On Jordan's Stormy Banks : Leading Your Congregation Through the Wilderness of Change

by H. Beecher Hicks Jr.

• ISBN13: 9780310247746
• ISBN10: 0310247748
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-11-01
• Publisher: Harpercollins Christian Pub

Summary

This book is about vision. More precisely, it is about helping a congregation capture a pastor's vision and struggling through the process of seeing that vision fulfilled. H. Beecher Hicks captures that experience through the image of the Old Testament tabernacle-God's spiritual instrument for leading Moses and the Israelites through their wilderness journey and manifesting his glorious presence among them. This book arises out of Dr. Hicks's experiences in recent years of coping with the need of his church for a larger facility in the face of opposition from the community surrounding the church. The book captures and expounds the spiritual qualities required for such changing times. It both teaches and inspires. It shows us how to deal with the ups and downs of defining a vision, confronting change, and dealing with the obstacles that stand in the way, from both inside and outside the church. "The problem with visions," Dr. Hicks writes, "is that they don't come with 'how to' manuals or an 800 number to call for technical support." Yet God shows his faithfulness in many ways, sometimes after grit and grimy work, sometimes through unexplainable miracles.

Author Biography

H. Beecher Hicks Jr. is president of Martin Luther King Fellows, Inc., and Kerygma Associates.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Dr. Walter Scott Thomas	9	(2)
Preface	11	(4)
The Setting	15	(2)
Introduction: Visioning in the Modern Church Context	17	(8)
PREACHING THE VISION, PART 1
Reflection: A Prelude to Preaching	25	(11)
Sermon: How to Handle Life's Trials	36	(11)
When Community Is in Conflict
Sermon: Already!	47	(14)
The Power in the Preface
Sermon: When the Praise Is Over	61	(11)
Facing Life's Bitter Waters
Do You See What I See?	72	(5)
PREACHING THE VISION, PART 2
Reflection: The State of the Church	77	(12)
Sermon: The Tabernacle and the Testimony	89	(10)
Something to Say and a Reason to Say It
Sermon: The Tabernacle and the Vision	99	(10)
Seeing the Church through God's Eyes
Sermon: The Tabernacle and the Door	109	(11)
A Door No One Can Shut
Sermon: The Tabernacle and the Fire	120	(13)
Let the Fire Burn!
Do You See What I See?	133	(4)
PREACHING THE VISION, PART 3
Reflection: A Visit to the Pastor's Office	137	(4)
Sermon: The Tabernacle and the Candlestick	141	(8)
This Little Light of Mine
Sermon: The Tabernacle and the Bread	149	(10)
God Still Feeds the Hungry
Sermon: The Tabernacle and the Mercy Seat	159	(8)
On Purposeful Worship
Sermon: In Search of Shekinah Glory	167	(11)
When God Comes to Worship
Do You See What I See?	178	(5)
PREACHING THE VISION, PART 4
Reflection: The Tabernacle Response	183	(13)
Sermon: Too Much Stuff 185
Just Look at God!
"Old Roots Transplanted with Room to Grow"	196	(3)
Sermon: An Incredible Assignment in an Unlikely Place	199	(14)
Resurrection and Groundbreaking Sunday 2004
Do You See What I See?	213	(2)
A Postlude to Preaching: On Jordan's Stormy Banks	215

Excerpts

On Jordan’s Stormy Banks Copyright © 2004 by Kerygma Associates, Inc.Requests for information should be addressed to:Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hicks, H. Beecher On Jordan’s stormy banks : leading your congregation through the wilderness of change / H. Beecher Hicks Jr.—1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-310-24774-8 1. African American clergy—Biography. 2. African Americans—Religion. 3. Hicks, H. Beecher. I. Title. BR563.N4545 2004 253—dc22 2004005091“Old Roots Transplanted with Room to Grow” by Nelson Hernandez, copyright © 2004, reprinted by permission of the Washington Post, Washington, D.C.Italics in Scripture quotations are used by the author to indicate emphasis.All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.The Scripture quotation marked MESSAGE is taken from the THE MESSAGE. Copyright © by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.Interior design by Michelle EspinozaPrinted in the United States of America04 05 06 07 08 09 10 /.DC/ 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1ReflectionA Prelude to PreachingIf Moses, or any other man, had been commissioned by God to design a portable building for the purpose for which the tabernacle was to be used during Israel’s wilderness journeys, it could well have proved a “mission impossible”; therefore, so that nothing would be imperfect about it, God designed it himself.Cecil Jennings,The Glory of the TabernacleGood morning, my prophet:Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to guide my people to a land I have chosen and prepared for them. They will not wish to travel. They far prefer their bland diet and their guaranteed employment. They will not see what you see. They will not hear your words. They will not accept your leadership. You will experience much pain in the process. This may seem an impossible assignment. Do not forget, I specialize in the impossible. Of course, should you, Miriam, Joshua, or Caleb follow my leading, I will not fail you or forsake you. Just speak my words . . . no matter what! I will always be with you.Love, GodThere are moments in every pastor’s life when God sends a divine e-mail and it seems that the pastor is the only one who received it. When such moments arrive, the pastor is in the unenviable position of relaying a message to the people, who view it as irrelevant at best. It often falls on blind eyes and deaf ears. In such moments, making a sacrificial commitment to the vision and using the preached word to impart the vision are essential. Like Ezekiel, a pastor must assume the role of priest-watchperson if he or she is to effectively communicate that vision to the people and colabor with them in embracing the vision, assuring its fulfillment. If a pastor does not prove to be up for the task, any attempt to bring the vision to the people and the people to the vision will prove futile. This Prelude to Preaching admonishes and instructs pastors who would be visionaries.But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand. So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me. (Ezek. 33:6–7)When a corporation seeks to cast a vision, it uses the expertise of public relations specialists who design and test strategies that will assure buy-in from the audience it desires to influence. Similarly, when a retailer wants to increase its profits and positively impact the bottom line for its investors, it hires an advertising firm to spend millions of dollars on television, radio, print media, and other forms of advertising to cast a vision that creates an inextricable identity for the product it seeks to sell. In the spiritual realm, when God casts a vision, God does so through the preacher and preaching. Strange that God would choose to use a preacher—a mere mortal, made of frail and sinful stuff—to declare the word of redemption and salvation. God, it would appear, does have some television time on cable networks managed by a wide assortment of televangelists who send a broad and generic message. Yet God still requires a human vessel to proclaim and interpret a specific vision for a specific people at a specific time for a specific purpose. God has no public relations specialists or media experts to cast the vision for him. God must resort, therefore, to methods that are as old as the Bible itself.In today’s world, it often seems that God’s time-honored method of casting vision, by the preacher through the preached word, has been rendered irrelevant. The church, in an age of rising secularity, appears to be caught in a web of increasing irrelevance. Within the African American community in particular, the church is no longer the center of communal life. The church appears to have lost its moral high ground. The church is no longer the locale of social protest. In this world, the church and its spokespersons are rarely consulted on issues of ethical importance the way they once were.Also readily apparent is the impression that the church is no longer the center of our social life. In times past, the church provided the outlet for our leisure activity and entertainment. Today other options vie for our leisure hours. The church is left wondering where the people went. Many megachurches boast of drawing astounding crowds on a regular basis, but the average church in America—black or white—has no “Standing Room Only” sign in its foyer.Pity the preacher who appears to be doomed to preach from an archaic book that seems to have little or no relevance for a cyberspace generation. Pity the preacher whose only musical frame of reference is an anthem or hymn no one cares to sing because “hip-hop” and “rap” have captured our musical ears. Pity the preacher who must stand to proclaim a word he says comes from God to people who are not really interested in that word or that God. As far as this generation is concerned, God is alarmingly aloof, silent, and insignificant. The signs of the time in this culture appear to indicate that no one has heard from or is listening to God. As a result, the preacher is always on precarious terrain whenever he or she dares to claim to have received a vision from God.As I look around my office, I see volumes of manuscripts, books, and the like that represent my life and the lives of countless other preachers spent casting God’s vision through the spoken word. I cannot help but think, therefore, that if preaching has become irrelevant, then so have I—so have we. To the contrary: I believe now, as I have for the past four decades, that my assignment is to cast God’s vision for the world, for my community, and for the little flock for which Christ has made me responsible.Despite my passion for and experience in vision casting, I must honestly grapple with the question of how anyone can truly know whether he or she authentically speaks God’s vision.

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Excerpted from On Jordan's Stormy Banks: Leading Your Congregation Through the Wilderness of Change by H. Beecher Hicks
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