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!
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