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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 800 people at his church, loaded seven buses with members of his congregation, including a youth choir, and drove to Armitage.

Outnumbered 10 to 1, the 100 or so protesters didn't stand a chance. Once the Salem choir started singing, "the demonstrators were done for," wrote a reporter for U.S. News & World Report. "The kids were too good and too loud."

This quick action on behalf of a friend and a good cause is one reason James Meeks has risen from being a relatively unknown South Side preacher to one of the most recognizable and powerful pastors in the city.

Other reasons? Well, he has made Salem Baptist one of the largest African American churches in Chicago. It has grown from around 3,000 members in 1997 to more than 17,000 today.

Meeks is also an Illinois state senator, representing five of the poorest communities in Illinois.

He also serves as executive vice president of the Rainbow/PUSH (People United to Serve Humanity) Coalition, and is named as successor to Jesse Jackson. He is perhaps the only person welcome at both the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and at Moody Bible Institute, where he often speaks. His many ambitious plans for his church and community include delivering 30,000 Bibles to residents in the church's ZIP code.

Despite these and other accomplishments, his name mostly draws blanks from people outside of Chicago. This is odd, since it's increasingly clear that Meeks is one of the most effective megachurch pastors in the nation.

It's just after 7 P.M. on a Wednesday in mid-July, and Salem Baptist is packed. Even with five weekly services—four on the weekends and one tonight—there's not enough room for all of the church's members to get into the 1,700-seat sanctuary at 118th Street and Indiana Avenue in Chicago's Roseland neighborhood.

Such vitality bucks the trend in Roseland. The overall population of the neighborhood has shrunk by 18 percent—from 64,372 in 1980 to 56,493 in 1990 to 52,723 in 2000, according to the Census Bureau. Nearly 99 in every 100 of Roseland's residents identify themselves as black. Most of the rest are white.

Economic development in Roseland is stagnant at best. Once a predominantly blue-collar area for white European immigrants and southern blacks who worked in Chicago's steel mills and factories, Roseland today lacks a sit-down restaurant and a chain grocery store. Residents must drive an average of 40 minutes to and from work each day. Until recently, bars and liquor stores have dominated the landscape. Many have been breeding grounds for crime.

On weekends, however, people line up an hour early, as if for a rock concert, to get into Salem. Two of the services, at 12:30 on Sunday and the Wednesday night service, air on local television station WJYS.

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February 2004, Vol. 48, No. 2