In The Wilderness: Episodes in Urban Ministry

Fresh out of seminary, armed with confidence, qualifications, and what I thought was experience, I was ready for ministry opportunities. After all, I had just graduated from the oldest Catholic Seminary in the nation, the Saint Marys Seminary in Baltimore, Maryland....as a Baptist. I had received my baptism, in water and in urban ministry, from the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia - where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. shared leadership with his dad. I was currently under the leadership and tutelage of Dr. Harold A. Carter, Sr., of the New Shiloh Baptist Church in Baltimore, a great evangelist in his own right. Inner-city ministry. - bring it on! God said, I certainly will! He then planted me in the number one drug trafficking block in the nations capital. The task: start a church, clean up the block, and face all the challenges of surviving in a wilderness. This wilderness was complete with one of the largest public housing facilities in the city, located directly across the street from the church, where over 90% of the residents were single mothers. Where men gathered in droves at the first of the month to confiscate the mothers checks. Where there was a thriving liquor store literally steps from the housing complex. Where unemployment was off the charts, drug dealing and addiction was visible and active, and where hopelessness abounded. A wilderness indeed! Initially, my comfort rested in the knowledge that many of Gods greatest servants, including Jesus, spent some time in the wilderness - but only a short while. Little did I know that God had some unusual episodes prepared for me in the wilderness and that my stay would not be for a short while. Unfortunately, they did not teach me how to handle these episodes in seminary!