what an urban tv show that was

an urban movement

"Christians need not be shaken or surprised by anything that happens in the city. they expect to find much that is beautiful and beneficial, because God's common grace is operative there, and the very nature of the city encourages cultural development." (31)

"The mission movement of the New Testament was primarily an urban movement. After Pentecost the gospel spread from city to city and from cities to the surrounding countryside." (36)

--Cities, Missions' New Frontier

All nations

All the nations you have made will come and worship before you, O Lord; they will bring glory to your name. Psalm 86:9

Can you imagine? All the nations of the world worshipping before the Lord? The Psalmist says that it will be so. The book of Revelations says that it will happen. God, throughout His word, makes this promise time and again. What does it look like to God, seeing all nations worshipping Him at once? When you look from a stage and see a crowd, you get a different perspective. Imagine what the world's worship would look like from God's perspective? What does He see when a homeless woman worships Him? Does he see her worshipping right alongside the wealthiest businessman, who sits right alongside the Indian shop owner who stands in worship right alongside everyone else in His kingdom. Can you see it from His perspective? I'm trying to.

Schaller's Wisdom

"well over 99 percent of all Protestant congregations in the United States operate on the basis that 'We invite you to come to our place and worship God with us.' By definition, that is an exclusionary assumption. Therefore, the second step... is to change that operational assumption. 'We are prepared to come to you, to study God's Word with you, to hear your concerns, and to worship God with you either on neutral turf or on your turf'"

from What Have We Learned?

wish this weren't my motto

hard work often pays off after time,
but laziness always pays off now.

This morning in a matter of a few miles I went from my Mexican neighborhood through Third Ward, (a black neighborhood), then through Chinatown, then through yuppie-hood to my office. At the Medical Center I saw people from probably 20 different countries (and that was even half asleep without adequate coffee.) Is this not like the world that the church thrived in throughout the book of Acts?
Why does our church believe that cultural diversity is an obstacle for growth? In Antioch the leaders of the church came from all across the known world. Blacks led alongside Greeks. The church from Jerusalem sent Barnabas to see if there really was a large and diverse group of converts. Would our churches believe the diversity of the church in the city today? Would they send a delegation into the Hispanic barrio to see if people are really coming to faith and send their best encourager in order to help build up that church? Would they come and see the new Korean fellowship, the Liberian fellowship, the Chinese fellowship, etc? Maybe not. Would they send an encourager to help build up the church? I don't know. I pray that someday our church realizes that God is bringing the world to our city so that our ministry now takes on a missionary flavor and brings the much needed excitement for evangelism back into our sanctuaries.

ministry to the poor

Many people have gotten the idea that urban ministry is about only ministering to the poor. Urban ministry is about seeing the whole city, finding who isn't being reached and doing ministry that reaches them. The fact that a high concentration of people in the city is poor means that the church must be about ministry to the poor if it resides in the city. The church must also minister to the ethnic communities in the city, because the city is so ethnically diverse. The church in the city also ministers to the drug addicts and prostitutes as well as the down and out. The city church must minister to the orphans, the refugees, the widows and the wealthy. To pass up the poor and "worthless" in order to reach the "reachable" is to risk passing up the Lord himself. How can our church be so convinced that ministry must be to those who are most like us. We are sinners wearing filthy rags. Who could be most like us than the poor wretched soul who begs for food on the street? Aren't we all beggars at the mercy of the Lord? Jesus himself didn't go to the rich and middle class, but mostly ministered on the street. The rich man doesn't dwell on the street but the common man does.

"Don't the poor and common come with a lot of baggage?" "Don't they have weaknesses that make them liabilities for the church instead of instant givers?" Yes, but they also give the church great purpose and experience. They also give the church great rap-or in society since the most common complaints about the church in today's society are that it is only seeking money and its members don't have an authentic, working faith. Would we risk polluting our youth group with the kids from "those" families in order to minister to them? Would we take the time to peel back the layers from a street wise hustler to find a soul in need of Jesus? Would people get nervous? yes they would. Would people possibly leave the church? Maybe. Would people say nasty things? Probably. We are a church full of real people with real prejudices, real comfort zones and real desires to be free from the problems of the city for a while while in church. If we need an escape from the city to be with the Lord for awhile, what about those who never escape the city and its evil? What about those who live on the edge? The church can be real and authentic to them just like Jesus himself would be.

wasting time

I'm sitting here on a Saturday night before I have to preach. I don't have my sermon done and I've just wasted 2 hours playing with my computer. What is the problem with me? Now I have to wake up at 4 am and finish a sermon for tomorrow. Why don't I ever learn?

sitting in onion creek coffee shop

People behind me making jokes of the movie "The Passion of The Christ." It's not the movie that I'm hurt by, but the actual sufferings of Christ made fun of by people that hurt me. Didn't they make fun of Christ when he was going through his pain and agony? Don't they make fun of Christians around the world as they face torture and death for their faith? How do we as a people of God reach a world that cares so little for the sacrifice that was made for them. Through love, compassion and living the Gospel for them in an authentic way.

The church must find a way to approach society with these issues. That's where real ministry, "ministry to the poor, outcast, homeless, widows and imprisoned" makes such a difference. Churches in the city have such a bad reputation among their communities for being a country club of sorts. The churches witness in the community is made more powerful when the church can point to how God is moving through it to make a great impact on people's lives. That's when the satire and arguments against religion have no punch. God doesn't hurt when people make fun of a movie made by a Hollywood actor. He hurts when his church doesn't have the desire anymore to engage and save it's community.

Factors for Urban Church Growth

Values shared by church and community that positively affect urban church growth are:
1. Demographic
Education and income
2. Idealogical
strict vs. intolerant churches
localism vs. cosmopolitanism
3. Relational
Network of friendships in urban settings no longer tied to geography and tradition as in rural locale.
"Significant relational groups" Kenno Callahan
"Bridges of God" Claude S. Fischer (1 40)

The primary independent predicting variable is "the degree of congruence between the values of the institution and those of its context." (45)

"Where the cultural symbols of a congregation are congruent with those of a local community, the Gospel will receive aneasier hearing." (144)

"planting and growing urban churches"

"First, as misssion leaders, we have failed to foresee both the urban growth and the fact that most of the urban growth will be in squatter areas." (158)

Secondly, some missions have made a deliberate strategy to go for the rich, believing in a sort of religious "trickle-down" theory." "The Gospel trickes up. Any man or woman who would follow Jesus to walk among the poor will affect countless among the middle and rich classes." (159)