Urban Ministry, Church Planting Leaders Answer the ‘What Can I Do?’ Question

Simply discussing the problems and issues facing America today, even from a Christian perspective, is not enough, said the leaders of two national organizations that recently announced a partnership to plant churches in Los Angeles, New York, and everywhere in between.“We really don’t have to look much farther than social media and news outlets [to see] everything going on in our culture — the racism, the injustice…,” said Jeff Bennett, who is a Stadia executive for its U.S. Church Planting and South Region divisions. “We can talk about the injustices, we can talk about the discouragement we feel, or we could do something.”Stadia, a church planting resource that has helped “hundreds of great leaders start new churches,” and World Impact, a ministry that “empowers the urban poor and incarcerated” recently held a “vision trip” in Los Angeles where Bennett along with World Impact National Director Bob Engel spoke to TogetherLA.net about the partnership.They said that church planting, urban outreach and discipleship are action steps and answers to the questions many people in America are now asking in a tension filled, politically charged country. Prayer is an essential part, but not the only part, they said.Bennett said he believes that currently many people are often asking, “What can I do? How can we impact culture? How can we change some of the things that just disgust us that are going on today? Is there something our churches can do?”He followed the list of questions by saying that almost every American church is within 20 minutes of an urban, under-resourced community.“There are people living in those communities who maybe your church isn’t going to reach, but that doesn’t take away the responsibility off of you to get the gospel out there,” Bennett said. “You’ve got great organizations like World Impact who are training up leaders who live in these communities, to go go back to these communities and reach their neighbors but they need our help. There are very practical things we can do, the church can do to make an impact in these communities. When we start to do that, that’s when we see culture change and communities change.”When asked about the significance of the partnership, Engel said, “Souls. That’s always the first thing I think about. Souls are eternal, and yes, there are a lot of needs in the city. We do believe, first of all, that the church of the living God comes together and they’ve been given a steward of the gospel.“The gospel becomes a power to transform someone from the inside,” he explained. “That transformation then brings them into community — we plant churches — that community then has been given the keys of the kingdom of God. Then, ultimately I believe, Stadia believes [that] true transformation is going to come when people are changed from the inside, gathered together as God’s people and then begin to use their gifts to transform their community around them.”Engel said the partnership between Stadia and World Impact is “very critical if you just think about the kingdom of God.”“The kingdom is churches, God’s people coming together to advance and expand His kingdom — can’t do it separately, you need to do it together — and so Stadia is so committed to God’s kingdom, planting churches, people coming to Christ, being discipled…,” he said. “That’s who we are amongst the urban poor and under-resourced communities and so it’s a beautiful marriage.“When we think of LA together we also think of Stadia and World Impact together. We need to come together to move God’s kingdom forward.”

8 Questions for Churches at a Crossroads

One of our core values at Grace Hills is, “We stay fast, fluid, and flexible. There are no sacred cows. We embrace the pain of change for the win of seeing more people meeting Jesus.”I wrote that one knowing that of all of our other core values, it would probably be the hardest to honor over the long haul. It addresses the crossroads where theology meets psychology, where truth, mission, and fear intermingle. Change is hard.The American evangelical church is in a rather desperate condition. You’ve heard that America is a “Christian” nation and that Christianity is dominant. Perhaps it’s the popular religion, but far fewer people are attending church than we realize. And we’re only planting one-fourth of the number of new churches needed to keep pace with America’s current population growth and rate of decline in existing churches.So churches absolutely must change and adapt if they will remain relevant to the culture.I realize many Christian leaders don’t like that terminology, so let me clarify that God’s Word, the Gospel, Jesus, and the church as Jesus intended it to be have always been, are now, and always will be relevant without our help. But we often hold on extra-biblical traditions and ideas that severely limit our ability to communicate with a young generation, an influx of immigrants, and a culture being shaped by its technology and entertainment more than its religious and historical roots.In other words, if Satan’s goal is to blind the minds of those who don’t know Christ to the Gospel, we often help by handing out blinders such as inauthenticity, racism, ethno-centrism, traditionalism, and political power struggles driven by fear and selfishness.But if God’s desire to enlarge his family matter . . . if people who are lost forever without the Gospel matter . . . and if the church of the future matters . . . we will embrace the pain of change for the win of seeing more people meeting Jesus.I don’t have all the answers, but I think I have a few, and they are rooted in my understanding of the Gospel’s effect on a community and my experience interacting with thousands of pastors and churches in the last few years. As I look at the landscape of stable or slightly declining existing churches that are fighting hard to stay afloat in the current of a rapidly changing culture, I see some common factors that must be addressed by church leaders. Here are some tough questions I believe every church ought to honestly ask:

• Are we really all about Jesus? Is he the head? Does he have preeminence? Are we clear with people that it is to Jesus, and not to a consumer-oriented experience, that we are inviting them? Attraction is good. Jesus was attractive. But are we honest about to whom we are inviting people?
• Will we hold tightly to our historical, biblical theology? Will biblical inerrancy, which has survived a tough struggle in some circles, continue to thrive among evangelical leaders? Will we be faithful to the Word of him who is the one and only way, truth, and life?
• Will we place our need to control, which is based on fear, on the altar as a sacrifice and begin to rely on the Holy Spirit? Will we trust his under-shepherds without the red tape of boards, committees, and votes? Will we listen to Hebrews 13:17?
• Will we embrace people from other cultures and backgrounds? Will we finally put to death the idea of the white church, black church, Hispanic church, etc.? Can we value our cultural heritage without the competitive idea that my culture is better than your culture?
• Will we create a safe place for people to deal with their hurts, habits, and hang-ups in the light of the Gospel? Can we ever assure people that we won’t use their past against them and handcuff them to their shame?
• Can we grow up and get over our demand for our own preferences to be met? Will we be able to adapt our communication to the language of humanity instead of church-ese? Will we welcome newcomers with love and wisdom, and listen and learn from them rather than leaving the responsibility of adaptation to them?
• Will we make prayer and submission to God the priority over polished productions and performances?
• Will we take risks, spend money, change names, reconstitute, relaunch, help the new church plant down the street, and venture into new mission fields by faith rather than remaining safe and comfortable? Not all of these apply to everyone, of course, but will we take the necessary risks?

More than ever, we need to keep our passion hot for Jesus, his truth, his church, new churches, new mission fields, unreached people, uninvolved believers, unforgiven sinners, the least, the last, and the lost. Pretty much everything else can be left behind.Any tough questions you would add? Or how are you wrestling with these and similar issues?