Today I spent most of the day in the lab... the city of Seattle. Before we left this morning, a geographer named Ron Boyce gave a lecture about the nature of cities. The special emphasis of his talk was on Seattle. He described the importance of avoiding distractions when exegeting a city, and seeking to understand the importance of the shaping forces in history while discovering the present.
Next, Ray Bakke lectured about the difference between urbanization and urbanism. Urbanization is the city described as a gigantic magnet. It sucks all of the resources out of entire regions. Bakke said that rural people are identified by biology and geography. Urban people are identified by what they do. This is why when an urban man loses his job, it is devastating because he also loses his identity. This is why many urban males don't go to church (70% of most inner city church members are women). They don't want to go to a church with a male pastor whose job (or identity) is stable when theirs is not. It's emasculating, seeing the pastor's name all over the bulletins and on the sign entering the church. Anyway, urbanism is the city described as a magnifier, or the woofer and tweeter of society. It is the city as a stage prop, a process by which urban ideas and culture are spread throughout the global world.
Many cities now are building up into airspace, trying to draw rich people and young professionals back in from the suburbs. So, taller buildings are being built, which include condos to buy instead of apartments to rent. It's working, and these people are moving back into cities which is forcing poor people out into the suburbs. This trend will be important for the church to understand over the coming years. He also shared about the importance of pastors being for their communities, not just of their communities. This means it is important for pastors to partner with the police, clergy, school administrators, hospitals, and other organizations that are a part of the fabric of the community.
Most of the rest of the day we explored Seattle. We went to First Presbyterian Church, St. James Cathedral, Harborview Medical Center, Skid Row, World Relief, the International District, Waterfall Garden, Occidental Park, Pioneer Square, Seattle Art Museum, and Pike Place Market. The two highlights of this tour were World Relief and Pike Place Market.
At World Relief we learned about the difference between immigrants and refugees. They are a Christian ministry who helps to place refugees from around the world in homes and communities in Seattle. Refugees are different from immigrants in that they don't come to America because they want to. They come here because they are forced to, often as a result of conditions involving intense persecution, rape, violence, or war. So their needs are great, but this is also an amazing opportunity to minister to people in need.
Pike Place Market is a shopping area in Seattle which happens to be the number one tourist attraction in the area. Ray Bakke challenged us to tour this facility for an hour, and then come back to the group to discuss why a place like this could be so successful and diverse. Most shopping malls are homogenous (like most churches in America), but this area has managed to transcend any class or racial boundaries. One big question was: What can the church learn from Pike Place? How can churches become more multicultural and multigenerational?
The biggest question posed for this day was by Dr. Randy White. He asked, "If Ray Bakke loves this city, Seattle, so much... do you love your city this much?" Also, "Do you know your city like this?"
This question really challenged me. I know some things about Pittsburgh, but I have not intentionally tried to develop a deep love and understanding for all of its people and places. I am really looking forward to going through this process on my own (or perhaps with some friends?) when I return to Pittsburgh. I will now be viewing the city through a new lens.
I also need to continue to be intentional about building relationships in Pittsburgh. This applies to relationships that go up to the powerful and down to the powerless. So in LAMP, if I am going to be an effective leader over the coming years I am really going to have to pay attention to these types of relationships. My most important role is to invest in relationships.
3 comments:
If emasculation is the reason inner city men don't go to church, don't you think that any good pastor would remove his name from the bulletins and reader boards to get the men introduced to the Lord? The inner city pastors that I know and have known, pastoring is their calling from the Lord, they need to have a full time job that pays the bills.
Your head must be swimming. Keep it up brother!
I thought this point about the different identifiers between urban and rural men was interesting also. Curious whether this discussion has also included the identifiers for suburban men like me. Seems to be that urban areas feed off of suburbia more than rural areas. That magnet effect pulling from the outer rim of the cities, but otherwise not the farmlands. Most rural people I know seem to exist in a separate existence from the cities altogether. But suburbanites have a push and pull with the city - entering into it for jobs and consumerism, but pulling out to avoid crime, poor schools for their kids, etc. Seems like a dependent, yet sometimes antagonistic relationship.
Thanks for the comments, guys.
I'm glad you brought this issue up, Greg. There weren't any young men at the retreat you led last month. Has your group with those young men started up yet? I wonder if they're going to a church. Are they attending Rapha Ministries? What do they think about the "institutional" church? As we continue to lean into the issues with the boys in Homewood, the question is... how can they get plugged into healthy churches in their own neighborhoods?
Tim, this relationship between suburban and urban has come up a lot during the examination of cities that I'm currently experiencing. BGU's take on this is that suburbs are now tied in with cities, whether we want to admit it or not (for many of the reasons that you suggested). Crime and other issues will be arriving in the suburbs soon, if they have not already arrived. The question is, what will the pastors of suburban churches do when urban issues arrive on their doorstep? Many of them (or the generation of pastors before them) fled the city to avoid dealing with complex urban issues during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Now these same Christians are being forced to deal with these issues because many urban middle class and affluent people are moving back into city centers, and people living in poverty are being displaced to the suburbs. Will suburban pastors continue to lean toward expanding the suburbs to escape these problems, or will they engage the people that they have been trying to avoid?
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