Renewing the City

Renewing the City: Reflections on Community Development and Urban Renewal
Robert Lupton
InterVarsity Press (2005)
In this book Robert Lupton retells the story of Nehemiah through a process called midrash, which is an ancient Jewish teaching method using imagination and imagery to add context to Scriptures. The first part of the book focuses on adding depth to the study of the Biblical book of Nehemiah. The second part of the book draws parallels between Nehemiah’s community development work in Jerusalem and modern day development efforts in American inner cities. Contemporary urban ministry principles are compared to ancient urban ministry principles.
The author argues that the dilemmas facing urban ministry leaders long ago are relevant in resolving similar dilemmas today. One highlight of the book was a chapter about gentrification with justice, which argued that what is needed in cities is gentry “who will use their competencies and connections to ensure that their lower-income neighbors have a stake in their revitalizing neighborhood.” (124) Christians are called to care for the poor, and those who move back into the city from the suburbs need to think strategically about also caring for justice for their new neighbors.
The book has another great chapter about vision and risk taking. Lupton speaks clearly and with credibility about need for strong visionary leadership from urban leaders. He argues that “Vision that is divinely authored – the kind that extends me far beyond my own abilities – requires a frightful level of risk taking. It is fundamentally different from strategy planning and goal setting. It requires me to let go of the security of predictable outcomes and venture into uncharted waters with little more than an inaudible internal voice as a guide. Such vision is not a product of human creativity; it is divinely conceived and implanted in the spirits of those who are willing to trust miracle over plan.” (151) Nehemiah was a visionary risk taker, and this is what is needed for all urban ministry leaders today. This is one of the author’s strongest points.
The final chapters focus on different aspects of incarnational living. Cities may have a romantic appeal on people from an outside perspective (with their violence, noise, and drama), but everything becomes much more meaningful once the inner cities issues begin impacting one’s family and home. Programs are important, but good neighbors are much more important to the renewing of the city.
I had been wrestling with many questions directly related to the content in this book before I started reading it. How can I be more effective as an urban ministry leader? Robert Lupton ministered in inner cities with living there for about ten years prior to moving incarnationally to the city. In this book he describes the process of how his ministry became much more effective once he moved to where he was serving. I have been wondering how much more effective I would be as a leader if I moved to inner city Pittsburgh. I also have had many questions about how this would impact my family, and Lupton gives some very unique perspectives on this subject in this book. I am grateful for the principles and stories he outlines in this book, which are in many ways timeless due to the midrash process he utilized to pull out applicable information from events that happened thousands of years ago. The most important principle I learned was that it matters where the people of God choose to locate themselves.