There is a modest white church with a brick-red steeple that has stood on South Broad Street in Salem since 1867. On Sunday, its old plaster walls and pressed-tin ceiling echoed with a voice strong enough to make its founders in heaven stand up and shout.

Brad Braxton was home.

One of Salem's favorite sons, the Rev. Brad Braxton gave the sermon at First Baptist Church, where he grew up. He was there at the invitation of the minister - his father, the Rev. James A. Braxton.

``As a little boy I first heard the Gospel story here, in this church,'' he said to the packed pews. ``Now you invite me back to tell it to you.'' This was the first time he preached in Salem in three years, since becoming pastor of his own inner-city ecumenical church in Baltimore, where he now lives.

His visit launched a three-week celebration leading up to March 29, when the church will burn the paid-off mortgage of the fellowship hall it built in 1987. It also will mark 131 years of worship.

It was a privilege to share in an event that brings so much pride to his father and the members of First Baptist, Braxton said. He was 3 months old when he first came to First Baptist and was 22 when he was ordained there.

The congregation Sunday included Braxton's teachers, mentors, coaches and friends who knew him when he was an honor student at Salem High School, those who first cheered him on his way. His many achievements since then include: a Jefferson Scholarship at the University of Virginia, where he was Phi Beta Kappa and was named Most Distinguished Student of his class; the Rhodes Scholarship, which took him to

Oxford, England, for his master's degree; the doctoral program in theology at Emory University in Atlanta; leadership of Douglas Memorial Community Church in Baltimore; and world travel, including a trip to the Holy Land as part of a selective U.S. mission. But it all began here.

``I will never forget what you have done for me,'' he said to the applauding crowd.

He thanked his parents, the Rev. James and Louise Braxton, for their ``life of integrity'' and for raising him and his siblings in the presence of God. He thanked his new wife, Lazetta Rainey Braxton, 24 (``The finest looking member of my congregation lives in my house,'' he said). And he thanked God for all his blessings.

Neatly dressed in a black suit and gold tie, draped in a black robe and lilac stole, his steel-rimmed spectacles catching the light, he looked every bit the quiet religion scholar.

But when he spoke, he lifted people right out of their seats.

At 29, Braxton already has a distinguished career and is becoming a well-known orator and beacon of the church community.

In 1990, The Roanoke Times published a profile about Braxton after he had been named a Rhodes Scholar. The scholarship would take him to Oxford, England, in 1991 for a master's degree in theology.

``At Oxford it was a very brilliant and challenging time,'' he said in a telephone interview earlier this month. ``There were times when I wanted to come home.'' There was a big difference between the glamour of winning the Rhodes Scholarship and the reality of life in a cold Oxford dormitory, he said with a laugh. When he got to Oxford, it was about 43 degrees and raining.

``And, as an African-American young male, to spend two years in the very citadel of whiteness I got more in touch with my blackness.''

It was a time of ``singleness of purpose,'' he said, during which he read more than ever in his life. ``I would get up in the morning and read the New Testament, and I would go to bed reading it, and all day long I would read it.'' And it was all in Greek.

A trip to Africa during a term break had a profound effect on him, he said. At one point he stood at the spot on the Gambia River, on the Slave Coast, where slaves once had been taken away. ``To actually stand [there], it was kind of mystical. And when I was reading Galatians, Paul says, `You are no longer slaves.'''

Out of this experience, intense study and reflection, came his weighty master's thesis, ``No Longer Slaves: Galatians in the Light of an African-American Hermeneutic.''

After returning to the United States, he began the doctoral program in theology at Emory University in Atlanta. ``It seemed like the place to go,'' he said, ``being a real citadel of African-American culture.'' Although he is nearly finished with the program, it has taken awhile to complete because of his pastoral duties. Last year alone, for example, he officiated at more than 60 funerals. And he started a ``high-powered'' Bible study program at Douglas - complete with textbooks and exams - that draws 80 to 100 people each Wednesday night. ``The real goal is to teach people to have an encounter with the text themselves,'' he said. ``What does the New Testament mean today?

``God never promised an exemption from pain. But God has promised an abiding presence,'' he said, using Jesus' cries on the cross as proof. ``Even in the silences, in the dark times, God speaks.''

``God was a very strong presence in our home,'' said his mother, Louise. Like his older sisters, Zenobia and Chanda, and older brother, James Jr., Brad was never pressured to be a minister, although he looked up to his father. The call came to him, said James Sr. ``He said one day, `Dad, it's clear in my soul and my mind and my heart that I'm called to the ministry.'''

But they weren't surprised. Even as a small child, he had a special character. ``He was 5 or 6 and we'd go to church and he loved to sit in the front,'' said his mother. When the family came home, he would repeat what was said in the sermon and sung in the songs.

``Brad has been preparing for this all his life,'' said his father proudly.

When Brad Braxton preaches, he has all of that behind him. His voice is girded with emotion, a passionate style like that of Martin Luther King.

On Sunday, his words came straight from his soul.

He spoke about ``high-altitude living,'' of living at a higher level. He referred to Paul's letter to the Colossians 3:1-2. ``Seek those things that are above,'' he announced, his voice reaching right into people's chests to grab their hearts.

Recalling a turbulent flight he took a few years ago, he said, ``The pilot announced, `We will climb to a higher altitude. The air will be calmer at 30,000 feet.' That pilot knew what he was talking about. We had no more problems.'' This is an important lesson about life, Braxton said, his words building to a roar. ``The best way to avoid turbulence is to move on up a little higher!'' He likened the Holy Spirit to the jet stream, ``a natural, everflowing current of wind, which is able to propel jets faster. The jet stream makes the trip easier, but you've got to fly high enough to get in it.''

Even in hard times, people with faith can do anything, he said, his brow damp. ``I think of the awesome profundity of our slave parents and our parents in Jim Crow times,'' he said, when their fledgling churches had dirt floors and newspaper on the walls. ``Some old saint would stand up and say, `I looked at my hands and my hands looked new.' They understood the importance of newness.''

First Baptist is the kind of deep-rooted church that produces people like Brad Braxton. It's a place where people stand shoulder to shoulder, where visitors are welcomed with embraces and handshakes, and where everyone sings. And, oh, how they sing. The swaying, white-clothed gospel choir is led by a woman with an angel's voice, Louise Braxton, Brad's mother.

``We are so blessed,'' she said, beaming, after his sermon.

With people standing six deep to visit him, Braxton stood holding the elbows of one thin elderly woman. Their foreheads nearly touched as they talked.

In the crowded sanctuary of the old white church, the stained glass windows of green, purple, gold and rose shone mightily, lighted from outside by the sun and inside by joy.

Braxton's work has taken him to four continents. He's seen some of the world's greatest temples and cathedrals. ``But it was here, at First Baptist Church, at 226 South Broad Street,'' he said. ``It was here that I found the Lord.''