This week I had fascinating conversations with two men who on the surface seem quite different, yet in reality mirror one another in many ways. Both of them are pastors who yearn tosee believers once again love the cities enough to invest in them for the sake of the gospel.
On Monday I had breakfast in St.Louis with Darrin Patrick. Darrin planted the Journey church six years ago. Already the largest SBC church in the heart of the city, Journey has a vision to love the city and bepart of a church planting movement. Journey has alliances with the Southern Baptist Convention, the Acts 29 Network, and a with Covenant Seminary(Presbyterian). Darrin has been a bit controversial, but I found him to be humble, thoughtful, teachable, and more than anything eager to see God move in his city.
The next day I had lunch with Charles Lyons, pastor for about three decades of the Armitage Baptist Church in Chicago. I met Charles years ago. Lyons was the first person to get the wheels spinning in my mind about the need and opportunity of the city. When our son Josh turned 12, I took him to Armitage to do some mission work as a rite of passage for him. From then until now Josh has been deeply impressed with a love for great cities. I owe pastor Charles much.
These men came from two different generations, two different backgrounds, and two different cities, albeit both were Midwestern. One was a church planter who had quickly developed a church planting network, the other an established pastor who had given his life to the inner city of Chicago. But both of these men, neither of whom knew the other, said so much of the same thing. They both described the need of the city. They recognized what Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian in NYC has been saying,that the cities of America are revitalizing, that many young, ethnic, single, and spiritually unaligned people are flocking back into the cities, and we have done little to reach them. They spoke in similar terms of what it would take to turn the tide to reach the cities. They agreed that such an effort would only help fuel international missions as well, as the nations are in the great cities. They spoke of the need of interns and the failure of sending young couples to the cities to plant churches only to be chewed up and spat out due to isolation and limited training in the dramatic culture shock that comes when one enters a large city, particularly outside the South. They spoke of the need of suburban and other churches thriving outside the cities to help fund such internships.
The American church has tended to see cities as dangerous places, places to be avoided. Suburbs have become the haven of many evangelicals. And we wonder why the church has lost so much influence in our day? Influence comes from the cities. But Paul obviously went to the cities of his day as critical to reaching the Roman Empire. And before Paul’s journeys, “laymen” reached the fourth largest city of the Empire in a spontaneous movement spurred by persecution (see Acts 11:19-23). When the gospel came to Antioch, a missionary base to reach the Gentiles was established (see Acts 13:1-2).
“Antioch is of special interest becauseit was unusually receptive to the Christian movement, sustaining a relatively large and affluent Christian community quite early on,” Stark argued (The Rise of Christianity,p. 147), continuing that urban conditions, replete with overcrowded conditions, disease, sanitation issues, and the like, “gave Christianity the opportunity to exploit its immense competitive advantages viz-a-vis paganism and other religious movements of the day as a solution to those problems.”
By the end of the first century A.D. Antioch had about 150,000 residents, making it the fourth largest city in the empire. That was the population of those inside the city walls, meaning about117 people per acre. Compare that density to New York City (27 peracre) and Chicago (21). Add to that the fact that no dwellings in Antioch were over five stories and you can see the crowded nature of the city. A transient and multiethnic population filled the city:
“Any accurate portrait of Antioch in New Testament times must depict a city filled with misery, danger, fear, despair, and hatred. A city where the average family lived a squalid life infilthy and cramped quarters, where at least half the children died at birth orduring infancy,… A city filled with hatred and fear rooted in intense ethnic antagonisms and exacerbated by a constant stream of strangers.” (Starke, p. 160)
Stark argues that Christianity in Antioch literally revitalized the city by “providing new norms and new kinds of social relationships able to cope with many urgent urban problems.” Disease, earthquakes, ethnic strife, poverty, and the like existed prior to Christianity’s appearance in Antioch; but the Christians showed a new way to cope. His observation should be heeded by those who seek to move out of theChristian subculture with welcome signs on the church property as a primary means of “outreach.”
“No wonder the early Christian missionaries were so warmly received in this city,” he observed. “For what they brought was not simply an urban movement, but a new culture of making life in Graeco-Roman cities more tolerable.” (Starke, p. 162)
Patrick and Lyons would argue that the great door for the western church is found inside the great cities of the West. They also agreed with me (I like it when people agree with me) that the approach we generally take in church planting has not been effective. We tend to be driven by numbers so we can report the large numbers of new church plants in state conventions and atnational meetings. “We planted X churches this last year,” we trumpet. Yet over the last two decades we have planted many, many churches, and baptisms continue to decline. I have watched too many students I have taught–gifted, theologically solid, and passionate–go to places with a ticking clock over their head—“get the church going and hurry, your support will run out soon.” Some have been successful. But more than enough have spent two or three years of their young lives pouring out their hearts, isolated, not prepared for what lay ahead, and often finish their time feeling like they have failed. Not a great way to begin one’s ministry I am thinking.
So I asked these two men how we can do better in our approach to church planting in the cities. These two men from two generations and two distinct urban contexts said exactly the same thing: the key to helping raise up effective church planters is internships. Bringing young church planters alongside churches already in the cities, already reaching people, already with a church planting strategy, to live and learn how to contextualize from those who are there already, then from that context planting a church with the love and encouragement of that church, that would be far more effective. This approach means planting far less churches in the short term. It likely means more church planting teams than church planting lone rangers (read the Acts, they did this), but in the long term, such churches themselves would be planting other churches. I would argue that such anapproach over a generation would actually plant more effective churches and reach more people, and have more influence in the cities.
I think there is a place to send young couples out to plant churches. I have seen my students do this well. But the city is a jungle. The multiethnic, rapidly transient, varied constituency requires the church planter to be pastor/teacher/missiologist/and others all at once. So here is an idea. It maybe stupid, but it just might work.
What if some of our established churches with money sitting in the bank (I actually run into these churches from time to time and it amazes me), and some healthy suburban churches who invest so much of their resources into just one more building campaign, actually took a chunk of their change and invested in urban churches committed to church planting to reach the cities? I have run into several very bright urban pastors who have the vision and the capacity to help guide interns. Theone thing they do not have is the funding. I know many pastors who are great men of God and leading effective churches outside the cities. But they have no clue about how to reach the cities. And they have resources in their churches. I know some are already doing this. I just have a hunch that we could see a true movement, a real shift in impact in the largest cities of America, if we could pull this off. I see many of the brightest students on our campus, passionate about the gospel, hungry to plant churches. I can teach them essentials of evangelism and principles of being missional. But I am no idiot; I know I am nobody’s expert on urban ministry. But if I could get some of my brightest students to spend a year or two with a pastor and church in a city who does get it, what could God do for a lifetime through those students?
I am only a student at this myself with much to learn. I would love to hear what you have to say about this.
This is a great article, its amazing how many people are thinking along these lines. We are working toward a church plant in Tifton, GA. It is not a large city by any stretch, but the concerns about interning and funding and teams, not couples, are all things that after four years and a successful church plant in Maine, I have decided must change. So our plant down here will be funded by us and other local churches in our association, with a core team (from our churches), and with a solid church planter who is willing to be mentored and interned with me (although I am only 32). Great thoughts, keep telling them to the folks in the major denominational entities until they adopt them. Maybe they will listen to you. Write another book…haha. Thanks for the thoughts!
Thanks alot! My expansive revision/new book I am finishing has a new chapter on church planting and one on reaching the cities. Doing all I can to make a difference!