As you know, I typically feature books that are worth reading in the Good Read section of the blog.  But for this particular author, I figured “why not… I may as well just go’n ahead and interview him…”

SIKE!  Are you kidding?!  I got a chance to chat with Kirk Franklin about his new book, The Blueprint (in stores on May 18th), and I wasn’t about to pass that up. 

He needs no introduction, except that I might stress that he’s a cool dude who’s written an incredibly honest and helpful book that I encourage you all to get as soon as it comes out.

Without further delay, here’s my chat with Kirk Franklin…

*     *     *

EJ:  Hey, how’s it going, man?

KF:  I’m doing good, how you doing, man?

EJ:  I’m good!  Thanks for taking a quick minute to chat with me.  I really appreciate it.

KF:  Thank you.

EJ:  I wanna get started by congratulating you on the upcoming release of your new book, The Blueprint.

KF:  Thank you, sir.

EJ:  I got my advance copy, thinking I’d just take a look at a few pages… I read through it in one day.  I mean, it drew me in like a good phone conversation or something.  I just kept wanting to know more, so kudos to you on writing so well.

In The Blueprint, you basically say that a lot of us go through life without referencing the blueprint or the how-to manual on how to best live our lives.  What was the impetus for writing your book?  Why now, and why this concept?

KF:  Well, it’s very obvious to me– just as I look at the fruit that we bear and grow in society– we are not getting a clear picture of what God’s plan is for our lives because we don’t have a clear picture of His Word.

Most people have not really had a chance to be taught the Word or to study the Word in a way that is non-religious, or non-ritualistic.  So, we don’t really have a chance to see His plan for our lives clearly, in light of His true blueprint for our lives.

EJ:  Yeah.

KF:  So, we spend a lot of time trying to figure it out on our own, trying to interpret what we think God says… what I think God is saying, what I feel God says.  And we end up missing a whole lot because we focus on what we feel instead of what He said.  And then, we don’t adjust what we feel to what He’s said.

We spend time in life going around in circles because of our interpretation, or our lack of interpretation.

EJ:  Absolutely.  How long did it take you to write it?

KF:  It took me a year.

EJ:  Wow.

KF:  Yeah, man.

EJ:  What was the process for gathering information and deciding “this is something I’ve gotta talk about, but this is something I’ll save for another book”?

KF:  Well, you know man, a lot of it was just my own life experience.  And it was different sermons that I’ve preached, or discussions that I’ve had, lectures at colleges… and just watching life, itself.  Watching life and marriage, other people’s lives.  I spent a lot of time just watching.

And I saw how disconnected people are in society when it comes to their faith, and how their faith affects their lives.

EJ:   In the book, you give lots of blueprints for different stages of life– whether you’re single, married, parenting, struggling in your faith… it seems that there’s something for everyone.  And you address it all, as you said, through life experiences… when did you begin to conquer life for yourself in these areas and, from there, start to think “man, that worked… I’ve gotta share this with people”?

KF:  Just when I started seeing the fruit of it in my life.  When I started seeing those life lessons– whether being taught by my pastor or other teachers in my life, or just reading– when I started seeing those fruits growing in my own personal life, I started getting excited about it.  I wasn’t just hearing it, but I was actually seeing it work.  And when you see it work, you get excited about it.

EJ:  Most definitely.  I wanna take a moment to chat about some of the specific topics you address in the book and I’m gonna try to do it without giving too much away.

KF:  Okay.

EJ:  At one point in the book, you revisit your interview with Oprah and some of the backlash you received from people who thought you were telling too much of your business.  You said– “It all made me realize how uncomfortable we are with people telling on themselves, revealing painful things.  We’re much more comfortable when we see people get busted for something, because then it’s easier to disconnect.”

You continue to be extremely transparent in this book and in your life– often blatantly so– how important is it for people with platforms to be transparent?

KF:  Well, I just believe that’s the only way people can grow.  When I watch my teachers stand, there’s a part of life that I learn.  When I watch my teachers talk about how they’ve fallen, there’s a part of life that I learn.  So, if I only hear from my teachers how they stand, when I FALL, I don’t know how to.

EJ:  Sure.

KF:  So, as I communicate those moments where I’ve stood strong, but also those areas where I’ve been weak, I provide a blueprint on how to fall and what that looks like, so that it doesn’t look foreign when it happens to you.  Because it’s not IF it happens to you, it’s always when it happens to you.

EJ:  Absolutely, man.

KF:  A lot of times, for example, with me… I spent so much of my life thinking I wasn’t a Christian and that I wasn’t good enough because when I would fall and make mistakes, it was like “ok, something must be wrong with me.”  Because I never had nobody model out that we all fall.

So, I think it’s very important that people can have something to look at, so that when they have those moments of temptation or depression, or struggle and anxieties in life, they can look at something and say “okay, no… this is COMMON because Kirk told me…”

EJ:  Yeah.

KF:  And you know, it’s very sad that we don’t do it more because when you look at Scripture, you’ve got blueprints of it all throughout Scripture.  You’ve got Paul talking about his thorn, or you’ve got blueprints of David with Bathsheba, or blueprints of Jacob getting caught up, you’ve got blueprints of Moses losing his temper, and blueprints of Abraham having Ishmael.

You’ve got blueprints all throughout the Bible of great men that failed so that we could learn what not to do.  But then, here in the 21st century, you never see it.  You never see it ’til they fall.

EJ:  Yeah, and then it’s just written about from the standpoint of “look at what HE did!”

KF:  Yeah!  Yeah.

EJ:  That’s insightful.  Umm… this is gonna sound weird, but I really enjoyed the chapters where you talk about sex. *laughs*

KF:  No, no!  *laughing* It’s not weird because if you are a man or woman trying to live out your faith, sex is something that is one of the hardest things to learn from the church in terms of “how do I apply this?”

EJ:  Absolutely.  And for me– I’ll be married 2 years in July– the chapters where you talked about sex were particularly profound because you opened up in a way that not many people would.  You opened up– and God bless your wife, Tammy, for being transparent along with you, because SHE’s ministering to people through this book.

KF:  Hmmm!

EJ:  But you opened up your bedroom to millions of people, letting everyone in on how your physical intimacy was struggling at one time.

How do you, and even your wife, deal with the fears of being so transparent all the time?  It’s gotta be rewarding, but how do the two of you fight the initial fear of “wait, everyone’s gonna know THIS, now?”

KF:  You know, I don’t really have that problem, man.  For me, it’s so therapeutic.  Talking is very therapeutic for me.  VERY therapeutic.  Of course, you go through certain moments, but for the most part, it has been very much a blessing to get stuff off my chest.  It’s just very healing for me.

EJ:  Do you feel like– because we talked about people not seeing HOW to fall– do you feel like, particularly in the gospel community, there are not enough examples of mentorship among the artists?  Everyone knows that scandals have hit– is there enough seeing one another fall among the artists?

KF:  There’s not enough mentoring across the board, man.  The whole purpose of having grandparents, pastors and those figures in our community is so that we wouldn’t have to have a cycle of mistakes.  It’s supposed to be about “each one, teach one.”  So when we don’t have that, we just continue a cycle of failing because everybody is trying to figure it out on their own.

And it’s so unfortunate, man.

EJ:  Absolutely.  And I’ve found that, in my own circles of accountability, when you have someone being transparent, it just opens the door for others to say “okay, well, that’s me too!”

KF:  Yeah.

EJ:  And that’s where healing is.  But where does that start?

KF:  I hope that transparency becomes contagious.  That as people begin to see how therapeutic it can be, other people begin to say “me, too” and it will be a domino effect.  Now, it may not always be at the level that everyone can see it like it’s prime time news, but hopefully, when we get the chance to look, we can see that people’s lives are becoming affected.

EJ:  I love that.  I’m just about done, but I wanna touch on some of the great idioms you’ve got in this book– the need to “sanctify your sexuality,” that life is not about the “boom boom boom,” and my personal favorite, “embrace the non-sexies.”

KF:  *laughing*  Yeah!

EJ:  I think I need a t-shirt that says that!  Can you briefly tell the readers about the non-sexies?

KF:  There are things that God has put into every one of our lives to develop character.  The biggest thing we’re missing in our society is character development.

EJ:  I hear that.

KF:  You’ve got artists that don’t have essence, you’ve got people that don’t have essence– entertainers, politicians… You can be smart and educated, but if you don’t have character, you’ll fall, you’ll go for anything, you’ll change your morals and values based on how much you’re getting paid or getting slid up under the door.

But when you have character, you’d rather stand for something than fall for anything.  And the way to develop character is to embrace the things that God has put in your life that are NOT the things that will give you the top spot, NOT the things that are always for the applause and for the world to see.  It’s those non-sexy things.

EJ:  I love that, man.

KF:  For example, standing up at the United Negro College Fund and writing a check, well that’s sexy.  That’s gonna be on the news the next day.  Or, you know… being a person who flies down to help the people in Haiti when all the cameras are gonna see it, that’s sexy.

But dealing with your crackhead sister, when she done stole your microwave for the third time?!  And you gotta go down to the holding cell and deal with her crackhead behind, and be committed to her as her big brother?  THAT’s non-sexy.

But that’s something that God has put in your life that you’ve gotta deal with.

EJ:  Wow.

KF:  Or, your child who may be having a hard time sleeping in the bed at night. *chuckles*  And he’s scared and he keeps messing up your love-making nights and you’re only in town for three nights.  But you’ve got to put your child’s fear over your physical needs for a few nights.  That’s non-sexy.

EJ:  *laughs* Yeah, that’s definitely not sexy.

KF:  Those things that have nothing to do with the press, nothing that anybody’s going to clap for or give you awards for… it’s the things, like yesterday…

Flying in town from doing your Hollywood meetings and what not, and your daughter has a track meet an hour and a half away from your house.  And the track meet is supposed to start at 3:00 and you get there, but it doesn’t start until 6:00.  And so, you’re there from 3 to 6, sitting outside and it’s hot.  And you don’t got nowhere else to go because you’re in the middle of the country and you’re sitting there for 3 1/2 hours waiting for the track meet to start… and each one of your child’s heats are like an hour or an hour and a half apart.  So, you sat out there from 3:00 to 10:30.

EJ:  Dude.

KF:  Nobody’s gonna write about that.  That’s not gonna be in no publication, but it’s gonna be on your daughter’s heart.  She will REMEMBER that moment and she’ll never forget it.  But that was a non-sexy moment.

EJ:  Absolutely.  As I was reading about that concept in the book, I thought it’s kinda like “being faithful over a few things…”

KF:  Yeah!  There it is.

EJ:  My pastor here in Franklin, TN said “if you can’t scrub toilets and help in the parking lot when it’s raining, don’t ask to be on the worship team.  Don’t ask to be up here where you can be seen.”  If you can’t serve at the base level…

KF:  That’s right.  And the problem is, it’s human nature to always want to go to the place of being seen.  You want to go from the womb to being seen.  And the problem is that, if you don’t embrace those MIDDLE areas, those non-sexy areas, when you get to the place of being seen, you’re not going to LAST there because you didn’t do the character development.  That’s why you’re in today and gone tomorrow.

EJ:  Wow.  That’s good stuff, man.  Is this the last book?  How much more do you have in you that you didn’t get to say?

KF:  I don’t know, man.  We’ve gotta wait and see because this was such a new process for me.  I’d never done anything like this before, so we’ve gotta see.  It’s like I dumped it all into this book. *laughing*

EJ:  It’s great.  My wife was out while I was looking at it and when she got home, I was like “you have to read this book.”  She took a look at an excerpt and said “I’m reading this today.”

KF:  Oh, wow.

EJ:  I told her “it’s like talking to a good friend who knows you really well– it’s conversational and has these sidebars about fried chicken, and they don’t have anything to do with what he’s talking about…”

KF:  *laughing*

EJ:  “But at the same time, you turn the page and he’s diggin’ all in your heart, like ‘I KNOW you… I KNOW you feel this way… and it’s tacky’.”

KF:  Wow.

EJ:  So, it’s like talking to an accountability partner who knows you and loves you, so he’s able to cover you and show you yourself.  I don’t do a lot of book reviews on the site because a lot of the stuff I see is just… not based on stuff that can be an anchor.

But I’m excited about this book for you because it’s gonna be really helpful for people.

KF:  Wow.  My brother, that is such a great compliment, man.  Thank you.  I’m very humbled by that.  Very humbled by that, sir.  Thank you.

EJ:  No doubt.  My last question, man– when readers turn the last page of The Blueprint and set it down, they’re gonna have that feeling– you know, that reflective moment that you have when you finish a book, like “that was good” or “what the heck does THAT mean?!”

KF:  *laughs*

EJ:  What do you hope people will be thinking in that reflective moment after The Blueprint?  When they close the book, you want them to sit back and say…

KF:  I hope and pray that everybody will say everything that you just said.

That’s my prayer.  That everybody will say everything the way you said it– talking to a good friend, talking to somebody who was raw and real with you, but was very loving… someone who will make you laugh and cry and think at the same time.

It was almost like Kirk came over to the crib and just kicked it with you.

EJ:  Yep!

KF:  Y’all talked about sex, y’all talked about parenting, about being a man, about religion… talked about hopes and dreams.  You know, “Kirk just left the crib and we had a good time.”

EJ:  Absolutely.  And I believe they will.  From one man to another– thank you for this book.  And, lemme say, it’s something for me to read over and over again.  It’s not like “I read it, so I’ve got it down.”  It’s more of a reference book to me.

KF:  Wow.

EJ:  Yeah, man.  It’s a way to check-in as I go.  So, it’s really awesome.

KF:  Praise God.  Praise God.  Thank you, brother.

EJ:  No, thank you for taking a moment to chat with me.  I know you’re busy, so I appreciate you for spending time with me.

KF:  Thank you, man.

EJ:  My pleasure.  Take care.

KF:  Okay.  Bye.

*     *     *

BAM!  Don’t you wanna read this book?!

I’m serious– it really drew me in and held my attention for hours.  It’s powerful… and I loved it.

It was a joy chatting with Kirk– he’s passionate about what he’s written, and he KNOWS what he’s talking about.  He didn’t just come up with a bunch of quotes for a book or an interview… he lives it and it just kinda pours out of him.

Anyway, tell me what you think of our talk.  Does the interview make you more interested in the book?  Who’s picking it up on May 18th?

Talk to me!