Thinking about hope and theologizing with Trey Ferguson

Hi all, I have been wanting to amplify and interview a dear brother to me and today is the day.

Trey Ferguson

is a minister, podcast host, upcoming author, and a brilliant mind. He is precious to me and here is a little interview I did with him :)

1. Tell us where you came from and how that shapes you now

I come from proud folks. If you're asking where I call home, I don't even know how to answer that question succinctly. I was born in New York. Brooklyn will always be home for me. I spent the majority of my childhood in Richmond, VA. and that's home too. I've been in Miami-Dade County my whole adult life. At this point, I've lived here longer than anywhere else. Miami has formed me as much as anywhere. But I don't think any of those facts answer that question. I come from a people. I come from a brilliant Jamaican immigrant and a brilliant New Yorker. I come from hardworking island-hoppers. I come from people who navigated the racism of the American South and planted new roots in the northeast. I come from people who refused to be defined by their confines. My family made sure I was proud of being Black. Proud of my number-running great grandmother who did what she needed to do to provide for her family. Proud of my grandmother who lived over a century and cherished the opportunity to tell us what she did to give life to her five children and her many grandchildren and their children. 

I can't help but appreciate a good story with all of these people I come from. It impacts the way I approach relationships. It shapes the way I approach my faith. The stories haven't always been the rosiest, but they are all a part of us. And we've still managed to keep our dignity intact.

2. What’s something that people don’t often know about you unless you tell them?

I'm what some people refer to as "an overthinker." I don't really like that term, because... who gets to determine what the exact right amount of thinking is? But I'll never deny that I am constantly reading rooms, people, and situations. I'm kinda like Dr. Strange–but without the superpower. I just... keep running scenarios in my head until I feel like I've thought through enough outcomes to make an informed decision on how to move forward with an interaction. Yes...  an interaction. I'm not even talking about how I process major life decisions. This is how I have conversations every day. So I'm rarely surprised by anything that happens in daily interactions.

I've actually had to work through that in therapy. Not because it was bothering me, but because I realized that I was robbing the people around me of intimacy by writing their story out in my own head. I have to focus on trying to be present instead of calculating ahead, treating real people like animated chess pieces. I've gotten a lot better at it. 

But my mind still works how it does. I live in a perpetual state of what most people would consider overthinking.

3. You have beautiful words in a recently released book “Hope in the 2020s” what inspired your writing there and what things are giving you hope these days?

The assignment was to share some words on hope. When I stopped to consider exactly what made me hopeful, my mind landed on that famous James Baldwin quote:

“If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him.”

I thought about the sort of things that a God committed to making us "larger, freer, and more loving" would call us to, and I tried to put some words to those thoughts. I find hope in people finding ways to excel in areas that once intimidated them. I find hope in people making dope art just for the sake of it. I find hope in people leaving communities and paradigms that did not allow them to be their fullest and freest selves behind and finding belonging in communities that make them feel whole. I find hope in people becoming reacquainted with their imagination. I find hope in what we're building with Three Black Men. I find hope in the work I get to do here in my local community and local church. I find hope in the people I get to meet and rap with every day.

4. How have you grown as a writer and creative?

I grew as a person and minister when I learned to trust people to be reliable narrators of their own experience. I grew as a writer and a creative when I learned to trust myself to be a reliable narrator of my own experience. The moment I realized that my voice sounds this way for a reason, I let go of the pressure of trying to turn it into something it wasn't. I had to learn how to use it more responsibly and more shrewdly. But it still had to be uniquely mine. As I've grown more comfortable using my own voice (instead of trying to imitate others'), the stuff I've put out has resonated more with people. I'm not smart or original enough to say stuff no one has ever thought of before. But there's not a lot of people who can say the stuff like I say it. My main growth has been in owning the lens through which I see the world and confidently using the voice God gave me to share what I see through that lens.
 

5. Plug your upcoming book…what can be expected?

When people first started telling me I should think about writing a book, I typically replied that I didn't know how to do that. Some brilliant woman (shoutout to Jazz Robertson) said I should just compile tweets like Lin Manuel Miranda did. Well, I never read that book, and I didn't know how to do that. 

Another brilliant woman (shoutout to Marla Taviano) looked at my Substack and was like "more of this please!" 

And after a bunch of brainstorming with brilliant people who saw more in me than I saw in myself, I landed on a solution where I took real-life tweets and turned them into essays. 

My book is all about this idea that we'll find freedom and wholeness when we lean into the invitation to think bigger about our communities, about our neighbors, about the world, and about The Divine. You can expect me to talk about how understanding the stories of the people who shaped the Bible can help us relate to ancient texts a little better. You can hear me talk about the ways that power dynamics have impacted what we understand as right and orthodox. And I'll invite people into some waters that might be a lil nerve wracking because we simply don't know where they'll take us. I think that part is central to faith. 

Theologizin' Bigger is about leaving the confines of familiarity in order to pursue the wholeness God has for us. It's constructive theology with a pinch of iconoclasm, a poetic flair, and a whole bunch of personality. I'm excited about it. 

*thank y’all for subscribing to the work I do here.*