On Jordan's Stormy Banks: Leading your Congregation through the Wilderness of Change (Book)
H. Beecher Hicks, Author.  Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2004.

H. Beecher Hicks, senior minister at Metropolitan Baptist Church in Washington, DC, offers insights to help congregations and their leaders move forward in their ministries. Based on his experiences of the conflict between his church's need for a larger facility and the surrounding community's opposition, Hicks shows how to face the tensions involved in defining a vision, confronting change, and dealing with obstacles.

The author particularly draws upon the image of the Old Testament tabernacle—the spiritual instrument by which God led Moses and the Israelites through the wilderness—as he examines the preacher's responsibility for casting God's vision before the people. This volume consists largely of sermons he preached on the significance of this image for the Hebrew community and for the present-day church.

While Hicks alludes to some conflicts—within the church itself and with the neighboring community—he does not give them much description and basically propounds being a strong and courageous leader. His sermons unapologetically push forward his proposals. That is not a strategy that will work in all congregations. Nevertheless, one can almost hear the resonance of his preaching, and he shows how exploring a biblical narrative (in this case the Israelites in the desert) can be a useful way for a community to examine its own story.

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