The Reality of Urban Church Planting: Fear and Faith

There's something different about someone who acts on their deepest desire to impact lives, ultimately leaving them feeling both vulnerable and fulfilled in their own life.That is the heart of a church planting pastor.There is a certain level of uncertainty to planting something that is counter-cultural to the current state of society. As an urban church planter, there have been times of great joy and extreme lows. Church planting in any context is difficult because you are trying to introduce people to something that is greater than themselves. In the same breath, church planting is about being the mediator between hurt and hope. It is the ability to be in the midst of the vicissitudes of people’s lives, yet offer the solution to their problems. But at the core of this organization or organism, known as society, is the church planting pastors.Urban church planting pastors, who are looking out for the proverbial Gotham City known as their communities, live to transform the lives of the people in their cities. In addition to that, there is something that is very telling about being a church planting pastor in the urban environment. As urban church pastors, there is this idea of being used by God that is beautiful in theory but then there is the reality of actually being in the community doing life with folks.

READ: Urban Church Planter - First, What Does the City Need?

There is a certain level of fear that is part of planting a church for urban pastors. It is not what you might think either. It is not that urban pastors are fearful for their lives or scared to walk down the street in the community where their church lives. But it is fear of failure, the fear of not being able to fulfill the great commission of making disciples.There is fear in the unknown. Will people show up to bible study? Will someone show up for Sunday service?It is the fear of not having the budget to get outreach done or evening having enough to pay the monthly rent for facilities.In the midst of societal race issues, there is the fear of stepping into the center of that tension to be the voice of reason, yet not lose your identity or your “cultural hood card” in the process.There is fear of inadequacies, lack of resources, not having a large congregation, or not having the right words for the wrong situation. The fear of being urban church planting pastors can be enough to have the toughest person walk away, willing to simply go back into the fray of just being a participating member of the local church.Despite these and a lot of other fears, there is hope. The hope in faith is the essence of what drives urban pastors who are planting a church in their community.Faith is the safe place for urban church pastors. Fear is an ever presence, but faith is always there, calming the heart of urban pastors. Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane due to the stress of his call, his assignment to save the world. His prayer was for God’s will to be done. It was in this moment that Jesus knew that his demise was at hand. This was a prayer that reflected faith in the will of God.Urban pastors are constantly on the pendulum of operating within the divided, between fear and faith. The ability to balance between fear and faith is always a presence in the mind of the urban church planting pastor. It is that balance that keeps the urban pastor in the face of God, with the knowledge of knowing that things are truly working for the good of those that remain faithful. It is faith that enables urban pastors to not give up during those lean times of planting the church.It is faith that lets urban pastors know that it is not about the number of people in a church service but the number of blessings. It is faith that lets the urban pastors know that they are transforming lives just by having coffee with the man or woman who is returning from prison. It is faith that lets the urban pastors smile knowing that what is not recorded in the offering plate, is being celebrated in heaven. It is faith that positions the urban pastors to stand whether there are two people or two hundred people. It is faith that urban pastors have to stand for the underpaid port worker, for the under-resourced community, the underrepresented youth, and the overly sexualized young girl.It is that same faith that doesn’t keep track of every hurt, knowing that it should be charged to the head and not to the person’s heart.Fear and faith are the bookends of this thing called ministry, which is where urban pastors learn to live.

Urban Church Planter: First, What Does the City Need?

To truly be an urban pastor planting an urban church one must first get to know the broken parts of the city, said Pastor Cedric Nelms of Chosen Generation Church in Long Beach, during a panel discussion about Los Angeles.

PART TWO – CEDRIC NELMS

“We are very diverse here in our city and I think the best way for us to come together is to be able to plant transformational communities … so that means we are walking into the community asking the questions about what are the needs of the community,” said Nelms, who was recently named City Director for World Impact Los Angeles.He told TogetherLA that Jesus assessed the needs of every situation he came upon “before he actually brought the solution.”“That’s how you begin to transform a community because now you are getting into the dirty part, the grimy part of what it actually means to be an urban pastor planting an urban church,” he said.

4 Pastors Get Real About Los Angeles – Part 1

It may seem like a daunting task to figure out what’s broken in Los Angeles then offer a way to fix everything, but that’s not what four Christian leaders from various parts of L.A. set out to do during a panel discussion at Philosopher’s Cafe (Thursdays at Metropolis) in Santa Monica last month.Co-hosted by Together LA, the panel — Broken City – Is there hope for Los Angeles? — began with moderator Steve Snook of Metro Church giving a heads up to the direction the discussion will go.“I’m going to tell you right now, there’s hope all the way across this panel,” said Snook, a longtime pastor in Santa Monica. “You’re going to hear us being really honest about the brokenness that we see, but not spending much time on the brokenness without getting to a place where we talk about some of what we see happening even now and what is coming based upon the hope that is within us.”Nelms is certainly on the same page.“We have to get unified in understanding that yes, we can be a different color, we can be a different culture, we can be a different race, we can even have a different creed, but we also have to understand that there is only one gospel and one Lord,” he said.The demographics of the community Nelms ministers in includes a population that is 60 percent Hispanic, 40 percent African American, he said. “In that context, three of their top four things on their list community-wise (needs and desires) were job training, youth engagement, and most of all, unification.”Nelms recently described the work of World Impact.“World Impact is a Christian missions organization committed to facilitating church-planting movements by evangelizing, equipping and empowering the unchurched urban poor,” he said. “World Impact’s purpose is to honor and glorify God and to delight in Him among the unchurched urban poor by knowing God and making Him known.“One of the initiatives that World Impact has for the urban pastor is the Urban Church Association (UCA). It is a coalition of urban church pastors that meet once a month for networking, resourcing, reproduction, and soul care. ...Not only do they collaborate and encourage each other, they seek to bring unity to the Body of Christ while transforming their communities together.”This article is the second in a four-part series about the panel discussion hosted by Philosopher’s Cafe and TogetherLA.net on June 15, 2017. The full panel discussion can be viewed on Facebook by clicking on Part 1 and Part 2.Video and photos by One Ten Pictures.4 Pastors Get Real About the City – Together LA Pop-Up Part 1 (Michael Mata)Urban Church Planter: First, What Does the City Need? Part 2 (Cedric Nelms)‘Beautiful’ Westside Striken with Spiritual Poverty a Unified Church Can Cure – Part 3 (Steve Snook)LA Pastors’ Bottom Line: We Want to Help the City That We Live In – FINAL (Brannin Pitre)