Today we’d like to introduce you to REV. ADRIAN ROBINSON II
Hi REV. ADRIAN, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My journey has been an interesting one, filled with rollercoaster twists in turns with respect to the career choices I’ve made and the people God has placed in my life to help guide those choices.
I was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska in a loving, two-parent home. I was always a shy, quiet kid growing up, which is quite ironic considering how loud and boisterous I’ve become as a minister of the Gospel. I started coming out of my shell in high school and eventually became Senior Class President. Instead of going on to college after graduating, I joined the Navy and did a tour of duty in the Far East; I was able to visit places like Japan, Taiwan, and even South Korea only months after the Olympics had left that country (got some GREAT deals from the merchants as a result!) One year we even spent Christmas in Hong Kong. That experience overseas truly helped shape many of the sensibilities I needed to grow into manhood. I had also gotten married at that time and had my first child, my namesake Adrian L. Robinson III.
Once I got outta the Navy I went to school to become a paralegal, and I’ve been doing that work for over 30 years, getting my start at a small boutique firm in downtown San Diego, California and later working for a sole practitioner in San Diego. Interestingly, although that sole practitioner firm garnered me great experience and good pay (and truly made me feel like a Black young professional at such an early age, further boosting my self-confidence), the attorney I worked for ultimately ended up not being a reliable employer and we came to find out that he was moving tons of cocaine through his own private pilot and plane, and working the law firm as a front for those illegal activities. Fortunately, me and all the rest of the small staff of the firm left before anything really bad happened; we just all kind of quit and left him alone after we found out that he was engaged in illegal activity.
After that I moved back to Omaha and got a job at a large law firm, Kutak Rock, and I’ve been there ever since. There, I am a Senior Litigation Paralegal who handles the defense of hundreds (sometimes thousands) of toxic tort cases for Fortune 500 companies across the country and managing local law firms in various jurisdictions to handle those cases for the client(s). It was during this work that I met my amazing wife, Marquita, who worked for one of the law firms (in New Jersey) that my firm managed. In true Hollywood movie fashion, we fell in love sight unseen and got married six months after a whirlwind courtship. Eventually, my then-teenage son and I left Omaha and moved to New Jersey, just outside of Philadelphia, where I helped Kutak establish a Philadelphia office.
But the move to New Jersey is what truly changed my life. Not just because of my new life with Marquita and her family (including my baby daughter, Tamirah), but because that was where I first got involved in ministry, and I haven’t looked back since.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I honestly can’t complain about the course which my life has taken. I mean, no one ever has a completely “smooth” life, but mine has been pretty blessed in that I have not had to endure too many major struggles. The main struggles I’ve faced have related to career changes; I once quit Kutak at a time when I shouldn’t have, and the new job I went to was absolutely the worst experience ever. Fortunately, I was able to return to Kutak about a year later, and it was a lesson well learned: sometimes we make moves that God has not ordered or sanctioned, and as a result we suffer consequences which we brought upon ourselves. To be sure, I have suffered losses along the way, mostly in the form of family members and friends whom I loved and held dear who have passed on, but even those losses did not hinder my growth and happiness.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Currently, I serve as Ministry Administrator at The Way Community Church in Conyers, Georgia, under the leadership of the Reverend Dr. Darrell Hall. There, I oversee the management of the leadership of the church’s ministries. I also assist Dr. Hall as part of the Collaborative Preaching Team, usually preaching about 4-5 times per year. I am also an ordained minister and member of the National Association of Christian Ministers.
Additionally, I am the founder and Senior Pastor of Benevolent Faith Ministries, which is a 100% virtual global church. What sets Benevolent Faith apart from other ministries is the fact that we have worked to pioneer the virtual/online ministry arena with the formats we’ve utilized. We started in 2020, right around the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, with our flagship podcast entitled “Deeper in the Word’, now in its sixth season, heard in over 25 countries worldwide and available on all major digital podcast platforms (including Spotify, Apple Podcasts in the iTunes Store, iHeart Radio and Amazon Music). We have successfully proven that a church can operate without a building, as our worldwide membership has grown to over 1,500 believers in countries from every region of the world.
What truly sets Benevolent Faith apart from other ministries is the fact that we have a very different and unique model for giving and tithing. Instead of taking offerings for ourselves, we have created what we like to call “Giving Partnerships”. That is where we have created collaborations with various organizations, and our members give their tithes and offerings directly to those organizations instead of giving them to us. As a virtual church, we can’t really justify taking people’s money; therefore, we instead simply “funnel” their money to organizations in need. We also have what we call “The Benevolent Faith Ministries Fellowship Fund”, which is an emergency endowment trust designed specifically for providing financial assistance to at-risk families in order to help them restore their quality of life as a result of having suffered temporary hardships. The Fellowship Fund also finances the sponsorship of our sister churches in India, Pakistan and Africa.
Aside from the aforementioned podcast, we conduct our virtual ministries through a variety of additional media platforms, including a weekly online church service – every Tuesday night at 7pm Eastern, 6pm Central, 4pm Pacific – which includes praise and worship, offering, and a full sermon. Additionally, we have three radio shows on BMC Radio, which is an internet-based radio station based in Wales, U.K., which we also co-own. We also formerly hosted a weekly television show on The Daily Gospel Network, as well as our own mobile app – available in Apple and Android stores – and our own internet television channel, which broadcasts on Apple TV, Roku TV and Amazon Fire TV. Our ministry truly operates as a global virtual church, and we are currently engaged in planting ministries and educational centers in Pakistan and India, which are financed through our Fellowship Fund. In fact, these newly-created educational centers were named after us by our local ministry partners in those countries. It’s this last-referenced work which I’m so proud of, because it’s part of Christ’s mandate to us given in The Great Commission: to take the Gospel to the four corners of the earth. We’re using the digital marketplace in order to make that happen because we consider the internet to be the new, modernized version of the ancient “Roman roads”. See, back in biblical times, the Romans created a sophisticated interstate system of roads and highways which not only allowed people to move about more freely from country to country, but which also worked to facilitate the spread of the Gospel. We believe that the work which Benevolent Faith does now through our online ministries is continuing to foster that ideology from a modern standpoint.
I’m also pretty grateful for how Benevolent Faith has organized and managed a nursing home ministry at a rehabilitation center in Lithonia, Georgia (now entering its eighth year of service to the facility), and its ministry at the nursing home earned Benevolent Faith the 2021 Group Volunteer of the Year Award from the Georgia Health Care Association/Georgia Center for Assisted Living.
Who says an online church can’t make a global impact?
Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
We would LOVE for more people to support and come alongside us! First, they can join us during our online church services, which take place every Tuesday night at 7pm Eastern, 6pm Central, 4pm Pacific time. You can simply go to https://benevolentfaithministries.online.church.online.church/, and create a screen nickname so you can chat along with us during the service!
They can also tune in to our podcast, “Deeper in the Word” which, as I mentioned, is available on digital podcast platforms everywhere. We’ve actually had some very well-known and prominent guests on our show and covered a variety of topics, everything from the problem of fatherlessness to human trafficking, from the spread of the Gospel in countries like Iran and North Korea to educating people about the dangers of artificial intelligence. As we like to say, our podcast gives people “the real” about Scripture with those individuals who actually know and understand it so that our listeners can better understand what certain things in the bible MEAN, how those things relate to their life and experience, and how they can apply something written so long ago to what they’re going through RIGHT NOW.
They can also visit our website at https://benevolentfaithministries.org and learn more about us, including learning more about our Giving Partnerships and how they can be the church without the need of any building!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://benevolentfaithministries.org
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BenevolentFaithMinistries
- Youtube: @benevolentfaithministries
Image Credits
Photos credited to Kreative Images by Kim
