Bishop Larry Trotter Bares Soul in New Book

By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog.

He is Senior Pastor of Chicago’s famed Sweet Holy Spirit Church, a successful record label owner, and a recording artist.  

But Bishop Larry Darnell Trotter has also lived through some difficult days.  He writes about those days with uncomplicated honesty in a new book, Living Above See Level (MarkOne Publishing).

TBGB spoke with Bishop Trotter last month about the book and the circumstances that gave rise to it.

LDT: I am an avid reader, but I had not seen any book about anybody’s downfall and how they bounced back.  I thought that there needed to be something out there that was transparent, that could help people who are in the rough season of their lives.

LDT: It is the ability to see beyond where you are.  For me, it was seeing myself out of the pit, seeing myself out of poverty, seeing myself out of the darkest days.  It wasn’t the “sea” that I was going to sink into, but the “see,” as in looking forward and onward.  Hopefully, everybody will come to the summation that God will bless you as far as you can see.

LDT: Yes, it was very difficult.  Of course, it’s painful when I was writing about my family’s failure, the fact that I did go through a divorce, after seventeen years of marriage.  When you look at the divorce rate among Christians and Christian leaders, it’s a big number.  In my first chapter, “Nobody’s Fault But Mine,” I talk about some signs I saw early on in the marriage but ignored them because I thought I could fix it.  I was Mr. Fix-All.  I’m very candid about the divorce, and very open to talk to people about the fact that some people don’t love you, they love your stuff.  I’m not bitter about it, but it was an awakening for me.

LDT: Absolutely.  When you are popular, you have a different kind of audience.  That same audience can poison your life by the things that they say.  Some people had it out there that because I lost weight that I had AIDS.  There was a season of three or four years that I had to walk in church wondering what the rumor of the week was.  That was a hard period in my life.  The only way I could reply was to write my story and tell people that I’m okay.  That kind of killed the rumor mill.  

LDT: The most difficult part of my whole journey was the day that I was sick, wrestling with pain, taking medication, and at the same time, I’m going back and forth to the judge, to the court, to try to finalize the dissolution of my marriage.  So I’m sick, I’m in pain, but at the same time I had to go and be humiliated by lawyers on my ex’s side who were trying to get everything I had.  Those were painful days.  Then there were the people I loved who seemed to turn away from me because of the divorce, or because I didn’t have what I used to have, whatever the reason.  Those situations were very heavy and very hard.

LDT: When the book came out, I felt lifted.  I felt, “I’ve got this off me, this is done.”  I’m sure that the people who read the book will also feel some kind of deliverance.  That will give me satisfaction.

LDT: It was an overwhelming response.  People came by who I did not know but who knew my name, and people I hadn’t seen in ten or fifteen years.  It wasn’t only the regular church crowd, but also people who needed a word of hope.  Several people came back four or five hours later [after reading the book] and said, “Wow, that really blessed my life!”   And what I hear all the time on the road, as well as at River Oaks, is: “It’s like you were writing my story.”  People who have pain can identify with pain.   

One person said to me that there are volumes in Living Above See Level.  So I’m considering, and praying over, writing Living Above See Level 2.  There are a whole lot of my stories that aren’t in the first book.  I’m also working on a piece about Chicagoand the pilgrimage of the Christian community in Chicago, some of the things I’ve learned over these 30-35 years of being a minister.

Meanwhile, we will be releasing a Living Above See Level workbook in the next 30 to 60 days so people can teach the book in small group sessions.

LDT: Exactly.  It has an evangelistic twist to it and, for the people who apply it this way, it will move them to a place of ministry.  It ministers to others by using my own life as an example.

For more information about Bishop Trotter or the book, visit www.larrydtrotter.com.