In support of our churches.

It was like any other Sunday morning. Rev. James T. Meeks was preaching to his last wave of congregants at Salem Baptist Church in Chicago's Roseland community when, in the middle of his sermon, shots rang out and police cars raced past. Members of the church were hardly surprised. They had become accustomed to hearing sirens in their high-crime neighborhood. At that moment, Meeks decided to take action: He called on all the men in the congregation to get up and march around the corner to the scene of the crime. If such activity continued to occur on subsequent Sundays, Meeks said, they would continue this ritual.

Why? It could be because Salem is an activist church that seeks to address the concerns of the community and congregants. Running out miscreants is just one objective. The church's financial ministries have developed more than 100 investment clubs and taught church members financial and business principles.

Salem Baptist Church is representative of a number of active black churches meeting the demands of their communities. Many have shut down crack houses and replaced them with shopping centers, restaurants, and low- to moderate-income housing. Others provide after-school programs and day care facilities. In some cases, these outreach efforts extend internationally. Potter's House, the nation's largest black megachurch, led by T.D. Jakes, has crossed the Atlantic to dig wells in Kenya.

In this month's cover story, "The Business of Faith," black enterprise takes a look at pastors who have embraced sound business practices to execute the multifaceted agendas of their churches. "What these ministries are doing underscores what's not being done in our communities by local, state, and federal government," says News Editor Nicole Marie Richardson, who co-wrote the feature and spent months researching black megachurches. "There's enormous pressure on our churches to pick up the slack. In many cases, the black community has almost come to expect the church to step in and subsidize the lack of funding in our neighborhoods and schools."

Fortunately, many churches have upped the ante by answering the call for affordable housing, adequate schooling, and community programs even in the face of sharp criticism from the very people they serve. Inevitably, in any discussion about the black church, pastors are vilified for the questionable behavior of one of their peers the one pastor who ran away with the congregation's money or the minister who drives a Bentley. Although scrutiny of the church is important, it should not take place at the expense of discrediting an entire institution that has championed the rights of African Americans. from the abolition of slavery and Jim Crow to the promotion of political power and wealth building.

The church is too important a vehicle to cast aside so easily. In many cases, it has been the one institution that has offered our community hope and spiritual sustenance. Yet, as churches amass congregants in the thousands and command multimillion-dollar budgets, it's imperative that they adopt a policy of financial transparency to squash even the hint of impropriety. While we may not all subscribe to the same spiritual principles, our community should lend support to any institution that aims to clean up our neighborhoods, educate our children, and encourage wealth building even if that institution is not your particular place of worship. By doing so, we can take an active role in bettering our community.

--The Editors