H. Beecher Hicks, Jr., Preaching Through a Storm: Confirming the Power of Preaching in the Tempest of Church Conflict. Zondervan, 1987.
Referenced in: Church Conflict – Leadership, Preaching, and Worship in Times of Conflict
LifeandLeadership.com Summary
This is one of only a few books written on the role of preaching during times conflict in churches. It is similar to William Willimon’s Preaching About Conflict in the Local Church. The difference is that Willimon writes more prescriptively, discussing the principles guiding the role of the pulpit in times of conflict. Hicks writes more demonstratively, giving sermons that were especially helpful as his church weathered the storms of conflict over a building program. The prologue before each sermon discusses the “back story,” followed by the sermon(s), then a brief epilogue. It is an exemplary collection of sermons forged through a time of congregational conflict.
Some would advise that the preacher must maintain an objective, “parallel” relationship to church conflict, not using the pulpit to give issues public weight and thus increase corporate anxiety. This can be important. Hicks presents a more direct-address model that deserves careful consideration. He preaches with pathos and wisdom.
Hicks writes to veteran pastors as well as those new to the work, with a special concern for African American churches. He says, “Unfortunately, modern seminaries are not training young theologs in the art of tension reduction and conflict resolution within the contemporary church.” (19)
From the Publisher
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.”
About the Author
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.
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