NATIONAL PRIMITIVE BAPTIST CONVENTION PRESIDENT ELDER DOCTOR BERNARD C. YATES GIVES ANNUAL SERMON; INTRODUCED BY WIFE LADY VONDA YATES

On Thursday morning August 21, 2014 the ballroom of the Sheraton Hotel on Richard Arrington Boulevard was filled to capacity. The seating capacity of the ballroom was eleven hundred and every seat was occupied. The members of the National Primitive Baptist were in attendance to hear their president gives his third annual message.

The Vice President of the Convention Elder Kenneth Duke, pastor of the New Jerusalem Primitive Baptist Church Miami Florida presented the wife of President Yates Lady Vonda Yates to introduce her husband,  a first in the National Convention.

Yates gave an incredible introduction as she spoke from her heart about her husband and their life together. Yates has been a constant encourager of her husband. Like her husband she is a powerful intercessor and a passionate worshipper. And she is a preacher. In the 2011 election that catapulted her husband to the presidency by a margin of seven votes many believed that her ministry as a preacher,  in a church that doesn't recognize her as  preacher, would cause her husband to be defeated in the election. However he prevailed and so has she.

Lady Yates said about her husband President Yates, "I have shared many mountaintop experiences with my husband and I have shared many valley experiences with him. We have known abundance and we have suffered great need. But every time I hear him proclaim the Word of God I have to say the man I thought I knew is the man I don't really know.

"There is a hidden part in my husband as there is in every preacher that is only revealed when he preaches."

President Bernard C. Yates stood to declare the Word of the Lord surrounded by the leadership of the convention. He shared his concern for expanding the convention outreach to gather the youth of the Primitive Baptist Church in their own convention/conference.

Yates preached from Nehemiah 6 "Keep on working." He encouraged the members to do the work, to remain focused and to see the work as God sees the work.

Yates declared that the Primitive Baptist church is in transition. There are Primitive Baptists who speaks in tongues and prophesy. The church is operating in the five fold ministry. Don't be afraid of it teach.