Learning from At-risk Youth

Over the past couple of weeks I've been reviewing all of the interviews that I completed with at-risk young people in Pittsburgh and Honduras for my dissertation. The kids all have a story to tell, and it is a story that needs to be heard by the people in mainstream society who choose to ignore the kids. Many of the youth I talked to told me about the many obstacles in their lives that they have had to overcome, including poverty, abuse, dysfunctional schools, broken families, drugs, gangs, crimes, and isolation. They opened up about their hopes and dreams for the future. I have seen first hand how God is able to intervene in the lives of hurting people in order to redeem them. The stories of the young people I have interviewed have been full of heartbreak and hope, failures and forgiveness, set backs and resilience. I have learned so much from the tough kids I've spent time with over the years. God has given me eyes to see the beauty that comes when the smaller, painful stories being lived out by troubled youth find their place in God's Story. Transformation is a process, and there are many ups and downs in working with high risk youth. Still, the risks are well worth the rewards associated with how God has been able to teach me. Sometimes the streets are the best classrooms, and people suffering through the struggles of poverty are the best teachers in the school of life. I know a doctoral dissertation is supposed to be about me sharing information with the world, but thus far my dissertation has been much more about what God is showing me through the eyes of people who are close to God but rejected by mainstream society.

Black Friday

Black Friday breaks my heart. God has given me the privilege of becoming very close to many friends and neighbors struggling through the grind of deep, urban poverty. I often wish Christians in America with access to resources would demonstrate as much passion to steward those resources (time, money, and talent) on behalf of God with people in need as they do on themselves and their families. We disobey God when we ignore the needs of the poor so that we can have more stuff (even if that stuff comes at a "great" price on Black Friday). God calls all Christians to be radicals for the sake of advancing the Kingdom of God. Black Friday looks to me like radical behavior that lines up really well with the world's standards. A $1,000 flat screen TV is more than the average annual income of two-thirds of the people living on this planet. I don't think God is pleased with us selling out to the world.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm spending the day on the West Coast with my family soaking up the sun. We are visiting some good friends that we made when we lived in California. God has really blessed our family this year, and we have much to be thankful for. My wife, Julie, is an amazing woman who loves me well and is an incredible mother. I am so thankful for my daughters, Kyra and Sierra, who bring so much joy and meaning to life. God has blessed us with the opportunity to launch a new church and remain involved in the transformational work that is going on through LAMP. I am a much different person today than I was three years ago when I started the Doctor of Ministry program at Bakke Graduate University, and the courses I've taken this year in California, Honduras, and New York have be life changing. I am so thankful for the DMin program! I love living in Homewood, and I am thankful for the many neighbors and friends who have taught me so much while living in the city. I am thankful for so many other things... my church, colleagues, friends, and much more. Still, at the end of the day I am most thankful for my relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. God has given me an amazing calling in life that brings me tremendous joy on a daily basis. I honestly cannot wait to see what God has in store for us in the year to come.

Generous and Wise Giving

During the holiday season many Americans give generously to a wide variety of causes. Americans make up 4 percent of the world's population, yet we use of 50 percent of the world's resources. From that perspective, it makes sense that we would want to give away a portion of what we have. My challenge to people this year is to make sure that we are giving to organizations that are truly working toward transformation. Sadly, many nonprofit organizations start out wanting to help people and they end up in the business of raising money to retain jobs for people doing work that is not really working to empower the people being served. I see this all the time in my work with at-risk youth. Most money that is intended to help children living in urban poverty actually never makes its way to the kids. It gets used up by the adults in power who live outside the community before it ever makes its way to the kids. If the resources do make their way to the kids in need, it often gets used on programs that do not lead to a process of transformation in the lives of the kids. That's just an example, but my point is that as Christians in America we are responsible for how we steward our money, time, and influence. It's important that before we give to any cause, we investigate that cause or organization to make sure that they are being accountable to deliver on the mission of the transforming the lives of the people being served. We need to give generously, and we also need to give wisely.

The Tension in Cities

I enjoyed a great night of community building at the East End launch team meeting last night. We shared food together, built relationships, prayed, and planned for some logistics with the new North Way campus. It is such a joy to be a part of the body of Christ! As a pastor, I love to see people connecting with one another and serving together as part of God's mission to reach the world. The city presents many challenges, but also many opportunities. I met with several elders this morning for prayer walking in East Liberty, and we all seemed to sense the magnified signs of hope and signs of need that the urban environment presents. We picked up trash as we walked and prayed. A homeless man joined us to pray for a little while. We walked past thriving businesses and abandoned businesses. There is no better place for followers of Jesus to be than right smack in the middle of the tension that is present in complex urban environments. I am so thankful to be a part of launching this church!

Launch Team Meeting Tonight

Tonight I'm looking forward to another meeting of the North Way East End launch team at the Myles Dental offices located at 715 N. Highland Ave in East Liberty. We are really starting to pick up momentum for the new North Way location! We'll share dinner together to build relationships, I'll share a little bit about the vision for the campus, we'll split up into groups of volunteers who will be serving in different areas in the East End, and then we'll spend some time out in the community getting to know our neighbors and praying for the community. It's so amazing to see all of this come together. God is doing big things in Pittsburgh!

Reaching Social Orphans in Complex Urban Environments

This past Saturday I had the opportunity to lead a break out session at the OrphanCare Expo in Pittsburgh. The event gathers together many organizations and individuals from all over Western Pennsylvania to organize around the ways that the body of Christ can work together to reach orphans and at-risk children locally and globally. My break out session was entitled, "Reaching Social Orphans in Complex Urban Environments." We defined what it means to be a social orphan, we talked about the importance of Christians engaging in complex urban environments, and then we discussed some suggestions for what followers of Jesus can do to make a difference with these types of children locally and globally. These are some of my suggestions:

Be incarnational. Just like Jesus entered into our human context, modern followers of Jesus should go to where the kids are and spend time with them in their context building relationships. Ministry does not happen in antiseptic conditions. We need to go into neighborhoods, into schools, and into many different kinds of places in order to be able to connect with kids.

Build relationships, not programs. 90 percent of people living in cities come to Christ through relationships instead of programs. Relationships are crucial to reaching people in complex urban environments. Before anyone starts a program, they should have tons of relationships with the kids they are trying to serve.

Focus on developmental relationships instead of prescriptive relationships. We need to build assets in high risk youth instead of focusing on fixing their problems. Building developmental assets leads to resilience and empowerment.

Learn from the kids. Transformation goes both ways. Adults working with kids should be good listeners, willing to learn from the kids they are serving. This goes a long way toward effectiveness and contextualization.

Consider living in the city. Most of the world's population lives in cities, and followers of Jesus can be very effective at reaching kids when they live in the city. In my opinion, Christians should be running into the arms of the city instead of running away from the city.

Focus on transformation instead of transaction. Many organizations aimed at reaching social orphans and high risk youth start out with intentions of helping kids, but they end up fundraising and existing so that adults can hold on to their jobs. Organizations focused on transforming the lives of at-risk youth should eventually work themselves out of existence because they are so effective at empowering the young people where they are serving.

Build partnerships. Urban issues are complex, and Christians should work together to come up with complex solutions. No one church or one organization can possibly be effective at reaching at-risk kids alone. We must partner and creatively work together.

Be an advocate. Compassion is the low hanging fruit for evangelical Christians. We line up to give things to help people in need, but few of us do the hard work of focusing on why kids end up being social orphans in the first place. People like lawyers, politicians, and real estate developers can do great harm or great good depending on how much of an advocate they are for people who are impacted by their work. Christians should advocate for justice in addition to being compassionate.

Overcome the jungle mentality. Some people are called to go oversees to jungles to reach hurting children, but most of us have social orphans living right in our own cities in America. Go global, but let's not lose sight of the hurting young people in our own neighborhoods.

Overcome fear. I know many Christians in America who are afraid to get involved in helping kids in our cities because of fear. We are obsessed with safety in America. I believe that God is calling us to much more than complacency or being paralyzed by fear. Followers of Jesus can make a huge impact in the lives of many at-risk youth if we would simply take the first step to go beyond our comfort zones.

NYC Urban Immersion - Day Five

This was my last full day in New York City. I'll miss the city and the many new friendships I've made this week, but I really cannot wait to get back to Pittsburgh to be with my friends and family. I've learned so much about God's heart for reaching the city from some of the most incredible urban leaders in the world. This morning Ray Bakke lectured about how Paul went to many different kinds of cities, and he modeled many different approaches to reaching people in those cities depending on the culture and context. The gospel message of Jesus Christ never changes, but different methods of carrying forth the message should be utilized. Our first site visit this morning was to Trinity Lutheran Church in Manhattan where the congregation is led by a pastor named Heidi Neumark. Around a third of the population of the church is Latino, a third is African-American, and a third is white. In attracting a cross-cultural crowd, she has incorporated a lot of art and diverse imagery into her teaching and the look of the church. I gained some great ideas about how to connect with many different groups of people in the East End of Pittsburgh. After lunch we all spent time with Tim Keller, a pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan. He shared with us about his journey in life, and how Christian leaders can lead effectively in complex urban environments. He has tried to create an "ecosystem" in New York that leads to sustainable church growth and planting plus effective partnerships with specialized parachurch organizations. Church plants are important for established churches in cities, and vice versa. Keller has been very effective at bridging the gap between personal evangelism and social justice in evangelical churches, and it was interesting to hear his perspectives in person. In the late afternoon we visited the studio of Makoto Fujimura, an artist who is impacting culture in New York and around the world through the International Arts Movement. Our class had a wonderful discussion about how Christians can impact culture in cities through the arts, and many of us pastors had lots of questions about how we can integrate the arts into our churches. I heard some wonderful ideas that I just might try out in Pittsburgh. For our last stop in the day, we visited NYU, the largest private university in the country with 50,000 students. We spoke to the Protestant chaplain about her role in providing spiritual support for students at NYU, a door that has opened up a lot since 9/11 caused the university to be more open to religous activity on campus. We also heard from a Muslim chaplain and a Jewish chaplain who support students at NYU. It was very interesting to listen in on the interfaith dialogue that these three campus leaders have opened up with one another. The conversations between the chaplains and my classmates were also fascinating.

We have been introduced to some of the most significant leaders in all of New York this week, and it has been a lot to take in! Today was another great day. The pastor at the Lutheran Church this morning introduced some powerful ways to connect with people from the neighborhood cross-culturally, Tim Keller provided us with some powerful thoughts, and the rest of the speakers throughout the course of the day were full of insight. I was surprised at how interested my classmates were in integrating the arts into their churches, and I was equally surprised by some of the answers the artists provided as advice to pastors. The artists suggested that instead of pastors thinking about how to use art in the church, that pastors should go to where the artists live and do their work and spend time with them in order to get to know them and learn more about their art (whether it is on canvas, or with a voice, or with an instrument, etc.). Interaction with artwork does not need to be transactional right out of the gate. We do not need to try to force Christian meaning into the world of art. Art, as with all things in the life of the church, is a gift from God.

I'm sure I will be trying to apply many things at North Way based upon today's experiences. For one, I need to continue to try to learn the context and culture in the East End of Pittsburgh as we approach our launch date. I am really thinking through the artwork and design of the East End Ministry Center. I think we could do some innovative things to attract a more diverse group of people to the church. I'm thinking murals and different kinds of artwork that are welcoming to many different kinds of people. Tim Keller encouraged us to build strong relationships with parachurch organizations that specialize in certain parts of the church's mission, and in the East End I am going to continue to connect with organizations that can help us to reach many different kinds of people. Partnerships can be really helpful to both churches and the organizations. LAMP is a great example of that in Pittsburgh. Our church has much to build on, and many areas that we can grow together.

NYC Urban Immersion - Day Four

Today was another dream day for an urban pastor! We left early this morning and traveled by bus from Manhattan to Brooklyn to visit the largest evangelical church in northeast America. Christian Cultural Center, led by Pastor AR Bernard, is one of the top five largest churches in the country with over 35,000 members. The church has a lot of diversity, and the majority of members are African-American. I learned so many things that I'll be trying to figure out how to implement at the North Way East End campus. The church places a HUGE emphasis on hospitality, relationships, a welcoming environment, arts integration, missiology, technology, and church history. Pastor Bernard encouraged us as pastors to lead from our hearts and be ourselves (not trying to be like some other pastor we may want to emulate). The church is diverse partially because their worship is eclectic with classical, jazz, and hymns, and their teaching resonates with many different types of people. They favor dynamic orthodoxy over static tradition. Their church objectives are to effecively care for people, efficiently manage resources, and enable real growth (discipleship). The time spent at CCC was truly an amazing experience, and I am so thankful that I was able to learn from such a good leader in the heart of Brooklyn. We left one of the most influential churches in the 21st century to travel to a different part of Brooklyn where we spent time at the largest and most famous church of the 19th century, Plymouth Church, which was the first megachurch in America founded by Henry Ward Beecher in 1849. During the Civil War era Beecher was widely considered to be the most famous man in America due to his unique communication skills mixed with his role as an abolitionist. The current pastor of Plymouth Church, David Fisher, was a classmate of Ray Bakke's at Trinity Seminary many years ago. He spoke to us about what it is like to lead a church with a rich tradition in an affluent neighborhood in which many people are athiests in a strong secular society. When he took over as the tenth pastor of the church several years ago there were only a handful of people attending. The church was mostly made up of unitarians who were remnants from a period when the name of Jesus was forbidden to be mentioned for 99 years. He has come to the church and they are experiencing a revival and growth to several hundred people. He talked to us about the hostility that he faces from people who worship money and are hostile toward religion. He shared several keys for modern church leaders. It is important for Christian leaders to understand culture and context, the best ministry is incarnational, leadership is helping people find God's will for their lives, we need to utilize effective theology, we must understand that we are not the Holy Spirit, and good pastors are amateur sociologists and anthropologists.

Over the past couple of days we went to one church that grew locally because the pastor cast a vision to impact the world globally. We went to one church that grew because the pastor emphasized prayer. We went to another church that grew because the pastor emphasized organization and corporate structures that supported the gospel message and discipleship through relationships. We visited another church that grew because an experienced minister served as a doctor to fix the sicknesses facing the church. The point is, there are many different effective approaches to church in the city. It is important for pastors to contextualize what is going on in their churches and cities in order to be effective, but there is no one right way to do church. The Holy Spirit is able to work through many different ways to advance the Kingdom of God, and we also need to celebrate his role in doing that over the past 2,000 years of Christian history. I was completely amazed by the stark contrast between the churches we visited today.

With regard to application, I gained MANY ideas about how we can be effective in the East End of Pittsburgh. We will still have North Way's DNA, but it will definitely be my role as the campus pastor to contextualize the worship experience in the East End. That means I will need to continue to spend a lot of time in the neighborhoods getting to know people and places, including pastors, churches, restaurants, organizations, streets, and everything in between. At this point I think that I am planning to walk around the East End, beginning in East Liberty, and visit every single church in order to find out more about the work that God is already doing in the East End. From a more tangible perspective, I have some great ideas about cross-cultural ministry that should be very helpful in the urban environment where I live and work. I am so excited to get back to Pittsburgh to jump right in!

NYC Urban Immersion - Day Three

Today was one of the best days I've had in a long time. I can't even begin to describe how the Holy Spirit ministered to me today, and how much God opened my heart to new perspectives on his mission to advance his Kingdom. I am truly blessed to be a part of this doctorate program at BGU. On this day I had the opportunity to spend time with some of the most influential leaders in the body of Christ. This morning Ray Bakke gave one of his classic lectures about how most money that is intended to help poor people is actually filtered out of poor urban neighborhoods to middle class urban or suburban neighborhoods. He provided a biblical foundation for why Christian leaders should care about such issues and become engaged as transformational leaders and stewards. That type of thinking is a big reason why I moved my family to Homewood in Pittsburgh. Any Christian serving the poor should go about it in an empowering way. The gospel is good news, and it is empowering. After Ray's morning lecture we visited Dr. Mark Gornick, the founder of City Seminary, a training school for urban Christian leaders that delivers a curriculum similar to BGU in that cities are the laboratories and theory is all tied in practically. A woman named Dr. Janice McClain, an pastor who immigrated to America from Jamaica when she was a teenager, shared with us about how Harlem is being gentrified and pastors like her are learning how to be effective at ministering in complex urban environments. In the afternoon we all went to Bethel Gospel Assembly, a huge multicultural church in Harlem, where Bishop Dr. Carlton Brown shared with us about how his church is doing amazing things reaching many different types of people for Christ in Harlem, in the greater New York region, and in countries all over the world. It is so amazing and inspiring to see the fruit that God is able to bring forth from churches who are missional to the core. Yesterday I visited a Chinese church that is reaching thousands of people all over the world, and today I visited a church made up mostly of African-American and Latino people who are making a huge difference in the world for the sake of Christ. Vision is a holy discontent for the way things are, and good pastors are able to be visionary. Also, there are many different ways to be effective at urban ministry. Much depends on context and vision. In the late afternoon we visited Brooklyn Tabernacle, another huge multiracial church with over 10,000 members that was started in what was once one of the most violent and dangerous neighorhoods in Brooklyn. The senior pastor, Jim Cymbala, spent several hours with us describing how the church started with only a few members and how through the power of prayer God has done amazing things. He shared with us about the importance of prayer in churches. He told us that the church must be about LOVE, or our message will get lost in all of the craziness associated with the institutional church. He encouraged all of us to be real, and not try to be actors as pastors. He also mentioned that the biggest challenge facing the modern church is at-risk youth, and that all churches should develop strategies for reaching troubled urban youth. That made me feel good that North Way has been doing just that in our city of Pittsburgh through the LAMP mentoring initiative.

There is just far too much that happened to me today to describe in this blog. I'll only be able to unpack it all over a good cup of coffee with lots of people back in Pittsburgh. God is so amazing! I honestly cannot think of a better way to learn. We learn deep theories in a classroom, and then we go out into the streets to see how that theology and theory is being applied. I was completely surprised by how authentic and engaged these amazing leaders were today. The Holy Spirit really worked through Jim Cymbala in particular to encourage me that cross-cultural church is not only possible, but essential for the growth of the church in cities in America. He also demonstrated the importance of prayer as the foundation for living out God's purposes.

I was greatly encouraged today in the three things that I am most passionate about in Pittsburgh: working with at-risk youth, missional church, and multiracial church. Today I interacted with pastors who are living out profound callings in all three of those areas, and it is so inspiring to have access to people who have been down the road that I am only beginning to go down in Pittsburgh. My heart is to continue to reach the at-risk young people that I am working with in Homewood, to continue to encourage North Way to get outside the walls of our church buildings in order to build relationships with people who are not Christians, and to remain committed to the dream of leading a multiracial church campus in the East End. All of these things are possible with God, and today my Father blessed me with the gift of encouragement and empowerment. I am ready for the next steps in Pittsburgh!

NYC Urban Immersion - Day Two

This morning started with Ray giving a lecture about God's description of a healthy city in Isaiah 65. Heaven will be an urban environment, and the cities will be characterized by happiness, healthiness, good housing, plenty of food, strong extended families, integrity of work, and the absence of conflict. Christians leaders in today's cities should all be striving to work toward the heavenly standards that God described in Isaiah 65. Modern urban churches face many challenges, however. The challenges are sociological because cities contain so much pluralism. For instance, one zip code in Flushing that we visited today has 130 different languages and New York City in general has people who speak over 800 different languages. There are over 2 million Jews, 1 million Chinese, 800,000 Muslims, 400,000 Hindus, 100,000 West Africans, and 100,000 Sikhs in New York City. All of the Chinese people who live outside of China, nearly 140 million people, represent the tenth largest country in the world. Church leaders must adapt in order to reach people in a pluralistic society. We need to figure out how to connect with many different kinds of people, not become afraid to talk to people who are different than us. The early church set an example of diversity in church leadership in Acts 13, where we see that the church leadership in Antioch contained two African, two Asian, and one European pastor. The pastors were selected intentionally to reflect the diversity in Antioch and the greater region. Churches also face structural, denominational, financial, and personal challenges in modern cities. Chris Clayman, a missionary in NYC, then lectured about his ministry to the large diapora of 100,000 West African immigrants living in New York City. He does spend some time in the West African nation of Mali, but most of his mission lies in reaching the Muslim population from Mali that lives in New York. Many American Christians rush to take short term mission trips to exotic jungles oversees, but they won't reach out to the people from many different nationalities living in their own cities and back yards. Early Christianity spread rapidly through the Jewish Diaspora, so why can't God work through us today to reach diaspora people groups in modern cities? Clayman suggested that churches need to build mission into their systems and structures so that we can be equipped to reach people in our own neighborhoods and cities. We took the subway to Queens to visit an Indonesian church called Seh Moon Baptist Church, where we took in a lecture by Tony Carnes who is a senior writer with Christianity Today and the founder of a web magazine with 1.4 millions viewers that covers religion in New York. Ray Bakke also lectured at that church, and he pointed out that each person in our churches has biological, geographical, vocational, and recreational spheres of influence. If we can intentionally influence people in those spheres of influence, then a congregation of 100 people suddenly is multiplied by four in order to reach 400 people. That means pastors and ministry leaders in cities should visit people where they live, work, and play in order to advance the Kingdom of God. After that we went to a big church in one of the three Chinatowns in New York in the Flushing neighborhood. We spent time with a Chinese pastor who has built new seminaries in New York, Taiwan, Canada, Brazil, Paris, Italy, China, and Hong Kong, he planted 15 churches in New York, Taiwan, and Brazil, his church has sent mission teams to many different countries in the world, and he has led a community care movement in New York that impacts many people every day. He showed us pictures of a cave that was dug in China to train church leaders. One of the great things about BGU is that I have to opportunity to learn from leaders in many different urban environments in many different countries in the world, and I get an amazing glimpse into the diversity of the body of Christ. This century that we are currently living in will be China's century of influence, so it is important for Christian leaders to understand what is going on culturally around the globe in order to be more effective at reaching people. The church we visited operates seven different church services in different languages to different people groups. I have a lot to learn from them!

I took in a lot of information today! I was greatly encouraged about the possibilities of building a cross-cultural worship experience in Pittsburgh. New York is a great place to learn about how Christians can be effective in pluralistic urban environments, and I heard about and witnessed several successful examples today. I am very intrigued about the possibilities of reaching diasporic people groups in cities in American, including in my urban context in Pittsburgh. I have often wondered why people in Pittsburgh often go to such great lengths to go on mission trips to Mexico and countries in Central America, but they completely ignore and sometimes even despise the Hispanic people living in Pittsburgh. We can all live missionally every day of our lives. Short term mission trips to other countries can be fine, but they should lead us to live missionally to reach people in our own neighborhoods and cities. I was amazed at how the Chinese church we visited today reached people in many different parts of their city and in other countries. It is possible to be locally and globally connected, and that skill set is effective in our modern global society.

I can't wait to get back to Pittsburgh to continue to work cross-culturally with LAMP and in the North Way East End community. I'm being very intentional about God's pluralistic heart, and I hope our church can continue to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit and live out that kind of diversity. Pittsburgh has many different neighborhoods that are often separated from one another, but I really feel that my role as a pastor in Pittsburgh is one of a bridge builder and reconciler across cultures. That includes reconciliation across races and socioeconomic status. I am so thankful for the many models of ministry that I am experiencing this week in one of the most amazing cities on the planet... New York. Also, with regard to application, I am hoping to visit many of the people who are planning to be on the East End launch team at their places of work and recreation over the months to come. That should really help me to get to know people, because people in cities often emphasize their vocation and recreational activities. I am really looking forward to what tomorrow will bring.

NYC Urban Immersion - Day One

We started the day off early today by taking the subway from my sister Cameron's house to our BGU class meeting place at the Metropolitan New York Baptist Assocation. We had the opportunity to meet 30+ new classmates and friends. Dr. Ray Bakke started the day off with a lecture about New York, and then we all divided up to go to different churches in the city. I attended worship services at Bethel Gospel Assembly, a church that takes up an entire city block in Harlem. The church was pretty diverse with a strong African-American and Latino presence in the building. The songs were many of the same songs that I am familiar with at North Way in Pittsburgh, only the style was very different. The songs all had a strong gospel feel. I asked lots of questions about how the church is intentional about being cross-cultural, and how they design their worship. I have not spent much time in pentacostal churches, so it was an enjoyable experience. We ate lunch at a soul food restaurant in Harlem, and then we watched the New York City Marathon for a while. All afternoon we toured around Wall Street, the Occypy Wall Street movement, Federal Hall, NYSE, St. Paul's Church, Trinity Church (the second richest church in the world), and the Customs House. Ray lectured a lot along the way. We then took a ferry ride to and from Staten Island as we watched the sun set on a perfect day in New York. In the evening we watched a documentary about the history of New York City back at the MNYBA.

Today was filled with a great deal of walking, which was fine since it was such a beautiful day. Walking is the best way to get to know a city. That's true in NYC and in Pittsburgh. One of my favorite things to do in Pittsburgh is walk around the city to get to know people and places. I really enjoy the BGU learning model because what we learn in the classroom is carried over into the streets. I picked up on a couple good lines that Ray said while we were walking around the city. He pointed out that the church has two functions: to be a sign of and an agent for the Kingdom of God agenda. There are several different models that are effective in cities. He used the metaphor for urban ministry that some ministries are like bicycles and some are like 747 airplanes. Depending on the context, either approach is effective or ineffective. Small churches can do things in cities that big churches cannot do, and vice versa. Storefront churches can provide a family structure for people in need, while cathedral's can speak truth to power. As Christians in the city, we should value the many different expressions of worship in the city. The diversity in New York is amazing! I am really enjoying getting to know so many people. I have classmates from all different parts of the United States, and other countries such as Brazil and Thailand. I met several campus pastors a multisite churches today, and I also met several people working with at-risk youth. I even met a guy from Chicago who launched a faith-based mentoring initiative with high risk youth in Chicago five years ago. We had a lot in common, and I love having access to these types of leaders.

I learned many transferable principles today. I need to continue to walk around the East End of Pittsburgh to get to know my community better. One of the key points we discussed today was that most churches in cities operate in silos. The pastors and church members rarely interact with people from other churches and ministries. Transformational leaders are bridge builders and reconcilers, so it is my responsibility as a pastor in Pittsburgh to build bridges with other churches and Christians in the city. As the East End campus is launched, it will be crucial for me to continue to be present in the East End as a reconciler while also remaining focused on the details associated with a new North Way campus. Every church has gifts, no matter the size, scope, or history of the mission. It's part of my job as a pastor in the city to identify those gifts.

Presence in the East End

My calling as a pastor in the East End of Pittsburgh is so unique. The region I serve is a diverse area with many different kinds of people in various stages of life. Yesterday was probably a good example of the unique skill set that is required of urban pastors. I went for a walk with my wife in East Liberty, and we had several conversations with people as we grabbed lunch at Whole Foods and strolled past Starbucks, Target, abandoned buildings, and locally owned small businesses. We are really enjoying getting to know our neighbors in East Liberty, and God is opening up many doors for conversations as we walk around and get to know people. In the afternoon I spent time with some local developers from the Pittsburgh region who are involved in massive construction projects that are planned for Homewood. These guys shared their vision for the transformation that is underway in Homewood. After they left I went out into Homewood to spend some time with people in the streets and I ended up bumping into several friends, one of whom is a Muslim. He has spent a lot of time over at our house over the past couple of years, but we lost touch with him recently when he moved to a different neighborhood. It was great to catch up with him and see how he was doing. Next, I ended up putting myself right into the middle of two dramatic situations. As a pastor, I found myself deescalating a potential incident involving gun violence between two teenagers. I also visited a mentee's house right as he was in the midst of an argument with his mother. I got him out of the house for a couple hours so they could both cool down. These are the kinds of things that make my job as a pastor in the city so unique. Cities are complex with many different kinds of people and environments. The only way to really be effective at ministering to urban people is to hit the streets. It's important to be present with people in real time, not holed up in an office in front of a computer. Urban ministry is not for everyone, but for those who have been called it is an amazing thing to be a part of. God is often able to work through me on a daily basis to accomplish his purposes, and when I wake up every day I have no idea what to expect. The East End of Pittsburgh really involves me giving up control of my life every day in exchange for complete surrender to God. I can't think of anything else I'd rather be doing with my life!

God is a Good Father

Recently I have had a lot on my plate in working with LAMP, launching a new campus in the East End, living incarnationally in Homewood, and writing a disssertation. Although this season of life has been difficult in many ways, I have also seen how God is carrying me through everything. Just in the past couple of days, God has blessed me in tremendous ways and answered prayers in some pretty dramatic ways. All I can think about is that God is a good Father. He loves me so much. God knows what is best for me, and he is really working through me in this period of my life to achieve his purposes. I would be completely lost without the love of my Savior!