The context was a building program for an urban congregation. The beginning bore no omens of controversy. But before long, both the pastor (the author) and the congregation found themselves in a storm that threatened the church's very existence and the pastor's future in ministry. It is common in this kind of storm that neither the preacher nor his flock will expect to hear from God. But the arresting message of this book is that it is often through the preaching itself that God speaks to the issues of conflict. It is through preaching that the issues are resolved, and neither the pastor nor the people are left unchanged. By example and by precept this book shows how to weather a storm in the only successful way--by preaching through it under the guiding hand of a compassionate God who knows our human anguish. This is a book you cannot afford to ignore. For, as one preacher puts it, you're either "coming out of a storm, in a storm, or heading for a storm." The context was a building program for an urban congregation. The beginning bore no omens of controversy. But before long, both the pastor (the author) and the congregation found themselves in a storm that threatened the church's very existence and the pastor's future in ministry. It is common in this kind of storm that neither the preacher nor his flock will expect to hear from God. But the arresting message of this book is that it is often through the preaching itself that God speaks to the issues of conflict. It is through preaching that the issues are resolved, and neither the pastor nor the people are left unchanged. By example and by precept this book shows how to weather a storm in the only successful way--by preaching through it under the guiding hand of a compassionate God who knows our human anguish. This is a book you cannot afford to ignore. For, as one preacher puts it, you're either "coming out of a storm, in a storm, or heading for a storm." H. Beecher Hicks Jr. is the senior minister of Metropolitan Baptist Church in Washington D.C. Designated one of the fifteen greatest African-American preachers by Ebony magazine, he is president of Martin Luther King Fellows, Inc., and Kerygma Associates. Chapter 1I've Been in the Storm So LongPrologueWhen caught in the midst of a storm, a minute will seem an hour, an hour will seem an eternity. Time perception is lost; life and death hang on every moment. Such a thought, no doubt, caused our foreparents to sing, 'I been in the storm so long!'At the 'ripe old age' of forty-four years, it is clearly inaccurate, if not impertinent, to suggest that one has been in the storm 'so long.' Yet my impression is valid if for no other reason than the fact that it seemed 'so long' (would it ever end?) to me. Every day seems endless in a storm; every night knows no termination to the depth of its darkness. Patience is a word that loses its meaning---indeed, it appears ludicrous in the face of the urgency one feels. One cannot see 'the light at the end of the tunnel.' One doubts the tunnel has an end. It is not helpful to hear, 'Good things come to those who wait.' Waiting seems no more than hopeless inertia. It is wasted counsel to advise a storm-tossed seaman, 'It's always darkest before the dawn' or 'If you can just hold out till tomorrow, everything will be all right.' The dawn seems to bear its own darkness, and it seems futile to 'hold out' while groping in the dark for something or someone by which one may simply 'hold on.' In the time of my own discontent, the winter of 1981, I was already learning to sing, 'I been in the storm so long!'Actually, it all started with an honest-to-goodness thunderstorm. In the summer of 1977, on my birthdate, the Metropolitan Baptist Church voted by overwhelming majority to call me as its fifth pastor in more than a century of Christian service. At the time of the call, I was pastor of a large, historic congregation in Houston, Texas. The two churches had much in common: an old structure, significant historical heritage, an older membership marked by the unmistakable absence of many babies in the Sunday morning nursery.Given such similarities, one could question---if but for a moment---the wisdom of God in ordaining and directing (demanding?) what seemed at the time to be a lateral movement of ministry. I should have known. God does, indeed, 'move in mysterious ways.' On the night of my call to this significant pulpit in the nation's capital, the event was ushered in on the wings of a storm. I am told that the old structure shook with the vibrations of thunder and lightning, as more than a thousand members crowded the sanctuary to cast their ballot. And while the storm raged, the first ballot was cast. Its verdict was clear: our family would move northward to begin a new ministry. Could it be that the storm that June night in 1977 was both sign and symbol of storms which were yet to come?Those first years of the pastorate were distinguished only by the predictable rising