Bishop Hines has some incredible stories: the man was once pronounced dead after his heart stopped beating for forty-five minutes, he once jumped out of his car to stop his future wife on the street, and he went on to found Christian Faith Fellowship Church on Milwaukee’s north side, which now hosts up to 2,000+ people every Sunday. Additionally, he built a community center and is a loving father and grandfather. If you’re interested in hearing what it’s like to make it to the other side, be a man of faith, or learn how to live a fulfilling life and have some laughs, then this episode is for you.
Produced by Story Mark Studios: https://storymarkstudios.io/
Sponsored by Central Standard Distillery: https://thecentralstandard.com/
Media partner – OnMilwaukee: https://onmilwaukee.com/
[00:00:00] Bishop Darrell Hines: Just as real as me sitting here looking to you, that reality of where I was, was that real? It’s not something, it was a place I was at. I was conscious, I didn’t know, I was aware of myself, but I didn’t know where I was at.
[00:00:22] Richie Burke: Hey everyone, on today’s episode of Milwaukee Uncut, we have some stories that you are not going to believe. Our guest was once pronounced dead for 45 minutes after grounding a plane and being struck by lightning. He’s also a man of action. He once jumped out of his vehicle to stop a woman who ended up becoming his wife on the street and since then he has started a church christian faith fellowship on the north side of milwaukee, which 2, 000 members every single week.
[00:00:51] Richie Burke: He’s built a community center Bishop Daryl Hines joins me on today’s episode. Did you enjoy growing up in the church?
[00:00:58] Bishop Darrell Hines: Yes, it’s interesting because I had my, um, I had my wonderful moments being a part of the church, then I had my challenging moments, you know, being a, when you don’t know anything else, then it’s easier to do it.
[00:01:11] Bishop Darrell Hines: But as I became of age, you know, that’s when we were raised in the church, when it was, uh, it was Pentecostal church. It was real strict back, you know, 40, 50. I won’t go any further than that. Years ago, I mean, very strict. You couldn’t, you couldn’t, we couldn’t play any sports. We couldn’t go to the movies.
[00:01:27] Bishop Darrell Hines: We couldn’t, we couldn’t play any card games. All we could do was go to church, go to school and go to a neighbor’s house or relative’s house. And if we played, we played church or we played house. We, we had, we couldn’t, we couldn’t, I mean, seriously, we couldn’t, you know, it was very strict. And so, and then I had three sisters before I had a brother.
[00:01:49] Bishop Darrell Hines: And so, you know, so, I learned how to jump double dutch, and I could throw, play jacks, and I could do hopscotch pretty good. But the boy games, I couldn’t do it because they wouldn’t let us play basketball, football, baseball, or anything like that. Really.
[00:02:08] Richie Burke: Um, I want to go back to how you met your wife. Pamela Hines, who was not a member of that church.
[00:02:16] Richie Burke: Can you, can you tell me about that and how you eventually got her to
[00:02:19] Bishop Darrell Hines: marry you? Uh, yeah, first of all, she is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I didn’t realize the jewel or the joy that I would have being married to Pam. But when I saw Pam the first time, and people think this story is unbelievable, but it is when I first saw her, she was 12 years old and she, Came with some neighbors to my father’s church.
[00:02:37] Bishop Darrell Hines: And I was a musician there playing in Oregon and she was from a different Reformation. And when we say Reformation, we’re Pentecostal. She was from a Baptist church. And so even though we had similar doctrine, we didn’t, uh, always, uh, go about it the same way. They were a little more lenient, a lot more lenient.
[00:02:53] Bishop Darrell Hines: Yeah. A lot more lenient on that side. Good. Yeah. Yeah. Very lenient. And, uh, so she came and, and, uh, I saw her. And she came up a few more times. And what my mom did was my mom found out where she came from and she called her mother and Pam was no more long than 12 years old, called her mother and said, I have a son.
[00:03:16] Bishop Darrell Hines: That your daughter is that your daughter is going to marry and of course, Ms. Hazel, she, she wasn’t church at all. So she’s like, I’m not saying that your mom called her mom. My mom called her mom who didn’t know her and she’s 12 and she’s 12 and she’s 15. Okay. And she said, I. Your daughter is going to marry my son.
[00:03:39] Bishop Darrell Hines: And of course that her mother wasn’t churched at all. So she just kind of snatched her out of the picture. Just, just moved. I probably
[00:03:46] Richie Burke: would have been a little alarmed
[00:03:47] Bishop Darrell Hines: by that phone call. She snatched her out of the picture. So, you know, periodically I would see her, but I think it was like three years later I saw her and, um.
[00:03:55] Bishop Darrell Hines: Um, she was, you know, she was beautiful. I saw her walking out. I was going to get me some music at the time was called eight tracks. I know I’m dating myself, but it was going to give me a couple of eight tracks to put in my car, play some wonderful music. I had a nice car, you know, worked hard for it. And I saw her and my friend was with me and I said, man, I think that’s Pam.
[00:04:14] Bishop Darrell Hines: So we stopped the car and sure enough, it was her and she’s just beautiful. Yes. And so I. I told her I would, I would walk with her home. And so we walk and I told her, I said, listen, if you, if you’d be my girlfriend, I was 18 and she’s 15 now. So I promise you, when you get old enough, I’m going to marry you.
[00:04:28] Bishop Darrell Hines: Um, and so we got to the house and said, now I need you to call me back before the week is out, you know, with no cell phones, then I don’t know if you want to, you know, if you want to continue with this. And so to make a long story short, she called me and at. At the sixth day, uh, cause if the seventh day I would have called her.
[00:04:44] Bishop Darrell Hines: So
[00:04:45] Richie Burke: you, uh, you’re riding in the car, you, you stop the car, jump out, chase her down and give her an
[00:04:51] Bishop Darrell Hines: ultimatum right there. All of that, I jumped, got out of the car and ran her down and told her, I walked her to where she was going and told her while we were walking, I was going to marry her. , it’s a man of action right there.
[00:05:02] Bishop Darrell Hines: Well, I took some action then because mama didn’t raise no fool. , uh, do what do you, what do you think all
[00:05:08] Richie Burke: these kids these days just swiping on their phones? You actually got out of a car, got outta car,
[00:05:12] Bishop Darrell Hines: talked to someone, you know, they used to, they used to say this in the church. The Lord is my shepherd, and I see what I want
[00:05:19] Bishop Darrell Hines: So, uh, so that’s, that’s what that was all about. You know, I wasn’t going to let grass grow under my feet when it came down to her. Yeah, but that’s when you had to, you know, you couldn’t text and none of that stuff, you know, you had to go home to call, go to a phone booth or, or write a letter. It was all about, it was all about hands on and not this electric virtual stuff.
[00:05:40] Bishop Darrell Hines: Now we have to continue. So,
[00:05:42] Richie Burke: so you start dating. What, what does her mom think of this, who, uh, who, uh, was kind of got that alarming phone call years, years prior, and then probably hadn’t heard anything of you. Well,
[00:05:53] Bishop Darrell Hines: Pam was 15 and her mother let her start dating at 15. And so I just reappeared. And the thing, the thing about it was, is that.
[00:06:05] Bishop Darrell Hines: I was over there every chance I got, cause I could drive, I had my own car, I had my own job, I was managing a shoe store, so I could just show up whenever I wanted to. And um, she was in the 10th grade. And I was graduated. So started dating towards 10th grade, in 10th grade. So I would pick her up every day from school in my beautiful Mark 5.
[00:06:24] Bishop Darrell Hines: But I was doing all that to keep all them youngins back, you know, like, don’t even try it. This is, you know, this is my wife who’s just not married yet. And so people thought I was up at her school so much until some people thought I went to school there. That was a mess in my own capital. Did you
[00:06:43] Richie Burke: come back and go to prom with her?
[00:06:45] Bishop Darrell Hines: Yes. I went to prom with her. That was the only prom I could attend because remember I told you I was raised in a very strict home and so we couldn’t attend our, our proms. But by the time I was 18, you know, I was like, you know, I’m a grown man and you know, I could, I can go to a prom if I want to. Yeah.
[00:07:02] Bishop Darrell Hines: And I had to ask them if I could do it. Got
[00:07:05] Richie Burke: permission. Then he got married short, shortly after
[00:07:07] Bishop Darrell Hines: that, right? Graduated in 79, May of 79. She graduated from Mesmer High School. And in June of 79, we got married, 44 years ago. Congrats
[00:07:19] Richie Burke: on the 44
[00:07:20] Bishop Darrell Hines: years. Yes, it’s the best decision I could have ever made. I can tell you a real funny story about that, uh, real quick.
[00:07:27] Bishop Darrell Hines: Before, about six months before we got married, I was managing this shoe, this shoe store was called Odd Lot Shoes, it was on 3rd Street down, uh, uh, down, it’s 3rd State, it’s all changed down there. But you’d get in there and you’d go buy second hand shoes that were, that were, you know, quite, not quite right.
[00:07:43] Bishop Darrell Hines: They were an odd lot. And so, um, uh, this girl that I liked when I was, When I was a kid, man, about 12 years, I couldn’t really like her, but she was beautiful to me. And, uh, she wouldn’t give me the time of day, nothing. And, um, so she came into our store and I knew she knew my friend who was working with me.
[00:08:03] Bishop Darrell Hines: She came back another day. I was like, man, why does she keep coming in here? You got to tell her to stop. He said, she’s coming here for you. So what? Oh, and I mean, this is like a childhood dream. You’re dating Pam at this time. Pam at this time. And so, I mean, I was like, well, maybe I should hold the horses for a minute.
[00:08:19] Bishop Darrell Hines: Cause Tony is the girl of my dream. Oh, I called her name. Oh, that’s okay.
[00:08:27] Richie Burke: It was a long time ago.
[00:08:28] Bishop Darrell Hines: Yeah, it was a long time ago. Shout out to Tony. If she’s listening, she’s absolutely, she’s absolutely beautiful. And so when I found out that she was interested in me, I just kind of started shifting my view towards her and, uh, told my dad, I said, my dad, listen.
[00:08:43] Bishop Darrell Hines: Uh, I don’t think I’m gonna marry Pam. I see this girl, she’s beautiful. I just want to be with her. And I said, but don’t tell mama. And, you know, cause my mother was the patriarch of the house. She, you know, she didn’t play. And so I came home from work. I was still living at home. Since I came in the house, my mother, I hear my mother in the back room, Darylene Hines come in here.
[00:09:01] Bishop Darrell Hines: And so I knew whenever she called your whole name, you know, your life is about to be over. So I went in the room and, uh, she’s like. What is this? I hear you’re not gonna marry Pam. And then she started crying. She says, I will beat you. I will move you to another part of the country. I will disown you. I will, you will not be, that’s the wife of your life.
[00:09:21] Bishop Darrell Hines: I mean, she just lit into me. She says, now you call that girl and tell her you can’t see her anymore. Um, I said, call her. She’s calling now. And so I called her and I said, listen, my mom said, I can’t see you anymore. She’s like, she’s like your mother said you couldn’t see me anymore. I said, yeah, she said, well, I don’t think I want to see a man who the mother can tell him what to do.
[00:09:42] Bishop Darrell Hines: So it was a real easy when I told her my mother said, but I almost messed up. My house was, I was fixing to blow it for real. Even though she was a nice person, I’m not saying negative. Pam was the one that I was to be married to for sure. I
[00:09:55] Richie Burke: love that range going from being a complete man of action to kind of breaking up with someone because your mom made
[00:10:00] Bishop Darrell Hines: you.
[00:10:01] Bishop Darrell Hines: Oh yeah, yeah. You gotta understand. You got all ends
[00:10:03] Richie Burke: of
[00:10:04] Bishop Darrell Hines: the spectrum there. Any child raised, uh, back in the 50s, 60s, 70s, they understand. All of them know what I’m talking about. I would
[00:10:12] Richie Burke: not have messed with her either based on what you said. All right, let’s fast forward a couple years. Can you tell me about, take us back to July.
[00:10:22] Richie Burke: 17th, 1981.
[00:10:25] Bishop Darrell Hines: Yeah, it was a very, a very life changing experience for me. Many people know it, but many people don’t know it. I was working for the, it was called Republic Airlines then. And, um, I was a gate agent, a station agent. Gate agents are the ones who work the counters. Station agents are the ones who park, you know, do the cones and unload the planes and get the paperwork.
[00:10:46] Bishop Darrell Hines: And so it was a really bad storm. Pam and I had been married about a year and a half. As a matter of fact, she was six months pregnant with DJ. And, uh, DJ’s like, you know, he’s my oldest son. I have two boys, DJ and Brandon. And so she was going to her family reunion in Memphis, Tennessee. And, um, we could fly free.
[00:11:02] Bishop Darrell Hines: And so, of course, I walked on the plane and I waved her off on the ramp because I was working that day. I was working second shift and I saw her plane, you know, go and she was like, she was like, she said, I told, I told God, she said, and out of the blue, she said, I was praying and I told God, don’t let him cheat on me while I’m gone.
[00:11:22] Bishop Darrell Hines: You know, I, I didn’t, I didn’t even know that would have been a thought in her mind because I had to stay here and work. And so sure enough, I went to break and, uh, there was this girl there at my break at about six o’clock and, uh, we kind of, we were looking at each other and we got to talking and, you know, and it was real easy to set up a date with her after work.
[00:11:44] Bishop Darrell Hines: So, you know, my wife was out of town and just, it just all, I don’t know. I just kind of got weak for a moment, just temptation, temptation into the end. And, uh, so, and so we were going to set up a date after I got off of work. Well, I went back and worked. Uh, the first plane I went back to work, it was a lightning storm.
[00:12:03] Bishop Darrell Hines: All the jet ways were filled, uh, the corridors that you walk down. So we were parking planes on the ramp and letting the manual stairs down. And so it was a lightning storm. It was really bad. So I went to have to, I had to let the, the, the stairs down manually. So I went and let them down out of the nose of the plane, grabbed the railing of the plane to extend it.
[00:12:23] Bishop Darrell Hines: Lightning struck the tail end of the plane and the plane hadn’t been grounded. So I had one foot on the ground, one foot on the rail, and the lightning, I grounded the lightning. It came out, it went all the way down and it came out my feet, uh, knocked me 15 feet in the air from what I was told, I landed on my face and my heart stopped beating.
[00:12:42] Bishop Darrell Hines: Um, and, um, so lightning, it, it really killed me. Um, you know, I didn’t stay dead, but it killed me. A heart stopped beating, no pulse or anything. And so they began to work, you know, really feverishly to try to revive and resuscitate me. A couple other people got struck by, you know, got effects of the lightning.
[00:12:58] Bishop Darrell Hines: One man, he, it burnt his face. Another lady paralyzed her from her waist down. Um, and so they began to work on me and, um, And, uh, just, it was with no success. So they had me in the back of the paramedic wagon, make a long story short, connected to the EKG machines, flatlining, just, you know, electric fibrillators, they did that to me a couple of times and just flatlining.
[00:13:22] Bishop Darrell Hines: And so this lady who I worked with, she was a. Christian born again believer and she just began to pray and she says, God, I know you have a work for this young man, uh, give him his life back. And she said that she began to pray that she said she could feel the presence of God in the back of the paramedic wagon and.
[00:13:39] Bishop Darrell Hines: I begin to breathe after 45 minutes, she said, it’s just like the EKG machine that was registering flatline. It started to pump a line, you know, paramedics kind of thrown off because they were through, they weren’t going to, they weren’t going to do that anymore. They thought you were dead. They thought I was done.
[00:13:53] Bishop Darrell Hines: They thought I was done for. As a matter of fact, my sister called the airport. Airport. Cause it got out. They called, uh, Donald called and said, something happened to Daryl. So my older sister called out there where I was working at and the lady was like, well, I, we, I won’t tell you anything. My sister said, well, I work in the hospital.
[00:14:08] Bishop Darrell Hines: I’ve seen the worst. She said, well, your brother got killed by lightning. And, um, so she didn’t know that I was on my way. She did. So that was what she got. So she was, you know, you know, so she got his foolish stuff together and she found out where I was at the hospital. Uh, she found out where, where, where are they taking him?
[00:14:27] Bishop Darrell Hines: He said, well, he got killed, but they’re taking him to St. Luke. He, he’s not breathing and all. So it was really bad news. And so of course, uh, my mother, she got out there and she was, my mother’s very spiritual. And they told her, you know, that I was in a state I would never come out of, you know, every six to eight seconds, I’d sit up and scream like a tortured animal.
[00:14:47] Bishop Darrell Hines: My tongue would extend past the bottom of my chin because they said I’d gone too long without oxygen to my brain and I would be like that for The rest of my life, if I live two hours and my mother was like, no, God’s going to bring him out of that tonight. And my mother was very, very seriously influenced by the word of God in the Bible.
[00:15:08] Bishop Darrell Hines: That’s, that’s, uh, that’s how, that’s why I am who I am today because of my mother and my father, of course. But she just said, no, God’s going to bring him out at the night. She began to pray. And my mother, you know, in the Pentecostal church, you know, we dance, we, it’s called when the Holy Spirit hits you.
[00:15:23] Bishop Darrell Hines: And so my mother. And right there in the hospital, she just started praying, praying and praising. And the doctors thought something was wrong with her, you know, so they wanted to sedate her and she was like, no, I’ll do what y’all do. I’m going to do what I do. And so, you know, she just, you know, she just did, you know, speaking in tongues and all the things that Pentecostal people do right there in the hospital.
[00:15:42] Bishop Darrell Hines: And after about two and a half hours, I start sitting up, but I wasn’t screaming and very slow, very slow tone. I was saying, Lord, bless my soul. Save me, Jesus. And the ironic thing is, is that when I came to another six hours, I had complete amnesia. So I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t know who my family was.
[00:16:02] Bishop Darrell Hines: And so while I was, you know, while I was, uh, at that state, I, I began to pray and didn’t even realize it.
[00:16:08] Richie Burke: You regained consciousness to an extent. You just didn’t know what was going
[00:16:13] Bishop Darrell Hines: on. No, complete memory loss. I didn’t know what happened to me. I didn’t know. And, uh, when I was, you know, I tell people this all the time because they ask me, well, did you see a light or anything, uh, when you, when you, when you were dead, well, first of all, I didn’t know I was dead because I still had a consciousness of myself.
[00:16:30] Bishop Darrell Hines: I just didn’t know where I was.
[00:16:33] Richie Burke: Hey everyone, it’s your host, Richie Birkin. Thank you for tuning into this episode with Bishop Darrell Hines. I just wanted to take a second thank our sponsor, central Standard Distillery. Not only am I a fan of their Dork County Cherry vodka, I actually, I got dinner. at the Kraft House last week before going to the Grace Webber concert.
[00:16:50] Richie Burke: By the way, Grace Webber stopped by our studio, we’re airing her episode in a couple weeks. A lot of amazing stories, so make sure you’re subscribed, you won’t want to miss that. But, anyway, not only does Central Standard have great cocktails, they also have great food at their Kraft House. I went with Bree, we went on a date before the Grace Webber concert, and Bree said, quote unquote, their fries are like McDonald’s, but better.
[00:17:13] Richie Burke: better. And I don’t really know anything that Brie likes eating more than McDonald’s french fries, especially on a road trip. So there’s really no higher compliment that I can pay to the Central Standard Distillery kitchen staff for cooking those up. I had a salad that was great as well. So make sure to check out not only Central Standard Distillery’s spirits, but also swing by their craft house for some great food.
[00:17:40] Richie Burke: Alright, back to the episode with Bishop, Daryl Hines. I watched a video, and you said something like you got transported to another place, it seemed, and you were there, but no one else was there, and you didn’t know what was going on during that 45 minute.
[00:17:58] Bishop Darrell Hines: And I don’t know how long that period of time was.
[00:18:01] Bishop Darrell Hines: And I can tell you this because people sometimes when they hear people talk about their experience, once their hearts stop beating, some people have different, different, uh, realities, but just as real as me sitting here looking to you, that reality of where I was, was that real? It’s not something, it was a, it was a place I was at.
[00:18:22] Bishop Darrell Hines: I was conscious. I didn’t know. I was aware of myself, but I, I didn’t know where I was at and I’d never seen anything like it before. It’s nothing that I had in my mind, nothing that I heard from the Bible. It was a total different awareness and it was a color, a real gloomy color I’d never seen before.
[00:18:40] Bishop Darrell Hines: And, um, And it was puzzling to me because after I began to regain my memory and remember my experience, I didn’t want to bring it up because I didn’t see no light in the tunnel, none of that kind of stuff. Not like the gates of heaven just opened? Yeah, it was like, it was almost looking like I was on the other road.
[00:18:55] Bishop Darrell Hines: I don’t know for sure, but it’s, you know, wasn’t no light, I tell you that much. And, uh, so I, for, for years, I wouldn’t share it with people, but it’s real. I can say this. There is a reality of consciousness after your heart stopped beating, you die. You know, we call it eternity in the Bible. Uh, but I can say this to people who are, who never read the Bible that you will experience a reality of living after you leave this body.
[00:19:24] Bishop Darrell Hines: I did. And it’s just as real to me as sitting here on this couch. Mm-Hmm. . And so I tell people all the time that I’m, I’m a preacher. And so my goal is what the Bible says is that we will, we will spend eternity with Jesus Christ. Um, And so I can tell people, if you make that choice, you can make it. But even if you don’t make that choice, you’re going to be somewhere in eternity because that’s real.
[00:19:52] Richie Burke: Fascinating. Do you think your reality in that next life is based on how you live your life on earth? Of
[00:19:59] Bishop Darrell Hines: course I do. I I believe that. I believe that with, I, I believe that because of the Bible and I believe the Bible. And, uh, I, you know, it, you know, it, it’s the more intelligent we become, uh, the more your faith has to be in the Bible because the Bible doesn’t always make a lot of sense to people have that have, uh, that are very intelligent.
[00:20:19] Bishop Darrell Hines: Um, but. By faith, I believe what the Bible says and it’s real to me. Heaven is real to me. Hell is real to me because the Bible says it’s nothing I make up and so when I preach, I preach simply from the Bible, not my opinions. As a matter of fact, I never brought my experience up after because I couldn’t find it in the Bible.
[00:20:39] Bishop Darrell Hines: You know what I’m saying? So I only, I only preached what’s in the Bible.
[00:20:45] Richie Burke: Obviously, that was a complete life changing experience, but what Did that set you on this path? It seemed like at that point you’re in your early twenties, you’re working for an airline. I don’t know. Did you want to go into the church and be a, be a preacher or
[00:20:59] Bishop Darrell Hines: no, I would just change everything for you.
[00:21:00] Bishop Darrell Hines: I was, I liked the career. I liked being in the airlines, but I also, my love was music. And so I was a songwriter, uh, a singer, I had my own band, my own group and everything. We would travel and sing, you know, that’s what I wanted to, I’ve been, I’ve been singing, believe it or not, for about 60 years. I started singing when I was five years old with my sister.
[00:21:21] Bishop Darrell Hines: Uh, she was three and I was five and my mother taught us harmony at that age. And so in the church you had, that was your outlet. And so they would put us up and we’d be singing. So I’ve been doing, I mean, singing all of my life. And so that’s what I was going to do. I’m a. I’m a wonderful, uh, writer of gospel music.
[00:21:39] Bishop Darrell Hines: I mean, I’m one of the best, man, I’m trying to tell you, but you would never know that cause. Uh, a lot of it didn’t get recorded, but I got a lot of good stuff. I’ve got a lot of, a lot of wonderful songs that, uh, that, you know, as a matter of fact, maybe I’ll get to record them before I get too old. You got albums out there?
[00:21:59] Bishop Darrell Hines: Yeah, I got, I got a few of my, my sister has recorded, uh, two albums with my songs on it. Then I did, uh, one release with my songs on it, but that’s, that, that, that lightning sent me in a different direction after I, after I began to, um, Um, Um, Get my memory back of what happened to me. I just wanted to really know that relationship with God outside of what I was influenced by the church.
[00:22:23] Bishop Darrell Hines: I just wanted to pursue it on my own. So I did a lot of things that I had never done before, you know. Um, you know, doing a lot of fasting and going without food for weeks and, uh, praying and reading the Bible for myself, um, you know, got down to like 130 pounds. I was no more than 150 at the time. My father was like, man, what are you doing?
[00:22:44] Bishop Darrell Hines: It’s like, dad, I gotta, I gotta know this. I gotta know God, you know, I gotta know the God that gave him my life back. So it really changed my life. It gave me a real sense. And I had a visitation. In the hospital where I heard the Lord say, you take care of my business and I’ll take care of you tell a dying world about a living Christ.
[00:23:00] Bishop Darrell Hines: And that’s what I’ve been doing ever since then traveled all over this world
[00:23:04] Richie Burke: doing that. What is that like? Is that just like a voice coming in your head? It’s
[00:23:07] Bishop Darrell Hines: yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s like an, a presence. That’s, that’s the best way I can do it. It’s like, it’s a presence. You can feel, you can’t see it and you can hear it.
[00:23:17] Bishop Darrell Hines: And, uh, It’s, it’s like, it’s in your mind, it’s in your spirit and you know, it just as clear because it’s not something you’re making up. Mm-Hmm. , I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t know to do that. Mm-Hmm. because I, I wouldn’t know what his business was or what to take care of. So when I had that conversation in my spirit with him.
[00:23:37] Bishop Darrell Hines: That’s when I took a different turn in life and began to pursue how to do that effectively.
[00:23:43] Richie Burke: And that led to you founding Christian Faith Fellowship, I believe, on the south side of Milwaukee, you’re off Good Hope right now. Can you, can you tell me about the early beginnings of that and how it’s grown into what it is
[00:23:55] Bishop Darrell Hines: today?
[00:23:55] Bishop Darrell Hines: Well, you know, again, everything that I do, I believe I’m doing what God has instructed me to do. That’s how I live now. So I’ve been traveling and preaching and about eight years after, after it happened to me, I felt impressed to start a church and one of my friends told me, man, you probably need to do that.
[00:24:13] Bishop Darrell Hines: And so I was away preaching at a church and I called my wife and said, listen, I need you to find a church building because when I get home, we’re going to start a church. And of course, I’d never done anything like that before. Um, and my daddy wasn’t with it because I was his, you know, I was his musician.
[00:24:26] Bishop Darrell Hines: He didn’t want me to leave. And so I didn’t have a whole lot of instructions as to how to do it. But she did. She found a building, uh, Pastor Norman Southside, he was pastoring baby assembly and, uh, she asked him if we could come into his church. It was the only, it was the only church he could find. And of course it was so far back then.
[00:24:45] Bishop Darrell Hines: Black people didn’t come to the south side. That was just, you know, we weren’t on the south side. It was, it was, Milwaukee was very segregated. Uh, and so I was like, when I got home, I was like, you, you found a church? She said, yes. I said, I’m a south side. What, what kind of church we going to have on the south side?
[00:25:01] Bishop Darrell Hines: But this guy was kind enough to let us come in and we started at one 30. And so we’re going to try to buy the building. Uh, but after the first year, you, you couldn’t find a seat in the building. And so, by the second year, it was just packed and we realized we had to move. It only seated about 150 people.
[00:25:17] Bishop Darrell Hines: And we packed it out in just two years. And so, I was impressed to find some land on the north side and just build a building. And of course, that was a process. So, we went to, uh, another Lutheran church on 15th and Keith. It seated about 350 people. And it looked like the moment we got in there, it was jam packed.
[00:25:35] Bishop Darrell Hines: We had to sit chairs out. So then we went to borough middle school, but we found some land in the process. And in the sixth year, we broke ground on Good Hope. Well, I won’t throw all the challenges that we had, but we started building the building after we were like six years old and, uh, because there was nothing that we, everywhere we went.
[00:25:53] Bishop Darrell Hines: It’s available to us. We just grew so fast. It was just people were coming from all walks of life and all different backgrounds. And of course we were serving them as much as we knew the things of God and also social things. Did you
[00:26:08] Richie Burke: envision it becoming what it is today? You have a, you have a church, you have a high school.
[00:26:13] Richie Burke: community center,
[00:26:14] Bishop Darrell Hines: grade school. No, I, I, I, I never knew I was going to pastor a big church. I didn’t even know how to do that. I just, it’s on pastor. So it’s, there was, there were no churches the size that ours became in Milwaukee that I could go to. There were no black congregations as large as ours. It’s always the largest black congregation.
[00:26:31] Bishop Darrell Hines: And we were calling ourself kind of, uh, Multicultural because we had some other races people attending, but it was predominantly up an african american church And so, you know I tell people all the time God has a real sense of humor because I did horrible in school And when I said I did horrible in school, I was I don’t even remember being taught how to count I just know I know how I just don’t remember anything positive from school.
[00:26:54] Bishop Darrell Hines: Maybe you know, maybe I couldn’t play no games and I hated school. And so, uh, you know, so when I told the church after we were in our seventh year, we, we built the building and I said, now we got to build a school. And so the committee got together and said, we’re going to build a grade school. And we built a grade school and the committee got together and they called it Daryl and Hans Academy.
[00:27:16] Bishop Darrell Hines: And I was like, he
[00:27:17] Richie Burke: couldn’t pass his classes, but send your kids here.
[00:27:20] Bishop Darrell Hines: Exactly. I’m like, you know, God really has to see if I got a school with my name on it. So, you know, yeah, we didn’t know. So we built the school and then we bought the, um, the, the, the plaza on 8th and we built a youth center and, and then we put a high school there and there’s some other things we’re going to be doing, but those things happened.
[00:27:43] Bishop Darrell Hines: And then we were building every, we were in increments of five years. We were doing something to help affect our community.
[00:27:49] Richie Burke: Um, let’s get to the standard five, five ish quick questions sponsored by central standard. If you could spend a day with one person dead or alive, who would it be?
[00:28:01] Bishop Darrell Hines: You won’t know the person I’m going to tell you about, but the founder.
[00:28:06] Bishop Darrell Hines: of the Church of God in Christ. His name was Charles Harrison Mason. When did he live? He died in 60 He died in the 60s. So you never met him? Never got a chance to meet him. He was a phenomenal man. And if I could spend a day with anybody, it would be with him. I
[00:28:26] Richie Burke: like that answer. Um, what is one piece of advice you would give your younger self?
[00:28:35] Bishop Darrell Hines: Uh Enjoy your life and don’t work so hard to accomplish things that you don’t take the time to enjoy them. You know, I think that, um, I think that when you get focused on accomplishing a goal and you’re purpose driven, you have to Of course, let that purpose drive you, but you can’t let that purpose move you away from enjoying the life that God has given you.
[00:29:09] Bishop Darrell Hines: And so I would have probably I would tell myself, you know, you, you got it, you, you, you going to get it done. Just enjoy some other
[00:29:17] Richie Burke: things. I like that. Um, Brandon Williams chimed in with a fan submitted question. Really? Really? He said, um, how do you manage to look like the younger brother of your two sons?
[00:29:31] Bishop Darrell Hines: Well, I’m going to tell y’all, I’m going to tell y’all the secret. You know, usually when you get a certain age. There are certain things that start happening, so you have to. Do some things to keep it from happening. So I exercise. I don’t eat a lot. I, um, I use a lot of dye. Um, and, uh, let me see. And, uh, I, I use my wife’s, she has skin products.
[00:29:54] Bishop Darrell Hines: My wife has, I use her skin products and then I try to rest. When I sleep, I sleep. So I still, I still sleep eight to 10 hours.
[00:30:01] Richie Burke: Yeah, anything with your hair personally interested? Yeah.
[00:30:07] Bishop Darrell Hines: Yeah, you know, um, you know, I’m I have three brothers My youngest youngest brother has hair in the two in between our ball hit and so Um, I would probably let my gray grow out if I didn’t have hair on my head, but because I have hair on my head, I’m not ready to see my, my hair black, my hair gray.
[00:30:26] Bishop Darrell Hines: I got to keep my beard black and, uh, you know, really what inspires me to keep myself like this. Cause every now and then somebody will mistake DJ as me.
[00:30:37] Bishop Darrell Hines: No, I’m not him. That’s my dad. You know that that’s probably what gives you inspiration to get up and go jogging I’m telling you when they start mistaking you for somebody, you know, it’s your son.
[00:30:47] Richie Burke: Love it. Love it. Um, my Michael Shepard Was wondering how do you this is kind of a backhanded compliment question here?
[00:30:55] Richie Burke: How do you manage to hit a golf ball so far at your age?
[00:31:01] Bishop Darrell Hines: Oh Well, you know, I think it’s Technique, you know, I had some techniques and then I do, I try to keep my upper body strength going. I’m, I’m a, I do a lot of pushups, you know, I was at one at one time I was up to 500 pushups a day. Wow. Yeah, for real. I just mess my shoulders up.
[00:31:18] Bishop Darrell Hines: I just, you know, I always, like I said, I’m, I’m so driven by what I want to do until sometimes I overdo it. And I, I just, I wouldn’t stop at 300. I had to get to 500 and I’m not making it up. That’s true. I can get down. I do more pushups than you right now. I haven’t been doing them like about a month because it just showed us.
[00:31:35] Bishop Darrell Hines: I could, I could, I could do,
[00:31:36] Richie Burke: we, uh, we will not show the audience that right now. Um, speaking of Michael Shepard, I have a personal question. You have a very, very well put together fashion. Yeah. Okay. I feel like Michael Shepard spends more time, um, planning his outfits out than worrying about his golf score.
[00:31:54] Richie Burke: And he just likes having matching outfits at this thing. And you know, he’s got the Jordans. He has the price tag flying off his hat still like, do you think that’s a little over the
[00:32:05] Bishop Darrell Hines: top? I think if you’re going to dress. Then your game has to be its best. So, so Michael
[00:32:12] Richie Burke: Shepherd has some work to do. , he’s a, he’s a phenomenal simulator simulator player.
[00:32:17] Richie Burke: But on, on, on the
[00:32:18] Bishop Darrell Hines: course, I just played with him and, uh, he was like, Michael was hitting, man. I was with Michael a couple days ago and he was like, he had it, I had to give him a couple. I told him he, he probably used to come out with me more because he made me play better, you know, I was hitting the ball far.
[00:32:31] Bishop Darrell Hines: And just, you know, it’s a great time. He can, he can hit it. He can hit it. He, he can hit it. He, he
[00:32:36] Richie Burke: I’ll, I’ll give
[00:32:37] Bishop Darrell Hines: him that. A lot of potential. I told him he was playing better ’cause he was playing with me. You know, I think I, I think that you’re probably a
[00:32:42] Richie Burke: nice relaxing presence for him out there. He can get a little high strung.
[00:32:46] Richie Burke: He’s a, he’s 110% guy at anything. He does. I got a
[00:32:50] Bishop Darrell Hines: funny story with Mike, Mike, DJ and another, I think it was a newbie. I’m not sure of me. We were out on the course and I just a couple of years ago when Mike Brown was playing with Mike and Mike at that time, he was, he was really getting his game together.
[00:33:02] Bishop Darrell Hines: So it took him a little longer to get his shots going. So he can stand over it. Yeah. He, so we got to the back nine. I was like, you know, guys, I’m gonna hit and I hit and they were up there and I said, And I’m gonna go on and hit again, and I would hit again, and so I, I just went on and played by myself and I think I was, I was back home and it was still on like the 15th hole or something like that.
[00:33:22] Bishop Darrell Hines: I was like, I couldn’t take it. I don’t have that kind of patience. I
[00:33:25] Richie Burke: cannot wait to send him that clip, um,
[00:33:30] Bishop Darrell Hines: But he’s much better now, I enjoy it.
[00:33:31] Richie Burke: He is. We, we love Michael Shepard. Um, what, what do you like most about Milwaukee and what, what is one thing you could, you would change about it if you could?
[00:33:42] Bishop Darrell Hines: Um, the older I get, I would change the weather, but let’s talk about some of the, uh, I like, I like, uh, the, uh, I used to like the, the, the slowness of Milwaukee, Milwaukee at one time it was a bigger city, but it didn’t have the fast city vibe.
[00:34:01] Bishop Darrell Hines: Uh, and it was more family oriented, orientated, oriented. If I could change anything I would try to change it back to that because we need families to be Responsible to each other and for each other sometimes our youth when they don’t have that structure It doesn’t bring they’re not real governed in their actions and it can be it can be Havoc on on us on any people so I would if I could change anything I would I would and I do that You know, I encourage family, but I would really try to bring the focus back to family first before we focus outside of the family.
[00:34:40] Bishop Darrell Hines: And, uh, what I do like about Milwaukee is that I’ve been here all my life and, um, I’m familiar with it. And, um, my family is here. All my brothers and sisters are here. I only have one sister who’s not here. She lives in, uh, Phoenix, and she pastors their church we planted. So all of my, all of my connections are here.
[00:35:03] Richie Burke: And, uh, final question. What, what are you most proud of, or what would you consider your greatest accomplishment?
[00:35:11] Bishop Darrell Hines: Um, this is gonna seem funny to you, but, uh, Seeing my children raise my grandchildren, seeing the, the member told you family, seeing the institution of family in a third generation that started with me, with my sons and their children.
[00:35:35] Bishop Darrell Hines: I can’t explain that kind of joy. Um, but it’s something that you can’t make up. It’s something that you just experience when you get there. And, uh, that’s probably one of my greatest, my wife, of course, will be my constant, but seeing my children raise their children and the respect and the regard that they’re raising them with for family and for, uh, life, it’s probably one of the most greatest accomplishments I’ve ever experienced.
[00:36:05] Richie Burke: Bishop Hines, thanks for coming on today and thank you for all you do for the community here in Milwaukee. Thanks for having me. for tuning in to this episode of Milwaukee Uncut with Bishop Darrell Hines. Please subscribe and write a review if you have not already and if you do write a review and leave your Instagram handle in the review, we will reach out and get your mailing address.
[00:36:25] Richie Burke: And send you something because we’re trying to grow this show. And we do appreciate those reviews. Also a reminder that this show is produced by Storymark Studios, sponsored by Central Standard Distillery and in partnership with On Milwaukee. Thanks again for tuning in.