999. He founded The Potter's House in Jacksonville and preached a gospel of economic empowerment — and then he bought the neighborhood.

In 2002 he acquired the abandoned Normandy Mall, a 376,000-square-foot eyesore on Jacksonville's Westside, for $4 million, and poured $7.5 million into turning it into Kingdom Plaza. 'Many go to the suburbs to escape the blight,' he explained, 'but we decided to do something about the blight instead.'

"God saved me with a glass of Jack Daniels in one hand, and I was smoking a joint held in the other."

Kingdom Plaza is now valued at around $40 million and anchors more than 48 acres.

Its church-owned anchors — The Potter's House Soul Food Bistro, the 22-lane King Pins Bowling Center and the Temple Builders Fitness Center — share the property with a 4,000-seat sanctuary in a former Sam's Club, a Christian academy, a recording studio and a bookstore, plus entrepreneurs from the congregation running businesses of their own. 'Every one of these businesses and all the people that are here, this is how they eat,' McLaughlin says. 'The church should be involved in the economic development of the community.' A broken man rebuilt a broken mall — and a neighborhood eats from both.

Penny Dickerson Writes / Florida Courier — “Bishop Vaughn McLaughlin: 'Agent of Change'”
Christianity Today — “Wizard of Odds”
Adapt + Reuse — “A Church Turned This Old Jacksonville Mall into a Community Center”

More from Bourgeois Society: The Pastors  ·  Tim Ross  ·  T.D. Jakes