Introduction:
Across
America, churches on the edge of core cities are fading into oblivion. As
neighborhoods enter racial/class/economic transition, these churches could
serve as great sites for mission. Instead, their congregations atrophy and the
new population remains unreached by the Gospel. Simultaneously, suburban
pastors complain of lack of commitment as GenX members decry a missionless
church that doesn’t make a difference in the real world. This paper will
develop a new paradigm to deal with this problem, which I will term the ‘Bridge
Church.’
Paradigms
develop in the church as they do in all facets of human endeavor. Models,
norms, ideals and formulae have guided the church since the first Jerusalem
Council. The ‘official’ paradigms of the Roman church closed down four
centuries of Celtic Missions, the only evangelism that had worked since Nicea.
The Celtic paradigm worked so very well, but it didn’t fit the top-down
political and missiological paradigm of the Eighth Century Roman Church.
Sometimes we cling to paradigms that don’t work but have become universal
‘truths.’ Urban ministry is currently bound by two of these.
One of
today’s urban paradigms speaks of an urban church, built of city people, living
in the neighborhood around the church, with the pastor living in the center of
the urban parish. It has had some success; it has also had much failure. This
model is as uncontested as the fireproof nature of a medieval salamander.
(Medieval ‘authorities’ taught that salamanders could not be burned in a fire.
An apochryphal story says that at the beginning of the Renaissance someone
decided to throw one into a fire to see what would happen, to test the ancient
‘authorities.’ It burned.) The model of the totally urban church, with
the pastor living ‘on site’ is accepted by the ‘authorities’ as the only truth.
I think that salamander needs some toasting.
In this
paper I propose an alternative model, one that has worked for our congregation,
and may work in many other small- to medium-sized metropolitan areas. This
model will show a close linking of suburban people with urban congregations;
from this internal linking will grow external linkings to other suburban
congregations. I will show how this linking can provide the resources to keep
these urban churches thriving, and at the same time create a vibrant sense of
ministry in the suburban churches. This
is the “Bridge Church.” This is what we
have been working to build at St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in
Minneapolis, Minnesota. At the end of the paper I’ll show some concrete
examples of how these ideas work in our congregation.
I) The Problem
Across
urban mainline Protestantism today hangs a great pall. These churches are
dying. Maintenance ministry is barely possible as the median member age of
mainline urban core churches creeps toward 75 years. Unless God sends an
unexpected revival on our land, the next 15 years will see the death of
mainline denominations in the core cities of America. Lutherans are a few
years younger than that average, but at most a decade.
In the
Minneapolis area, the past fifteen years have seen the closing of about a half
a dozen Lutheran congregations, with some buildings being sold off to other
denominations, some being given to new ethnic-specific startup congregations,
while many others teeter at death’s door. A few city churches, especially those
politically well positioned in their denominations, have been kept alive by
mission partner funds from suburban congregations. But overall, the slide
continues. A parade of short pastorates, failed denominational promises and
shipwrecked schemes have been the story of the core city Minneapolis parishes
in the 20 years. This paper’s direction is perhaps too late for them, but not
too late for the transitional congregations (ones in changing neighborhoods and
disappearing middle class members) of the middle sections of north and south
Minneapolis.
The 60's
developed a second paradigm in the city parishes. Social relevance
became the holy grail of urban pastors, and the social advocate congregation
became the model. “ministry in social change” became the only correct form of ministry in the core city.
Involvement in the social causes of the day was seen as the catalyst to bring
life to the urban church. Throughout the ‘80's, our Southeastern Minnesota
District of the American Lutheran Church spent much of its annual convention
debating the merits of various resolutions on pressing social causes, from
where our churches were to buy coffee, to Central American politics, to
apartheid, to the Nuclear Freeze. Inevitably these resolutions came from a
handful of activist inner city congregations in Minneapolis. This social
advocacy became the central mission of these urban churches. It is interesting
to note that most of these congregations have now disappeared. Those churches
died. The paradigm didn’t work. The church was not built nor strengthened. The
salamander burned, but the authorities kept up the old truth.
Since that
time, urban ministry has grown up a bit. The radical politics of the youth of
the 60's has become broader in its horizons. Organizations like SCUPE and
writers like Baake have helped us to become more aware in a systematic fashion
of how the urban church can flourish. Bakke’s writings have been a new catalyst
for a broader, holistic faith-based approach to the city. However, these new
paradigms, now 15-20 years old, are also becoming ossified. Paradigms come into
existence within given environments. Environments change and are never the same
in different places. Seemingly asbestal salamanders begin to sizzle.
II) How it Came to be
A) The Wells’ Come to the City
When I came
to the city in 1988, the Synod, the national urban staffers and many others
held to two unshakeable ideals: 1) Core city pastors must live in the core
city. 2) City churches must strive to be only neighborhood churches, peopled by
neighborhood folks, doing ministry with the neighborhood and not to
it. Bakke is a strong proponent of this idea[1]. I didn’t
know it then, but it’s another whopping salamander. There is some truth in it,
but it’s certainly not the repository of all the truth of the ages.
When we
came to St. Paul’s in 1988, we spent a year looking at houses in the city while
waiting for our house to sell. We came to the conclusion that Brenda was simply
not able to commute via rush hour freeways to her job in St. Paul. After
several months of searching, we focused on Roseville, a first-ring suburb
touching Minneapolis and St. Paul. She was four miles from school; I was 13
minutes from church. Our old home sold, we bought a Roseville house. That was
the end of the story; that was the beginning of the story, and our own personal
‘bridging’ of suburb and city. By necessity, we began to warm the salamander.
B) Our Congregation’s History
The story
of St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church needs to be told at this point. St.
Paul’s began its ministry in the Seven Corners/West Bank area of Minneapolis in
1872. In the next 50 years, the neighborhood began to change and deteriorate.
In 1925 the congregation, citing the neighborhood’s changes, voted to buy an
available church building at 18th Street and 14th Avenue,
less than a mile away. The minutes of those meetings cited ‘the darkening
complexion of the neighborhood’ as a reason to move. The old building was sold
to an African Methodist Episcopal congregation.
St. Paul’s
remained at the 14th & 18th site for the next 40
years, until its building was claimed by freeway construction. At that time the
congregation’s vision was quite different. Even though many Minneapolis
churches were moving to the suburbs, St. Paul’s decided to remain in the city.
Two factors were cited: 1) Our members were already spread across a 30-mile
circle around the western half of the metro area. 2) Where was a church more
needed than in the decaying neighborhood?
The church decided to stay in the city for the sake of mission.
The
congregation that marched to the new site at 1901 Portland Avenue South on Palm
Sunday, 1964, had about 1,450 members. Twenty-four years later, when I arrived,
it showed about 650 members. Despite the heroic ministry of my predecessor, who
kept the congregation strong for 30 years, many of the congregation had moved
to the suburbs. Further, the Lutheran Bible Institute and the Lutheran
Deaconess Hospital, both sources of idealistic young members, had vanished. St.
Paul’s had lost its ministry of discipling young folks.
In the year
before I came to St. Paul’s, two more situations drove the congregation to
despair. First the congregation split over entering into the newly merging
ELCA, costing us virtually all our baby boomer families. Secondly, a proposed freeway
widening threatened to take our building again.
In this
milieu, I began to visit most of the members, noting that more than half lived
in suburbs, in Eagan, Apple Valley, Chanhassen, Eden Prairie, St. Louis Park,
Plymouth, Maple Grove, Brooklyn Park and New Brighton. St. Paul’s is a
metro-wide parish, made up of many suburban people who are committed to making
a difference in the city. Most importantly, they see their church membership in
terms of mission. They remain at St. Paul’s for the sake of mission.
As I visit
and study other area parishes, I see a difference between St. Paul’s and other
adjacent churches. St. Paul’s has not lost its suburban people. St. Paul’s
remains vital, because it has given its people a model, a mythos, a framework
to understand their lives as mission. Its emphasis on world missions has helped
this. The dozen-some retired missionaries who have been members of St. Paul’s
during my years there have helped create a cultural openness that has knocked
down a few walls. From this suburb-city
bridging of the members has come a natural bridging to suburban congregations.
More importantly, St. Paul’s has developed these relationships without becoming
financially dependent on them. St. Paul’s giving base has not been destroyed,
which will be explained further on.
III) Incarnational Partnership
A) Little has Been Written
Little
literature has appeared on the topic of partnership between urban and suburban
congregations. What has been seems to be driven by the last-ditch efforts of
mainline churches to slow the demise of their core-city outposts. Within the
evangelical and pentecostal communities, experimentation has also begun[2]. Partnership is still generally thought of as the
transfer of funds from suburb to city. Oddly, an exhaustive search, using ATLA and
the Luther Seminary computer system, assisted by the Research Librarian at
Luther showed only a handful of journal articles and one book essay on
urban-suburban partnerships!
In the
August 20, 1990 Christianity Today a short article tells of work being
done at Eastern College by Tony Campolo in linking suburb and city. An old 1974
essay by L. Edward Davis speaks about sharing resources in a collection of
essays entitled The Urban Mission.
In a recent
work, The Large Church[3], Lyle
Schaller lists seven counterproductive tactics of denominations. Significantly,
his fifth was “Providing ongoing denominational funding to declining
congregations ...” This pattern,
which gives the congregation a sense of ‘being on welfare’ and destroys the
congregation’s giving base, in the long run ends up euthanizing the very
congregations it seeks to help!
B) A Model Invented
In 1991, as
our Council looked at bringing in outside funds, I told them that I would work
a bit at that, if three things were promised: One, that the congregation’s budget
of 1991, with all of its expenses, would remain the responsibility of the
congregation alone; Two, that outside money would fund only new initiatives,
which if unfunded would be sunsetted. Three, that these partnerships would be
mutually beneficial and that we would give back to those congregations as much
as we received.
This was
the beginning of our CitySpirit Ministries and the School of Urban Ministry
(SUM). CitySpirit is the channel of funding. The School of Urban Ministry and
related training is our way of teaching mission to those congregations. (SUM
will be explained in detail, below.)
This symbiotic relationship is a win-win situation, with both
congregations having their sense of worth increased, funds and people power
going where it is needed, and both congregations are strengthened.
The
congregation has two separate budgets. Our regular budget covers all the basic
operation of our church, the same as it was in 1991, adjusted for inflation.
The separate budget, ‘CitySpirit Ministries,’ consists of whatever funds come
in from outside sources. This funds much of our youth program, special work
with seniors, transportation and our Summer Advance children’s program. All of
these programs will be ended if funding is not available. They are the responsibility
of our funders.
C) Cultural Barriers and Lack of Credibility
The key to
this relationship is the credibility our message receives among suburban people
because ‘many of our members are people just like you.’ In candid conversations I find that suburban
people are prejudiced against the urban church and the urban setting. Their
thought runs: Those city people.. ‘are
stupid,’ ‘make bad choices,’ ‘don’t want to work hard,’ and are content to live
in the ‘icky city.’ The city is a place
of failure, a place to escape from, a violent place of strange people
whom we see on countless TV dramas. Everything the suburbs are built to create
-- clean open spaces, good schools, lots of opportunities for kids, and
energetic, hard-working folk, – are seen as missing in the city. It’s the city.
It’s icky. Perhaps this would be better described as classism. Beyond this is
the problem of racism, but even ‘white on white’ there is a profound prejudice.
When core
city people have contacts with these suburban congregations, there is a great
sense of paternalism and at best, pity. Rage, power differential, and the sense
of being second class, build frustration in the urban church as well! There is the sense of entering into a
relationship doomed to failure, dependency and hopelessness. Their thought is
that city congregations always fail, suburban aid only stretches out the
inevitable. (Isn’t that what Schaller said?)
There is a
perceived cultural distance being experienced. In terms of the work of Ralph
Winter in his watershed essay at the Lausanne Conference of 1974, The New
Macedonia: A Revolutionary New Era Begins[4], the
city/suburb interface is not an E-0, culturally equivalent relationship. In
reality, it is a relationship with a built-in cultural distance, a distance of
at least E-1 type, such as one might experience when approaching an Australian
or Mexican is taking place. I don’t think this has been recognized. City and
suburb, only minutes away, have defined themselves vis-ŕ-vis each other for at
least a century. City dweller and suburbanite define each other in terms of
being ‘other’ from each other. Thus even racially- and denominationally-alike
churches are in the position of ‘stranger.’
Added to that is a fear of many to enter the
city to help. Several suburban folks who have attended the School of Urban
Ministry have spoken of profound fear of coming into the city at night. One of
our board members, an intelligent and rational woman, has stated repeatedly
that when she came to SUM the first time she was convinced that she would be
killed in our parking lot.
D) A New Paradigm: A Bridge Congregation
Therefore,
it is imperative that we build ‘bridge’ congregations, where suburban people
can be members of the urban church and then translate that church’s ministry to
other suburban people. I find that doors open because I and others working with
me are suburban people, who live in the same culture but work in the core city.
This helps non-member suburbanites to gain a glimpse of how they can be
involved in the city. This is incarnational ministry. This is a vision of how
transitional churches can retain their suburban members and give them a mythos,
a strong identity of being ‘urban missionaries,’ ones who can build bridges to
other suburbanites. Suburban members can serve as channels of centripetal force
instead of being flung outward themselves by the centrifugal forces of suburban
culture. The transitional churches can be saved, strengthened and be made to be
vital centers of mission.
IV) How can this Relationship be Built?
A) Affirm Suburban Missionaries & Build a New
Identity
First, it
is imperative that the core city church with remaining suburban members
specifically address the challenge of being a suburbanite in an urban setting.
The congregation must openly, creatively, repeatedly and consciously see
themselves as being called to the city. That is the most important concept
in this paper. Suburban people must find meaning in the fact of
their involvement. This needs to be interpreted back to them, built on, and strengthened
until it is as much a part of the congregation as its building. Celebrating
that commitment, thanking the people for their sacrifice, and reliving the
congregation’s commitment to the city regularly are terribly important. Yes, if
they move out to suburban mega churches, they will be asked to give less; they
will be able to blend into the crowd; they won’t have to deal with constant
shortfalls and building repairs; their kids will have spiffy youth ministries–
but they will be far poorer in relationships; they will be far more culturally
isolated; they will not have the same opportunity to lay their faith on the
line over and over again; they won’t be able to grow and learn as a family to
live as missionaries, while still sleeping in their own beds.
The deep
commitment is a drawing point for some. Doug Grow of the Minneapolis
Star-Tribune wrote an article on our congregation several years ago,
calling it ‘a green-beret church: highly trained, highly motivated, deeply
committed and working behind enemy lines.’[5] I’m not very
comfortable about the ‘enemy’ part, but the other words struck a deep chord in
our congregation. It has become part of our congregation’s lore and identity. A
green beret, given by a member, hangs
in my office as a reminder. A visiting missionary, home from Bolivia, mentioned
it in a sermon here last week. It’s a part of our lore, our identity.
Another
slogan we use is “Healing the Heart of the City.” We know why we’re there. We decided to be there and make a
difference in 1964. Like the ELCA has said recently, ‘We’re in the City for
Good.’ The congregation’s strong
identity as a suburban/city bridge is the first key.
Our
congregation has had a strong vision for world missions for more than a
century. Over and over again we echo that with the phrase, “Now the Whole World
has Come to us!” Bakke stresses
building a congregation’s future consonant with its past[6]. A strong sense of identity is central to the well
being of individuals and churches. A person who has suffered loss goes into
depression, slowing down all of life until a new sense of identity can be
worked through. A congregation needs a sense of identity before it can do
mission. Building a future on the vision of the past, if done wisely and
creatively can give an urban congregation a strong future. This does not mean
doggedly repeating the answers and failures of the past; it means synthesizing
the Spirit’s future by understanding a congregation’s identity. Building the
congregation’s identity around its mission is central to the Bridge
Congregation.
I can’t
imagine how this could be built without a deep commitment to Jesus Christ. The
congregation cannot possibly pour itself out in service without a constant deep
reliance on the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. This cannot be built on
human terms or mere human enthusiasm. No mere secular interest in ‘making a
difference in the city’ is enough. A vibrant, excited, committed, biblically
literate, praying congregation has the only chance to survive the overwhelming
challenges of the city.
B) Build Suburban Mission Partnerships
Second,
once the internal bridging has been strengthened, the external bridges must be
built-- the relationship with suburban congregations must be networked. With
constantly changing staffs and the difficulty of getting over the horizon of
suburban churches’ awareness, this is a constant problem. A small city
congregation can develop a symbiotic relationship with only a handful of
suburban congregations and do it well. It seems to only work if it is done
senior pastor to senior pastor. These congregational relationships need to be
intensive, intentional and well publicized to both congregations.
This sort
of relationship is made difficult by the ‘salad bar’ mentality of many suburban
congregations. So many needs come to them, and they want, above all, ‘to be
nice.’ The funds are then divided out
in lots of $500-1000 to twenty or thirty ministries. Each of these ministries
is then forced to have relationships with many very-lukewarmly committed
congregations, who have little contact other than an appearance at an annual
mission festival, a mailed annual report and perhaps a note in an occasional
newsletter. Neither congregation benefits. That $500 is the same to the urban
congregation as it is to the suburban one-- part of one week’s salary.
To be
outrageous for a moment, is our model marriage or prostitution? A prostitute supports herself with casual
relationships with many men. It is not good or fulfilling for either partner.
In a marriage, rust and a future can be built. In a marriage there is mutual
accountability and affection. God gives and sustains a 
family through marriage.
Another
less than helpful sort of funding is the love suburban donors have of giving
‘seed money.’ The idea is that the
donor wishes to give a sum of money, once, so that it can be used to start a
ministry. The ministry is then supposed to begin the new work and
simultaneously find new funding. In rare cases this works, but to hobble a
ministry, already pushed to the limit, with a one year funding window, and the
need to raise future funds seems to be a symptom more of feel-good giving than
commitment to the city. (Cartoon, below
[7])
Developing a vision for shared ministry, mutually
involved and mutually beneficial, needs to be developed with the suburban
church. The flow of resources and benefit must go both ways, or a dependency
and death will be the result.
C) Practical Considerations
This model,
with suburban people remaining faithful to a city congregation, is contingent
on the ability of those suburban people to travel to the city. Some of our
members travel as far as 35 miles to attend our church, but even 25 is
difficult. Candidly, to be active in the program of a church, an hour-long
commute seems unrealistic. Therefore, it seems unreasonable to think our model
would work in the largest of eastern cities, where suburbs are considerably
more distant from the core city. On the other hand, cities like New York and
Philadelphia also have transitional neighborhoods within easy driving distance
of first and second ring suburbs.
In the
Midwest, in cities like Cleveland, Milwaukee, Dubuque, Des Moines, Minneapolis,
Duluth or St. Louis, the core city is easily within the commuting range of the
suburbs. Particularly the transitional
churches that are on the core edge, which have not yet lost their suburban
connections, are the ones most able to put this into practice. These
congregations are the ones most likely to fade in the next 20 years. Only by
intentionally building a mission identity and a missionary stance can these
churches have a future.
We found
that cell groups helped cement relationships within the congregation. After the
split of 1988, our congregation was splintered and hurting. In 1990 we
organized ‘house churches,’ cell groups based on Bible study, prayer, sharing,
mutual care and fellowship. These groups ran for six years, and cemented the
congregation together. They met all over the Metro area, cementing area
relationships between folks living in the same sector of the Cities. They
cemented the far-flung suburban folks in a mutual sense of missional purpose.
These groups worked very well, but were ended 1996; they had served their
purpose. (Other small group ministries have been developed since.) Until a
congregation has a sense of identity, it cannot function.
D) Ministry ‘Back’ to the Suburban Church
How does
this all look if put into place? Let’s
look at some areas of our work that will illustrate how St. Paul’s does it.
If a
congregation has a workably small number of committed partner congregations, it
can do a reasonable job of teaching and communicating with them. We don’t do as
good a job as we ought, but we send newsletters to them, as well as bulletin
inserts and newsletter articles they can publish as they desire. Mailings for
SUM hit their mailbox several times a year, with brochures and posters. These
are always sent to the church’s secretary, not the pastor. To get their
attention I’ve even occasionally plied these secretaries with McDonald’s gift
certificates as a way of saying thanks–and to get our information into their
publications. Desparate bribery? No, a creative
way to build relationships with the true gatekeepers!
A yearly
pulpit visit is by far the best, but hard to schedule for us, and impossible to
set up in the mega-churches. Instead we volunteer for mission festivals, adult
forums, etc. The partnership is built with many lunches with the senior pastor
and key staff.
Our Summer
Advance program is another key time for building relationships. This is a
flagship program of our congregation. The building is filled with 75 noisy
children all summer, all day. We invite our mission partners to each join us
for a week, bringing older teens and adults to help our large staff. They are
asked to prepare program and crafts, and the suburbanites involved find it a
life-changing experience. We encourage them to go home and tell. That’s
partnership.
The most
important interface with our suburban partners is the School of Urban
Ministry. Founded seven years ago, this
unique program has trained almost 125 people to reach the inner city. It’s
purpose is ‘Teaching Christians to Make Disciples Cross-Culturally in an
Urban Setting.’ It was developed
out of seminars we used for training
folks from our partner churches. As they came to help us, they were overwhelmed
by cultural barriers, the behavior of urban kids, the chaos of the city and
their own fears. After struggling through several of these multi-day events, we
decided to simply set aside every Monday night for training, developing a
year-long curriculum.
St. Paul’s
provides the laboratory and the organization.
St. Paul’s does the publicity, and gathers a board from partner churches
and graduates. The leader teaches about one third of the classes. However, many
experts teach the classes on cultural boundaries, social needs, building
ministries, and on and on. College professors, medical people, social workers,
missionaries, seminary professors, business people and more teach the content.
We call it “SUM” because it is made of a sum of many parts. In its seventh
year, it has been built with a coalition of educational institutions,
congregations, organizations and leaders. The curriculum is made up of two
sixteen-week semesters meeting three hours every Monday night. Independent
study credits can be arranged at area colleges and seminaries and professionals
can use it for cross-cultural CEU’s. People from high school age through senior
citizens have attended.
We seek a
mix of four groups:
1) Suburban volunteers, who wish to be equipped for
volunteer involvement in the city;
2) Urban
leaders who desire to be more effective in entrepreneuring their ministries;
3)
Seminary, College, and Bible School students who wish to serve
cross-culturally, and
4)
Missionaries and candidates for urban ministry worldwide.
This mix
has provided a rich base for discussion. The class work is mix of lecture,
reading, discussion, field trips, small group work and individual encounters.
The two semesters can be taken separately, but function best sequentially. The
SUM poster describes them:
Fall Semester: Cultural boundaries and how they can be
crossed effectively: learning from others’ first-hand experience; making
disciples; neighborhood encounters, entrepreneuring a ministry; basic
theological understandings of cross-cultural work; self-critiquing your
ministry for growth; understanding & witnessing to other world religions;
analysis of local ministries.
Spring Semester: Cell group models; leadership;
discipleship strategies, hands-on developing a plan to reach an urban unreached
people group; more on world religions; putting it all together; learning
about the challenges of the city, including chemical dependency, gangs, mental
health, welfare and more; communications; beginning to build a cross-cultural
ministry.
The course
serves to give people a broad introduction to the city, cultures, world
religions and building a ministry. At first glance it might seem a mile wide
and an inch deep, but I would say it is like a CAT scan: building a
three-dimensional model by taking many snapshots of the city. By the end of the
year, most of the students sense a deep new call to urban work. It’s a
life-changing year. Graduates are encouraged to help recruit the next year’s
class.
E) Simple, Reproducible
As we have
developed our model, a further focus has been to make it reproducible. All
structures have been designed to be simple to communicate and copy. The exact
programs we have put together may not work in every setting, but the ideas are transferable.
This is
particularly true of the School of Urban Ministry. This tool is our best way of
touching and equipping partner congregations. It is simple, easily organized,
and takes me less than five hours each week to administer and teach. As time
has gone on, we have hired a part-time secretary for five hours each week to
handle details. Mission partner churches and organizations supply the board
members and teachers. I believe that this could be reproduced by a handful of
people in any metropolitan area. In fact, one of our first students has already
reproduced SUM in Nairobi!
Programs
like these, offered to partner congregations, must be focused and committed to
excellence. An entire paper could be filled with the need of urban ministries
to focus and self-critique. ‘You don’t hit oil by digging 1,000 holes one foot
deep.’ Only by the urban church
offering excellence and organization can the suburban church find channels of
service.
This sense
of ‘paying back’ the suburban partners, offering them something of equal value
in return for the funds they have shared, is very important for the urban
congregation’s sense of mission and self-worth. The sense of having a ministry
that is shared, one that the suburban congregation ‘owns’ is also very
important, ensuring that ministry will continue through staff changes and winds
of fashion. A sense needs to grow that the city church is the mission station
of the congregation.
A further
possibility for partnership is a bit more radical. We have call this the
‘Onesimus Loan-a-Member Program.’ (Onesimus was the slave owned by Philemon,
whose service Paul requested upon Onesimus’ return home.) A member of a suburban church volunteers to
be an active member of the city congregation for a year. They work, learn, give
and make relationships. The next year they recruit the new ‘Onesimus’ family
and serve as ongoing advocates and interpreters of the urban congregation in
the suburban congregation. We currently have two suburban couples, who have
come to us as ‘reinforcements.’ One, as
they are entering retirement, have chosen to sell their suburban home and come
live and serve in the city. This has been a life-changing experience for them
and goes one step past the Onesimus idea, above!
Summary
If we
desire to save the churches on the transitional edges of cities, we must keep
the suburban members in the congregation. The congregation needs to actively
build the image/mythos/paradigm of the bridge congregation, and joyously
celebrate the deep commitment that demands. The congregation needs to actively
commit itself to the city. It needs to be a spiritually alive congregation,
deeply committed to Jesus Christ, the Word of God, prayer and mission. It needs
to do an exceptional job of communicating its vision internally to its people
and externally to its mission partner congregations’ members. It must focus
its program. It must offer channels of service and training to its suburban
partners. As it receives funds from outside, the congregation must keep these
funds separate from its budget, lest its own giving collapse. Most of all, it
needs to incarnationally demonstrate the possibility of bridging the
urban-suburban chasm.
The future
of the urban church hangs in the balance. It will take tremendously hard work, pastors
who are willing to develop ministries that are overwhelming for their
congregations, and a bold vision far beyond the norm. We need to place our best
and brightest pastors into the city, and
turn them loose to build, even though the salaries will be marginal, the
hours long and the heartbreaks many. As God the Holy Spirit places this vision
and call in the hearts of the people of God, leaders will be called out. The
task now is to show that it is possible. That is what we are about.
It’s time
to test the old paradigms, burn a few salamanders and develop new ones. We must
learn to reach city, which will soon be home to 75% of the world’s people. We
must rebuild our own core city churches. Our forebears struggled heroically to
build these churches, through war and depression. Now it is our turn. Will we
be faithful? Will we hear the voice of
the Spirit? Will we learn to break down
the artificial walls of geography, class, race and economics? Let’s put that wood on the fire and catch us
some salamanders! Then, let’s start
building bridges.
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have
been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he
has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is,
the hostility between us. Ephesians.
2:13‑14, NRSV