Day Four: Fresno Urban Immersion

Today we spent most of the morning with relocators, or what Randy White calls strategic neighbors. These are folks who have moved into the Lowell Neighborhood here in Fresno over the past twenty years. Each of them moved to the neighborhood for different reasons, but they all share the same common bond of seeking God's shalom in the city. They meet together as neighbors each week in order to develop community with one another. They work on improving the neighborhood together. I enjoyed hearing so many different perspectives on incarnational ministry. It was encouraging for me to hear about how other people seem to handle crazy neighborhood situations and boundaries with kids and people who stop by to visit all the time.

This afternoon we ate lunch at the No Name Fellowship, a gathering of Christian leaders from all over the city of Fresno. The police chief gave a great presentation about how the church and faith-based community can support and work with the police. After that, we visited a pastor named Jeff Harrington who leads a multicultural church in Fresno that is also doing many great things to impact the community. Around 35% of the people attending the church are hispanic, 35% are white, 15% are African-American, and 15% are Asian-American. He talked to us for a while about how to be intentional about diversity in the church. For our last stop in the day we visited the mayor of Fresno, Ashley Swearengin. She is a strong Christian, and she shared with us about how God works through her to steward resources and influence on behalf of the people living in the city. It was a great opportunity to hear about faith and power in the public square.

One of the unique things about BGU is that they intentionally expose students to many different types of people in many different types of positions in society. The stories of the incarnational leaders we met this morning were very powerful, and I also learned a great deal from the police chief and mayor. No matter what position God has placed us in in life, we all have the ability to either be good stewards or poor stewards. The work that the mayor is doing in "powerful" places is just as valuable as the work that relocators are doing in "powerless" places. Transformational leaders are able to build bridges between the powerless and the powerful, and I met several significant transformational leaders today.

In terms of some things that were unexpected, the No Name Fellowship was not quite as collaborative as I had expected. The police chief gave an inspiring speech, and a passionate appeal for the faith community to become more involved with the underresourced police, but his invitation to help was largely open ended. Randy explained to us afterward that the No Name Fellowship meetings are generally much more collaborative and productive than that, but that on this particular occasion we got to see how sometimes meetings can be well-intentioned without the results that could have been achieved. Also, this morning at Youth For Christ we heard a presentation about the model that they have for reaching urban kids in Fresno. They were doing some great programming to reach kids, but some of the programs seemed to be a bit manipulative in terms of evangelizing. For instance, every Saturday morning they do a youth sports outreach that is informal and open to any kids from the neighborhood. Lots of kids show up, and they play games for about an hour or so. Then, they tell the kids that if they want to eat lunch then they have to stay and sit through gospel message. The kids have the option to leave before the message is given, but they are not permitted to eat lunch. I have no problem with sharing Christ with kids, but there was just something about that particular strategy that seemed overly manipulative to me when they tied it to lunch. Then again, maybe that's just me.

I learned several things that I would like to apply in Pittsburgh. For instance, many people who know me know that I am very interested in cross-cultural church. I think that the church should be out in front of culture when it comes to figuring out how to be more racially and socioeconomically diverse. Instead, the church is usually dragging their feet and seemingly remaining segregated without much thought to how churches could be more diverse. Jeff Harrington's church inspired me because it is an example that it can be done. If Christian leaders are intentional about reaching diverse groups of people, then it can be accomplished. Of course, there is much more to it than that, and each context is different. Still, I will keep trying to figure all of this out in the urban lab of Pittsburgh.

Also, in the No Name Fellowship I saw an example of how Christian leaders across many different sectors and institutions in a big city can come together with the commonality of Christ to work toward the holistic transformation of the community. In Pittsburgh, I am going to be much more intentional about joining with other Christians to work toward the shalom of my city. Collaboration and partnership is key when it comes to change, but leadership is required for those things to happen. Perhaps God is calling me to become more involved in leadership in mobilizing city leaders in Pittsburgh. We'll have to see where all of this leads!