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Congregation member Larry Little is convinced that churches like Bethel represent not only the best spiritual hope for American blacks, but perhaps their best social hope as well. "In the next 10 years," he predicts, "you'll see the churches growing through the walls because people have nowhere else to go." Whatever its religious forms, in other words, the black church still has what Lincoln and Mamiya call the "institutionalized staying power of a human community that has been under siege for close to 400 years." If the church flourishes, the community will gain strength.