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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 Mary’s 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 nation’s 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 mother’s 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 God’s 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!
Stephen Tucker | 9781098050337 | BIO018000 | book-has-featured-image
