Helping The Homeless

During this season when our thoughts turn to the Greatest Gift given, we are moved to express that gift in tangible ways with the lost, last and least among us.  We cannot ignore that the number of unhoused people has increased. Across the county, there are around 59,000 sleeping “in the rough”, of those 36,000 alone can be found in the City of Los Angeles.  While this situation is unacceptable and we pray that our elected leaders enact the right strategies and policies, the Body of the Christ can help ensure that helpful services that exist reach the most vulnerable. Among the latter are families with children.  The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has identified 16,000 students who are homeless (living with a parent or two in shelters, cars or tents).

The LAUSD Homeless Education Program offers a sponsorship project every Christmas season whereby a homeless family receives personal items as well as gifts for the children.  This is a direct way for a church to share the joy of serving a Loving God.  The program will provide a list of items that can be given as well as the back story of the sponsored family.  For more information about the project, you can contact Tammy Wood (a believer), Senior Facilitator at (213) 202-2004 or tammy.wood@lausd.net

Beyond this Christmas time, you can bless a high school senior who has overcome the challenges of being homeless to receive a diploma.  You also can contact Tammy Wood on how your church can honor a graduating student who is homeless.

Another way to assist homeless families is through the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE).  Its Head Start and Early Learning Division give homeless families with children, ages 3-5yrs, priority in getting services to ensure the stability of the family and instill skills and knowledge (health, academic, social-emotional) that will enhance positive development growth in the child.  The services are at no cost to the family but a child must be enrolled in the program.  No home address is required but the family must verify that they are indeed homeless; a letter from a pastor can fulfill that requirement.  To get information about the Head Start program and locate the nearest one near your church call 1-877-773-5543 or go on the website www.prekkid.org.  As homeless families are a priority LACOE will help identify the closest Head Start that has an opening.

May your church be a blessing to others in special ways this season.

Jon Ritner - Part 1 - Ecclesia

We recently caught up Jon Ritner to talk about life and ministry in the heart of Hollywood. He’s the Lead Pastor of Ecclesia Hollywood, and also serves as the Director of Forge Hollywood. Originally from the States, Ritner spent several years in Europe as a “micro church” planter and gained a unique perspective that helps inform his vision for the American Church, and the Church in Hollywood.

TogetherLA: What led you from Brussels to Los Angeles? 

Jon Ritner: I pastored a 3,000+ person mega church in Virginia for 10 years and slowly became concerned that the way we were expressing church was 1) no longer connecting with post-modern/post-Christian generations who were not interested in institutional expressions of faith 2) not really impacting the city we lived in. It just provided religious goods and services for our own Christians and 3) not healthy for its own leaders, as I saw mega church leaders all over the country failing in leadership and losing their ministry and families as a result.

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Below is an excerpt from Ritner’s upcoming 2020 book that explains a bit more about why they went to Brussels and eventually returned to the U.S. 

In February of 2012, I invited one of our church’s missionaries to share with our staff the work he and his wife were doing in Brussels, Belgium. Carlton and Shannon Deal live with their family in the capital of the European Union, where they planted a church, The Well, and formed a local charity, Serve the City, which mobilizes volunteers to meet the tangible needs of the city specifically amongst the homeless, disabled, elderly, victims of abuse, asylum seekers, and children in need. Carlton shared with our staff the challenges of pastoring a church in the post-Christian culture of Europe that rejected the institution of church. He talked about The Well as a “faith community on mission” that exists to help the city flourish, not just in the spiritual domain but in all facets of life: emotional, social, environmental, economic, etc. He spoke of their decentralized strategy to plant microchurches in the various neighborhoods of the city and then come together as a citywide movement once a month to celebrate what God was doing in the everyday spaces of life. His description of Europe’s post-Christian realities and his vision to see a church operating outside its own walls stirred something in me.

In that meeting, I heard God whisper to me in a way I have experienced only a few other times. “What if you could go to Europe and see the cultural future of America and then come back and prepare the American Church for what is coming?”  The Well was experimenting with new ways of being the church in order to thrive in post-Christianity, and those lessons would be invaluable for American leaders in the coming years. In the same way that Joseph saw into Egypt’s future and was able to prepare God’s people for the famine ahead, maybe life in Europe would offer a glimpse into America’s future and insights for how churches needed to adapt to these approaching cultural changes. Gaining those insights now would allow other churches to transition while there was still momentum and resources available.

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TLA: How did your work in Brussels prepare you for serving your congregation in Hollywood?

JR: The main insight I took away was that the American church has to rethink its disciple-making strategy for a post-Christian context that is no longer interested in engaging with a local church to pursue spirituality. We need to reframe disciple-making from being something that relies on property, program and professionals to being the work of every person and taking place in the everyday spaces of life, the places where people already live, work, play and create. Post-Christian people do not come to church, ever. Full stop. So any strategy that is built on growing a church through attracting people to Sunday mornings is soon to be irrelevant.  Most Hollywood churches are simply competing for the same existing Christians who move to LA from the rest of the country.  As that pipeline dries up, we will all be forced to reinvent how we operate as churches.  

We try to emphasize the equipping of every disciple to know how to live as a cross-cultural missionary in post-Christianity and how to make disciples on their own, not merely “invite people to church” so that programs led by professionals can do that work.  We are trying to return God’s work into the hands of God’s people.

We are trying to reclaim the sent and sending nature of God. If God the Father sent the son, sent the spirit, sent the church, why does God’s church so often operate as if people have to “come to us and our services” to experience God. That is anathema to the nature of God. We are sent to bless the world and incarnate Jesus and participate in His Kingdom among the people of the world. Too often the church becomes an insular organization that simply blesses itself or those with the courage to cross over and attend. As that cultural gap grows, less are willing to come join us in our spaces, and we must reform to God’s original plan - a sent community.

TLA: What are some of the issues your congregation wrestles with, unique to the culture and industry of Hollywood? 

 JR: A number of things come to mind.

• The insane pace of life as people juggle traffic, multiple jobs, young families, etc. 80% of our people are in the industry, and 50% are parents, so that comes with a lot of stress, never mind the fact that LA people live, work, and play often in many different parts of the city that cause our lives to feel disconnected.  

• Since many of us are transplants who came here for the entertainment industry, we all lack the sense of community/family that comes from being closer to our “homes”.

• Existing paradigms of church that have formed us all to be religious consumers and not contributors. The expectation that "church exists for me as a Christian", rather than “We are the church and together we exist for the good of the city.”

• As a transient city, we lose 20% of our community every year to the rhythms of the city. Many Christians who move to Hollywood looking for churches seem to be more interested in big Sunday productions (which have populated the city in the last 10 years). Or, they are so wounded by the institutional church they no longer pursue Jesus in community at all. So it is hard to make NEW disciples at a pace that keeps up with the number we lose every year, and we are not interested in “sheep stealing” from other places, so momentum and sustainability year over year are always issues.

TLA: Tell me a few ways in which God is moving in your church/neighborhood/people?

JR:

• We are seeing more and more stories of personal disciple-making wins in office spaces, neighborhoods, social spaces, etc. People are learning to how to bless others, discern how to join God’s ongoing work in the world, and engage in spiritual discussions that form others in the way of Jesus.

• We have launched several “Food Truck” expressions of church (check out our video: ChurchInHollywood.com) where small teams are operating as local church plants without needing professional pastoral leadership. Instead they are relying on all the gifts of the body being expressed through the team. They are being a church for local commutes that are not interested in “going to a church” as part of their life. They are making disciples in those everyday spaces.

• We are becoming a more ethnically diverse community and celebrating that Hollywood is becoming that as well!

• We have nearly 100 youth/kids under the age of 15 who are growing up in a church that is discipling them in this new way of life, and not the old paradigms.

Opportunity Zones – What Are They and Why Do They Matter to LA

Who wants to talk 2017 tax reform? What if I told you those tax laws could be the key to changing some of Los Angeles’ most downtrodden neighborhoods?

A few years ago, a million changes were made to the tax laws that only your accountant will ever know about. But tucked into the 185-page bill was the creation of The Investing in Opportunity Act. That Act made it possible, and possibly even profitable, to revitalize some of the most hurting areas across the country.

I’ll spare you the minutiae, and instead give you the CliffsNotes version and why this matters greatly to you and your city. In the Investing in Opportunity Act, Opportunity Zones were created with an intent to stabilize and develop economically struggling areas in ways that will be sustainable (read: using private sector money).

Here’s the breakdown:

What Are Opportunity Zones?

Opportunity Zones are specific census areas (something equivalent to a neighborhood) that are generally made up of economically distressed communities. Since the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act introduced Opportunity Zones, more than 8,700 specific locations/neighborhoods have been labeled as such and retain that designation for at least 10 years. 

Why Should I Care About This?

Opportunity Zones were created to stimulate private investments into distressed communities in exchange for capital gains tax incentives. 

In Layman’s Terms, Please!

Let’s say you sell property, stock, etc... for a profit, and rather than paying a tax of sometimes 20% or more on that profit (capital gain), you can invest that profit into a development project in a designated Opportunity Zone, and not have to pay any capital gains tax. What?! In real dollars, let’s say you own a property that was originally purchased for $100,000 and years later you sell it for $500,000. That’s a profit of $400,000. The capital gains tax on that profit could be around $80,000, depending upon your tax bracket. You could go ahead and just give that money straight to the government for them to allocate as they please. OR, you could use that $80,000 to invest in something within an Opportunity Zone, keep that money in the family, inject much needed income into the local economy, and assuming these positive projects begin to revitalize that community, eventually sell and make a profit on your $80,000 initial investment. 

 If this is you, why are you paying Capital Gains Tax when you can be investing in a neighborhood that needs more affordable housing, senior housing, etc…?

Okay, So Explain Again How This Benefits Downtrodden Communities?

If you are selling property, stock, etc… and stand to make a profit that will require paying capital gains tax, listen up! Take that money you’re supposed to pay to the government and instead, reinvest it into an affordable housing development, a new business, or some other project that will spur economic growth in an Opportunity Zone. 

Heaven On Earth with Kevin Haah - Part 2

Kevin Haah, Lead Paster of New City Church of Los Angeles, was called to start a multi-ethnic, multi-socioeconomic church in downtown LA, where Skid Row and the upwardly mobile loft dwellers converge. But he knew that God was calling him to obedience, not to success. Or rather, that success would be measured in his obedience, even if the task seemed impossible.

“The definition of success is not actually the result, but figuring out what God wants you to do and doing it. Success is in the obedience and faithfulness. The actual result is God’s problem.”

 So they stepped out to do the seemingly impossible. He built a core team reflective of the neighborhood. They began holding Alpha meetings, which became the launching point for their Sunday services. And from day one, they really were a multi-ethnic, multi-socioeconomic, multi-generational, non-denominational Christian church in downtown LA. 

But how does this actually work? It is hard enough to be a multi-ethnic church. Confusion and miscommunications abound. How much harder is it to have a truly multi-socioeconomic church as well?

“We were very intentional about reaching out to people in Skid Row right from the beginning,” said Haah. “We aren’t a church that goes to Skid Row to serve. We are a church that is Skid Row. If we go to Skid Row, we go to include. And then we serve together.”

Haah admits there is a lot of mess and brokenness in the process. “We preach sin. It isn’t just the visually messed up people that are messed up. We are all messed up, so there is no such hierarchy... We are a community of messy people living in God’s amazing grace.”

He is often asked if their community is really diverse in a relational way, or just visually diverse. They made a decision to not have affinity groups, but rather diverse Grow and Serve groups, whose leadership is also diverse. 

“There is something about learning to be uncomfortable for one another that helps us,” said Haah. “Love is discomfort. It is at least Level 1 of love. We need to learn how to feel uncomfortable and let one another stretch us.”

So how do they sustain their diversity?

 “The restorative aspect of the Gospel gives us a vision of a kingdom community that is a beautiful, diverse one,” said Haah. “I believe that unless the church is able to lay down a Gospel foundation for its diversity, it is very hard to sustain. It has to be driven by what the Gospel is about.”

I suppose it only makes sense, then, that New City’s name was drawn from the New Jerusalem described in Revelation 21.

Heaven On Earth with Kevin Haah - Part 1

If you’ve ever wondered if a multi-ethnic, multi-socioeconomic, multi-generational, non-denominational church is anything more than wishful thinking, talk to Kevin Haah. The Lead Pastor of New City Church of Los Angeles, Haah set out on a journey of obedience more than 10 years ago, resulting in a little bit of heaven on earth. 

Originally an associate pastor with a Korean American church in LA, Haah was responsible for overseeing urban ministries and a project called Love LA. Through that movement, they set up weekly Sunday afternoon meetings akin to a parking lot revival. It was there that Haah learned how to preach. 

One day, when someone called Haah asking him what his church was doing to reach out to “all these new people moving into downtown,” it piqued his curiosity. There was a major building move going on, with most of the historic core becoming a mixed-use residential zone. The downtown neighborhood was growing faster than any other neighborhood in LA county, bringing an influx of upwardly mobile loft dwellers to a neighborhood sharing a zip code with the city’s notorious Skid Row.

 After considering this question, Kevin asked “What if we planted a multi-ethnic, multi-socioeconomic church in the middle of downtown LA?” His immediate response was “yeah, but that would never work.” However, that vision never went away.

“We began to pray. The more we prayed, the more we felt like God was leading us to actually do that,” said Haah. “Right from the beginning, developing a core team of 20 or so people was really a movement of God’s providence.”

Haah stressed that from the beginning, if they were going to be a church for the downtown neighborhood, they would have to contextualize the church to the neighborhood.

“I tried really hard to start with a core team that reflected the diversity of this neighborhood,” said Haah. 

What was particularly notable was that Kevin’s sending church, a Korean American church, offered to send him with a launch team. But he turned them down. He said he knew that if he started with a largely Korean core team, it would be hard to then shift and become a church representative of the neighborhood demographic.

“We did everything possible to get as many people as possible from the neighborhood. It reflected the diversity from downtown.”

And yes, if you are wondering, that meant their core team would include residents of Skid Row, as well as the affluent loft dwellers just settling into their new downtown homes.

“I struggled a lot with whether it was possible, or if it was just a pipe dream,” Haah stated. “It was pretty clear to me that God was calling us to a radically different kind of community that reflects the kingdom value of inclusivity, not only cross culturally but cross economically.”

Haah wrestled often in the beginning with whether he should go with what he thought would actually work, or with what he knew God’s call to be.  

“I decided to go for what I knew God’s call to be for the neighborhood. The kingdom of God actually reflects different kinds of people coming together, Jews and Gentiles coming together, and the Gospel has the power to do that. It was not about whether it works or not. It was a question of what kind of church God is calling us to.”

Jonathan Wu on Faith and Work

Faith and work. It is a hot topic today in certain Christian circles. I’ve attended workshops, read Tim Keller’s book and had countless conversations with friends questioning if and how our non-ministry work matters. But for all the time I’ve spent thinking about it, I haven’t heard it preached much from the pulpit.

I recently caught up with Jonathan Wu about why that might be. He’s the Executive Pastor of Evergreen Baptist Church of Los Angeles, and he also serves as a City Network Leader for Made to Flourish. Meeting in 33 different cities, Made to Flourish’s primary vision is to equip pastors and their congregations for the integration of faith, work and economic wisdom for the flourishing of their communities.

“One area where many struggle to make a connection, and where pastors often don’t know how to equip their congregations, is integrating the Christian faith with work and economic wisdom,” said Wu.

What sets Made to Flourish apart is that their organization is a network of pastors, not marketplace leaders, who may not have been shaped by the theology of work. “They may not have thought through what a work and faith theology can be that could unleash the spiritual potency of the congregation throughout the week.”

For some, the confluence of faith and work is not a new concept. But for many pastors and their congregations, this is a unique conversation that Wu and Made to Flourish hope to foster. “We take seriously that God calls us to a faithful life, in all areas of life, not just on Sundays,” states Wu.

This network exists not just to tackle difficult questions, but also to provide a place for pastors in a given city to gather and experience community. “I think that pastors need a place where they can convene together with peers, so fellowship is an implicit value we have,” said Wu. “It is fun to explore and broaden our reach slowly.”

They meet 10-15 times per year, for lunches and seminars, and attempt to tackle a different topic each time. According to Wu, at times they try to meet in the churches of the various pastors because “it is wonderful to be in their context, to learn about their mission as a church and how they participate in the kingdom.”

In a recent gathering in which they focused on faith and work, the things pastors were wrestling with varied greatly depending upon their context. For example, within some immigrant communities, most of the pastors are bivocational and their congregants often work in trade professions. This topic was “totally enlightening and engaging for some of these pastors personally,” said Wu. They also learned how to communicate these principles to their congregants, some of whom are recent immigrants for whom this conversation takes a very different shape than those in more white collar occupations.

While Made to Flourish has not reached every pastor across the LA area, they are slowly building avenues to provide formative thinking.

According to Wu, “we believe pastors have a key role to play in the faith and work movement because Christians miss out on something crucial when their church does not support them in this integration.”

Pray for those who want to leave L.A.

Pray for those who come to Hollywood and get consumed by loneliness, discouragement and fear, and then leave L.A. defeated. For those who leave, it comes down to the same reasons: L.A. is full of transient, superficial people and it's hard to find friends; the traffic is horrible; people care more about their careers than about each other; it's too big, too scary, too lonely, and too isolating. We have found through the years that the most successful weapons of the enemy are isolation, discouragement, and fear. Pray for God to help authentic, encouraging communities and friendships flourish in the entertainment industry and that our Christian community in Hollywood will be more empowered to be at the forefront of making L.A. feel like a place of belonging for those who are lonely. As you pray, watch these videos below by people who have decided to move away.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Sj4zEgV7bUhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7wxRx_pwoI

A Conversation on Integrating our Faith and Work

It always seems to happen this way. Once Halloween hits, it’s as if California finally gets the memo to cool things down a bit. It was on this particular night, November 1, in the heart of Hollywood, that strangers from near and far and from all walks of life gathered at Reality LA’s Hope Center to discuss the topics of faith & work and how the two are so intricately woven into our stories as Christians.

James Ackerman, President and CEO of Prison Fellowship and Katherine Leary Alsdorf, Vice President of Faith and Work at Redeemer City to City NYC both shared their personal journeys of being adult converts and leading in their respective workplaces. They also discussed how they have found meaning and joy in their work and maintain a healthy short and long-term view of work while striving for success.

“Work is one of the ways we know we are human. We all have a skill set and without work, we can’t flourish,” remarked Katherine. “People are called to work, not just to provide for themselves, but to help the world flourish.”

When asked about finding direction when someone finds themselves at a standstill in their career, Katherine bravely said, “Fail young and fail fast.”

She also went on to say, “It’s easier for the head of a company to find meaning in work because you see your products in action impacting a customer’s life but if you’re further removed, it’s often harder to find meaning in the little piece of what you’re contributing to. So the disconnect that happens when people don’t have a sense of meaning in their work is really a disconnect from God’s purpose for us to help the world flourish.”

Interview with Michael Mata: Addressing Homelessness in LA

Michael Mata has been deeply involved in the policy and grassroots efforts to improve LA for several decades, so I wanted to get his perspective on the large number of homeless individuals in the city. The problem has been around for years, but I’ve struggled to understand why it persists. What has been tried? What isn’t working, and why?“LA has the least affordable housing in the U.S.,” said Mata. “We are not the most expensive, but our wages haven’t kept up. We are also the most densely populated in the United States. And we simply don’t have enough housing.”He explained that the idea of a single room occupancy rental has gone by the wayside. People don’t have a place to start off, paying only a small rate for one room while they work their way up. Because of this, there is not enough starter housing so the alternate option is the street.According to Mata, this is an issue because “the longer you stay on the street, it really affects what you do. It is no longer about moving up. It is about survival.”In the past, Mata was a part of a blue-ribbon commission on homelessness, along with several other religious leaders. They laid out a plan to tackle the lack of housing, but it was not acted upon. Now, a lot of money is coming in to address these issues, and they are trying to make a dent in getting people housed. However, until housing production picks up, as Mata puts it, “we’re really in a tough place.”So what can the Church do, aside from task forces? What are the grassroots means available to meet these needs?“A lot of us have already been doing it. We are speaking to the choir, literally,” said Mata.Many churches, including Mata’s Los Angeles First Church of the Nazarene, are currently serving multiple meals each week, they have nurses available to serve those in need, and so much more.Mata said that in LA, the churches have a lot of underutilized property. The question is, what can be done to fully utilize those resources? Can they be used for shelters? Affordable housing?The LA Homeless Services Authority has recently come to many of these churches, recognizing what they are already doing to meet needs, stating they are willing to provide additional funding for them to scale. However, that funding often comes with safety requirements and insurance riders that require more resources than these mostly small to mid-size churches can handle.“Not all of these churches have the capacity to respond to that offer,” said Mata.One such church in LA has more than 90,000 square feet of unused classroom space, but the money and resources it would require to rehab it and meet the necessary stipulations make it impossible to execute. And this is a common theme for many churches.I asked him what happens in the meantime. Mata replied that slowly additional housing is being built and churches continue to respond in ways they are called to respond, improvising until more permanent solutions can be found.

Interview with Michael Mata: A Holistic View of The Church’s Mission

It is easy to see the problems that persist throughout LA, much like every other urban center in the U.S. What is lesser-known, however, are the key players working day in and day out to renew the city and address those problems head-on. Michael Mata, a Community Impact Strategist, is one such player who offers unique insights into the homelessness problem in LA.

Mata has been involved in urban planning, policy, and community development movements throughout LA for several decades and had a major hand in the restoration of Koreatown in the days following the LA riots. These days Mata is still deeply committed to community transformation, Los Angeles First Church of the Nazarene being his home base. The denomination found its start at this same church in 1895, out of a concern for the well-being of those on the margins of society. And in keeping with his heritage, Mata’s life work has been about the very same.

Fresh out of seminary, Mata began working with youth, but he would soon find his theological education hadn’t prepared him fully for what he would experience in Central LA.

“Young people didn’t see any value in the church,” Mata said. “We began to develop trusting relationships [with the youth in the neighborhood], engaging them and, I would say, making God real for them.”

Mata mentioned that while those youth were genuinely thankful for being introduced to a saving faith in Jesus, they also needed to address daily concerns like how to get jobs and keep them, how to overcome some of their backgrounds, and what to do about those with records.

“I didn’t have the prescription on my glasses to see that God was interested in their whole being, not just their soul,” said Mata.

He began to realize that he needed to think more broadly about what the mission of the Church should be.

“The majority of the world now lives in urban centers,” said Mata. However, there’s no Christian organization or educational institution that actually prepares people in developing inclusive, life-giving urban environments, and that affects us all.”

He sought to gain an interdisciplinary approach to problem-solving, so he accepted an invitation to study urban planning at Berkeley.

Because of Mata’s expertise and hands-on experience in community development, Mata has been invited to participate in several interfaith task forces. Currently, he serves on the Los Angeles Mayor’s Interfaith Collective, which focuses largely on jobs, homelessness, and immigration.

North American Mission Board: Pray For Church Planters

A church planting core team is essential to the success of a church plant. These faithful servants often work full-time vocational jobs and work alongside the church planter to help execute his vision for this exciting new work.

By North American Mission Board

Here are some ways you can pray for a church plant’s core team:

1. Pray that they would be disciple-makers. The call to make disciples is for all believers, but it is especially essential that the core team of a church plant takes this mandate seriously. Pray for them as they navigate relationships and lead others toward a relationship with Christ.

2. Pray for a sense of ownership and purpose. It is vital that the core team understands the vision of the church planter to truly take ownership of his or her role. Pray that they would have clarity to best understand their purpose in this kingdom work.

3. Pray for unity among the core team. Satan often looks for ways to tear down churches starting with the leadership. Pray for these leaders to set aside pride and preference. Pray that they would seek to encourage each other as they pursue the task ahead.

Los Angeles

Known as the “City of Angels,” Los Angeles is the second largest city in the United States. The metropolitan area has a population of about 20 million people, and there are roughly 400 people groups represented by culture, ethnicity and language. Home to Hollywood and some of the most influential men and women in the world, L.A. is consistently in the global spotlight. This a city of impact, and the Church is desperately needed among the number.

State of LA Housing Market

Whether we personally are trying to save up for a house, we know friends who have moved from Los Angeles because of the cost of living, or we know those who are trying to survive month to month, we all feel the pressure of the housing crisis in Los Angeles. It seems like everyone is affected.In the most recent Bisnow conference in DTLA, the state of the office and housing market was the topic of conversation. As many of the LA business people gathered, the issue in Los Angeles of rising construction costs (a 113% increase in the last 3 years), the limited space for affordable housing, the ongoing parking dilemma (more cars in LA than any other U.S city), and the issue of wages not keeping up with market values (tenants need to earn $47.52/hr to afford medium asking prices) sparked conversation around a housing problem that doesn’t seem to have a quick solution.Bob Champion, Founder and CEO of Champion Real Estate Company, explained, “California falls short on average of 150,000-200,000 units per year. This means that Los Angeles has to create 2.2 million units just to catch up with the demand.”In addition to the general short fall, the city is still waiting for the 10,000 affordable units it intended through proposition HHH. According to a recent report from the California housing partnership, Los Angeles needs 516,946 affordable units to just meet the demand of low-income housing.If that wasn’t bad enough, a current prediction shows a slow in employment growth in LA over the next couple of years.However, despite the outlook, most don’t foresee a slow down of developing in Los Angeles anytime soon. For the areas where businesses are creating a demand for housing, space may become the only issue.The conclusion: Los Angeles will continue to sprawl into neighboring regions as businesses, schools, and production companies look elsewhere for space. And because of this, the people will follow.So although Los Angeles will continue to be a highly transient city, there is potential to impact the community we find ourselves. As Victor MacFarlane, CEO of MacFarlane Partners and current developer in DTLA eloquently put it, “building projects have the potential to create a center of gravity to change a neighborhood.” Given the fact that the housing problem in Los Angeles isn’t changing soon, the question remains how we together can create these places of center of gravity to love our neighborhoods and respond to those being affected by the crisis.

The Future of Cities

On June 13, I attended the Mayor’s Forum, “The Future of Cities,” sponsored by the Los Angeles Headquarters Association at the California Club in Downtown L.A. The speaker’s panel consisted of three mayors from the greater Los Angeles area—Gleam Davis of Santa Monica, Terry Tornek of Pasadena, and Meghan Sahli-Wells of Culver City. In attendance were builders and developers who came to hear the mayors’ visions for their respective cities. The mayors of these three relatively affluent cities shared several issues in common, including the need to create affordable housing and address homelessness.

Davis shared a particularly compelling vision, in which she said that Santa Monica is working toward becoming a “sustainable city of well-being.” For Davis and the other mayors, this vision of a city of well-being is a livable, sustainable environment in which people of all walks of life can thrive. While this was a secular event, her statement brought Jeremiah 29:7 to mind, “Seek the welfare of the city…” Hearing the tangible needs of these cities gave me pause to consider how churches in the greater L.A. area can work together towards the well-being of the city.

One of the recurring issues that all three mayors are facing is homelessness. Meghan Sahli-Wells, mayor of Culver City, characterized homelessness as a “humanitarian crisis.” In an affluent city, Wells argued, it was not fair to build wealth for a few while leaving others behind. In Pasadena, Mayor Terry Tornek took an informal door-to-door poll of his constituents and the most important issue was homelessness. While the mayors brought the issue of homelessness to light, they seemed to offer few tangible solutions to helping these most impoverished people in their cities. More recently, in the Los Angeles Times, there was an article discussing how local officials are planning on using a $1.2-billion bond measure to combat homelessness, along with extra monies from the state government. Among the plans for the funds include the construction of affordable housing units and conservatorships for mentally ill homeless persons.

Even as I walked back to the Metro Station, I was made very aware of the reality of the growing homeless population in downtown L.A. It made me wonder how we as the church might partner with our cities in addressing the needs of the homeless among us. Are our churches turning a blind eye to those in our community who have the greatest need? Or are we encouraging our congregations to volunteer at a local shelter, or to operate a soup kitchen in our own facilities? Some things to prayerfully consider.

God Moving In Los Angeles: A Conversation Worth Having

In what began as a conversation about the movement of God in the City of Angels a few years ago in the form of a three-day conference continued last summer in a panel discussion with four pastors from four corners of the county. And in light of all that's transpired over the last three years, with God still on the throne, it's important to continue that conversation.BY ALEX MURASHKOLos Angeles, like other major cities in the U.S., has become an even greater flash point for communal voices meeting in such places as City Hall to display a viral sort of anger that has escalated to unprecedented heights. A physical statement at ground zero for all demonstrations (protest and celebratory) doesn't even scratch the surface of the dangerous vitriol taking place online through media of all sorts.That's why we felt it important to republish parts of the discussion from the summer of 2017 with links to other related stories at TLA below.Is there hope for the City of Angels even though it often appears so broken, so filled with spiritual poverty among its people that a diagnosis may very well be — beyond repair? The answer as expressed by the four pastors that met at Metropolis Santa Monica was a resounding: “Yes, there is hope!”The pastors on the panel were Steve Snook of Santa Monica, Michael Mata of Koreatown, Cedric Nelms of Long Beach, and Brannin Pitre of Pasadena, all sharing their heart for the city they not only minister to but reside in.Michael Mata, director of the transformational urban leadership program at Azusa Pacific Seminary and a Together LA speaker, is an experienced urban planner and pastor. He has spent over 30 years in leading and equipping others in urban transformation through the creation of community and church-based programs. His work has focused on community transformation, youth leadership development, public health, intercultural outreach, and multiethnic ministry. Mata serves as community transformation specialist for Compassion Creates Change, Inc., and was the director of Tools for Transformation for World Vision’s U.S. programs.Mata lives in and loves his neighborhood — Koreatown.“Even though it’s called Koreatown, 70 percent of the people are not Asian,” Mata told TLA. “Even with this great vitality of humanity it’s broken in that we don’t have the interaction as we should.“We live in close proximity to each other, almost 200,000 people within two-and-a-half square miles, and we bump into each other and we eat in the same places and we hear each other’s music but we’re not necessarily connected. Rarely do we actually know the name of our neighbors — actually I do, but many people don’t.“[Residents] live in high rises, in homes they’ve invested in, they live with multiple families or extended families, and they are struggling to survive because even though there’s a sense of great economic energy there, the per capita is one of the lowest in L.A. County.”

Immigrants and young professionals consumed with ‘making it’

“So, you have a population that’s come to the United States who are contributing and being very productive but it seems their lives are consumed with ‘making it,’ maybe not so much becoming affluent, but certainly surviving,” Mata explained. “In that regard, we need spaces, we need a way to come together. Certainly in 1992, when our community was the second flashpoint in the riots, our community did come together.”Churches in the area and various religious institutions gathered together, he said, and asked “How are we going to rebuild together?”Within less than a year, Koreatown did rebuild, he said.The infusion of energy and “new life and looking for the future” gave way to a retreat of sorts.“We all went back to our regular spaces of work, relationships, and of cultural identity,” Mata said. “So those spaces or that bridge are sorely lacking and that’s where I think the faith community can come in.“We have great historic sanctuaries in K-town. Beautiful French-Gothic structures, some of them thousands of square feet, but on Sunday mornings they are pretty empty because the populations that once populated the pews are no longer living in the area. We have a new influx of not just immigrant people but young professionals and some churches are being more successful at that.“But that’s the space where God calls us to be reconcilers,” he adds. “We need to step up as a faith community to be that person, or that facility, or that body that brings people together and helps us to know one another even though we may not have the same beliefs or traditions. Nonetheless, we are living in the same space so why not move beyond just residing to becoming members or members of a community becoming neighbors to one another.”In talking about Pasadena, Pitre said, “We have a context in which we are divided racially. We’re divided economically. We are divided by educational bounds. We’re divided by political bounds. There’s just a great sense that at any given block in the city of Pasadena you’ll find somebody that’s completely different and aligned differently from you, which can cause a great sense of brokenness.“My joy in that is that it also provides an endless sense of opportunity.”Videos and photos by One Ten Pictures.Read Pitre’s discussion about how the Together LA conference, held more than three years ago, happened in a two part series at the Christian Post here: Interview Church Planter Brannin Pitre: Los Angeles Is on the ‘Cusp’ of a New Mov’t; How Tim Keller’s Church Supported Vision LA (Pt. 1) and here: ‘Together LA’ Organizers: There’s More to Loving a City Than Planting Churches (Pt. 2)We’d love to hear from you! Please join the conversation in the Comments section below. Thank you!>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<< 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)