In The Wilderness: Episodes in Urban Ministry

By Stephen Tucker

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!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098050344

Stephen Tucker

Stephen Tucker has teamed up with Nick Sharratt to create the very successful Lift-the-Flap Fairy Tale series for Macmillan. Their witty retellings in modern-day rhyme are the perfect introduction to fairy tales. Stephen lives in Brighton, where he works as a teacher.

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In the 

Wilderness

Episodes in Urban Ministry

Stephen Tucker

ISBN 978-1-0980-5033-7 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-0980-5034-4 (digital)

Copyright © 2020 by Stephen Tucker

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

I’m Not the Landlord, but You Can Pay Me the Rent!

Just in the Nick of Time

You Can’t Run from Yourself

Sex and the City

Surprise! Surprise!

A Pastor’s Gotta Do What a Pastor’s Gotta Do

Not Your Ordinary Real Estate Transaction

The JR Episode

Welcome, but Next Time Please Don’t Bring Your Friend

621 Park Road, NW

Exceedingly, Abundantly, Above

Losing Members in an Urban Church

The JR Episode (Last Edition)

Despite Your Accomplishments, Get Out!

Episode 1

I’m Not the Landlord, but You Can Pay Me the Rent!

One Sunday after preaching a sermon about the Good Samaritan, the doors of the church were opened, and the invitation extended for hearers to make Jesus Christ the Lord and Savior of their lives. Several persons came forward, among them a young man in his late twenties. He was crying, and the congregation was visibly moved, as was I. After praying for his current state of being, I asked how he happened to come to our church. He replied that our church came highly recommended by a friend as a place that might help him get his life together since he was recently released from a period of incarceration and was homeless.

The young man shared with me that he could not return to his mother’s house because their relationship had been fractured due to his continued bad decisions and arrests. A week prior to his coming to our church, he had attended another church in hopes of getting assistance. It was a much larger church, and he went there thinking that due to the size of the church, they were more equipped to help him. He said they did not appear to want to help him because he did not seem sincere. He told us that he had been sleeping in open cars and on various porches of abandoned houses. With tears in his eyes, he asked if we could help him.

If you ask most pastors, this is where the real struggle with ministry lies. Praying for others and not being able to do much more than pray to change an individual’s predicament is the pastor’s eternal struggle. Whether a person is running a con game or trying to get over is not the issue. We like to be able to pinpoint con games and phonies and rip-off artists, but it’s not always possible. My philosophy is to err on the side of kindness and compassion. The Lord knows what’s going on, and for every time you get taken advantage of, the Lord tends to bless several times more. So on this day, following upon the heels of a Good Samaritan sermon, we decided to do all we could do.

At the time, our church owned a small row house across the street; and on occasion, we have allowed people (mostly church members) that have fallen on bad times to use the facility as a temporary residence. We also used the spot-in partnership with a congregation-based shelter program for the homeless. It was a modest place with just a few pieces of furniture and a cot for sleeping. We allowed him to spend the night in the house. He came over to the church the next day and helped one of our deacons with some chores, and we saw no reason why we couldn’t allow him to spend a few extra days in the house until he could find something more permanent.

It was late fall of our first full year there, and the weather was beginning to change to let us know that winter was upon us. We called the shelter program and asked them not to refer anyone to us because we already had a temporary resident. They understood and put us on hold. A month or so passed, and we were in the middle of winter. I pulled into the parking lot one evening, and a neighbor flagged me down and told me that I needed to check out the guy who was staying in our house because she had witnessed some shady people going in and out of there. It’s always good for an inner-city church to have inquisitive neighbors (I like that term as opposed to nosy). They look out for you! She was not a member of our church but showed up when we had giveaways and block parties and other outdoor events.

A set of rules had already been laid out and explained to the young man regarding the house. These rules included no visitors, especially females. I told the neighbor thanks and that I would look into the matter. The very next day, I bumped into the young man and asked him if anything was going on that I should know about. He looked at me and said, No, sir, and we left the matter alone. I asked one of our deacons, who is at the church every day, to keep an eye out and to report back to me his findings. However, it was at the next choir rehearsal that my wife, a member of the choir, was told about the suspicions. Ever the go-getter, my wife took two other members of the choir and marched across the street to personally see what was going on. When she opened the door, she was totally shocked to see that our modest means had been transformed into a totally different residence! The modest cot had been replaced by a queen-sized bed complete with silk sheets and blankets. Plush pillows accompanied the bedroom ensemble. What really blew her mind was the fifty-four-inch flat-screen television! Our homeless guest was laid back on plush pillows as if living in Beverly Hills!

My wife proceeded to check the noise she was hearing from the other room. What did she find? Not one but two other persons all laid back, as she described it, smoking and getting high—passing a joint! When she asked what they were doing in the house, they replied by saying, We live here! My wife shouted back, Oh no, you don’t! They replied to her quickly by saying, We’ve already paid our rent. She quickly concluded that our homeless friend was collecting rent from these two. In effect, he was subletting the place we had given him free of charge! She returned to the room where our homeless guest was and told him, You’ve got to go. I want you and your friends out by tomorrow! She and her crew left, slamming the door behind them. She couldn’t wait to tell me what had transpired.

I wish I could say at this point that this is the end of the episode and that on the next day, they all left and things went back to normal. But this is the wilderness, and that’s definitely not what happened. On the next day, the two renters left, but not the homeless landlord. After all, he had invested in the transformation of the place. He asked for a few more days in order to make arrangements to have his new belongings moved. A few days passed, then a week, then two weeks, and he still had not vacated the place. Finally, I walked one block to the new police substation and told them about the situation. Their response blew my mind. The police said, "Since he’s been living there for more than thirty days, he has what the law calls squatters rights. They said, Sorry, Pastor, but you have to go downtown and file some papers to have him removed. Then wait thirty days and then at the end of that period, we can physically evict him."

Can you imagine what was going through my mind after receiving that news? No, you can’t! It wasn’t Blessed assurance Jesus is mine! It wasn’t Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on and let me stand. It was more along the lines of an old Cannonball Adderley jazz hit, Why Am I Treated So Bad.

On my way out of the police station, I ran smack into the police lieutenant who had partnered with us on numerous occasions and had been holding meetings in our church (here comes God!). He was shocked to see me coming out of the police station, and so he said with a raised voice, Reverend Tucker, what brings you here? I told him the reason, and when I finished complaining about the entire matter, he pulled me aside and said these memorable words: Write down the address of your property, the young man’s name, and I will have a talk with him.

The next day when I arrived at church, the young man was gone! He left in such a hurry that he left his brand-new bed, his flat-screen television, and most of his clothes. The next time I saw the lieutenant, I asked him what had transpired to make our homeless friend leave so soon. He replied, It took us about five minutes for him and I to come to an agreement that leaving immediately would be in his best interest. I just smiled and said, Thank you!

He said, Anytime, Reverend Tucker!

Three Lessons Learned

First

God leads us into ministry! This is extremely important to know when confronting inner-city urban ministry. The things you are likely to confront are rooted in impoverished situations, failed attempts to be removed from impoverished situations, and any means necessary efforts