Jamell meeks biography of williams

After nearly 40 years, Rev. James T. Meeks is stepping away from the pulpit of his church. Meeks said next year would be his last as the leader at Salem Baptist Church on the city&#;s Far South Side.

Rev. Meeks became a pastor in and founded Salem Baptist Church of Chicago on Jan. 13, He founded Salem Baptist Church after serving five years as pastor at Beth Eden Baptist Church in East Wilken Park. He started Salem with only members.

Meeks’ style of education and theology-based leadership in the church infuses humor into his messages is what kept his members at the church all these years, even through the pandemic.

Meeks served three terms as an Illinois state senator until and later served as chairman of the Illinois State Board of Education under Gov. Bruce Rauner. He also ran in the Chicago mayoral race but pulled out two months before the February election &#; which Rahm Emanuel won.

The Rev. Charlie E. Dates will take over as pastor of Salem Baptist Chu

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MegaShepherd

Nearly a decade ago, pastor Charles Lyons of Armitage Baptist Church was preparing for a siege. Members of Armitage Baptist, a multiracial congregation in Chicago's multiethnic Logan Square neighborhood, had played a leading role in nonviolent protests at local abortion clinics. Now abortion-rights groups and activists from Queer Nation were planning a noisy reverse Operation Rescue-style protest to shut down the church's Wednesday evening prayer meeting.

Then Lyons received a call from James Meeks, pastor of Salem Baptist Church, a congregation on Chicago's far South Side. Lyons, who is white, and Meeks, who is black, met about five years earlier during a Sunday school conference and quickly become friends. They pray together regularly.

Meeks asked Lyons, "Why didn't you ask me to come over and help?" That night, Meeks canceled a Bible study for people at his church, loaded seven buses with members of his congregation, including a youth c

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Rev. James T. Meeks walks past beeper stores and wig shops, past the silent ung men gathered in doorways of empty buildings, past dirt lots strewn with bottles and wrappers, and he pictures something else altogether.

Over there, the Baptist preacher in sunglasses imagines a new sit-down restaurant. Here, someday, could be a bowling alley, movie theater or maybe a skating rink. Meeks envisions a national chain grocery store too–one where the butcher’s meat is still bright red and the aisles are wide and glistening with the newest items advertised on TV.

Meeks wants to bring some small glimmer of North Michigan Avenue’s magnificence right here to South Michigan. “There’s gold in these hills,” Meeks insists, as he surveys his Far South Side neighborhood of Roseland.

Meeks, 42, is not someone who dreams modest dreams. His church, Salem Baptist, fryst vatten huge–one of the largest black Baptist congregations in the city. His friends, including Jesse