Encountering God in the City

This coming Wednesday evening I'm excited to kick off a North Way study group called Encountering God in the City. We'll be gathering at the North Way Christian Community - East End campus in the heart of East Liberty (5941 1/2 Penn Avenue). Child care will be provided for families, and the time should go from 6:30-8:30pm. You can register for the course by emailing Dana Hunter at danah@northway.org.

The purpose of this course is to learn more about God's mission to redeem our increasingly urban world. In the first week we'll be developing a theology of the city. In the second week we'll examine the differences between compassion, justice, and advocacy. In the third week we'll focus on urban missions. In the fourth week we'll study incarnational ministry. We'll wrap things up in the fifth week with a closer look at city transformation.

Someone who registered for the class recently asked if this course was based on Dr. Randy White's book called Encounter God in the City. While I highly recommend that book to people, the content of this course is not based on the material in his book. Dr. White directed the doctoral program that I went through at Bakke Graduate University, and he has served as a mentor to me in ministry. However, I'll be covering many broad topics involving urban ministry.

Encountering God in the City is open to anybody in the Pittsburgh area. It is for anyone who is interested in learning more about how to reach our city with the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am especially hoping that we'll have a good turnout from all of the North Way multi-site locations throughout the greater Pittsburgh region.

Church Plants in the City

Today I had a great lunch with a young pastor who wants to plant a church in the city of Pittsburgh. He has a lot of challenges in front of him. The neighborhood where he feels like God is calling him is a tough community with complex dynamics. There are many challenges in that community, but, as in all urban neighborhoods, there are also many assets. It was fun to encourage him, to share some of my adventures of launching a new church in the city, and to dream together about the plans that God has for our city.

There should not be competition between Christians when it comes to advancing the kingdom of God. In America, we are rapidly becoming a post-Christian nation in which thousands of churches close their doors each year. Christians should be actively supporting and cheering for those who God calls to plant new churches, especially in complicated urban environments. There is no competition because we are on the same team working toward fulfilling God's mission to redeem the world during this present evil age. Our modern society needs more passionate followers of Jesus to build up existing churches and launch new churches. I am excited to see that God is raising up new churches in the city of Pittsburgh, and I value the churches that have been here for a long time.

Celebrating One Year at North Way East End

Our leaders at North Way East End are preparing for a big one year anniversary celebration. We will begin by worshiping at 10am at 5941 Penn Ave in East Liberty as we ordinarily do. During the service we'll be reflecting on all that God has done this past year, and I'll be preaching live so that I can tell our church's story and cast vision for this upcoming year. It all culminates with a block party in the East End ministry center after church. We also have a small group connect this coming Sunday, so there will be a lot going on. Whether you've been regularly attending North Way East End, or if you've never had the opportunity to experience our church community, I invite everyone to join us for this Sunday's special time together. I'm sure it will be a memorable experience!

The Transformational Role of the Church in Society

I really enjoy being a part of making individual mentoring matches between people from my church and kids in Homewood. I know each match has the potential to transform the lives of both the mentors and the mentees. I have tremendous hope that God will work through each match. However, I also know there is much more potential for my church to impact Homewood, the city of Pittsburgh, and the world!  God has designed his Church to be the hope of the world, and when we fail to live out that mission then we fall short of the plans God has for the church.

In The Hole in the Gospel, Richard Stearns writes, "It's important to understand why churches are so strategically important to carrying out the mission that Jesus described in Luke 4, of bringing the good news of the kingdom of God to the whole world. As individuals, we all have an important role to play in demonstrating the gospel through our lives. We can pray, give, volunteer, and become effective personal ambassadors for the gospel. However, our greatest power to change the world is released when we come together in collective action to organize and focus the resources of the whole body of Christ. A church of one thousand members can have a much more powerful impact by harnessing the power of the whole than its individual members can have acting alone. God established the institution of the Church as a key strategy for building His kingdom and for leading the social revolution required by the gospel - 'on earth as it is in heaven' (Matt. 6:10). Said another way, without the collective and organizing power of churches, the ability of Christians to impact the world is greatly compromised."

Reflections on a Violin and the Church

During a recent church staff meeting we watched a You Tube video of the most famous violin player in the world conducting something of a social experiment. He got his hands on the most expensive violin in the world, an instrument from the 1700s with an estimated value of over $4 million dollars. Going against the advice of his handlers, who thought he would be mobbed, he decided to go to a busy Washington DC metro station to play the six most world famous songs on the violin. Dressed in regular clothes, he gloriously played the songs as thousands of people walked right past him failing to even acknowledge his existence. Throughout the six song set, only one person dropped a coin in his case and only one person actually stopped to listen to him.

There are several parallels that can be drawn between the experience of this violin player and the Christian church. Our staff was asked to reflect on what we saw, and some folks were encouraged while other people were discouraged by the video. The encouraged people pointed out that in Christian ministry, we also have a powerful message to share with the world and we just need to keep on persevering even if the world does not appreciate us. The discouraged people shared how tough it is to be responsible for communicating the most powerful message of all time, and yet still billions of people don't get the message. Our efforts can sometimes seem futile when people don't pay attention to us.

I want to point out that there is nothing wrong with the reflections of my colleagues at the church. I originally thought the same things, but then I had another thought pop into my head that I can't seem to shake. In some ways, the modern church is like the violin player in the video. The violin player was used to playing in high places, in famous buildings all over the world. He had been comfortable sharing his gifts to entertain the rich and powerful people of society who could afford to make their way into such elite cultural events. In fact, his message over time had been kept so far away from average people or from poor and hurting people that when he finally went down to the masses they did not recognize him. This kind of thing happens all the time in modern churches. When the church becomes too much a church of the powerful and privileged in society, when the church keeps the most powerful message of all time to themselves, and when they fail to build relationships with the poor and underprivileged in society, then the masses of the world fail to recognize the message because the messengers were busy keeping everything to themselves. Then, one day the church tries to bring the message into the world through one time events or by temporarily jumping out of their comfort zones and the world rejects them because they have not known them.

As the body of Christ, we need to recognize this and repent. We have kept the message to ourselves, kept our gifts to ourselves, and then we wonder why countless people drive past our churches every day without recognizing what they are missing out on. Have we kept the church in high places, away from as much brokenness in society as possible? Have we built a bunch of country clubs for cultural elites? Have we catered to the powerful or affluent or elite people in society in order to be "successful?" How will the world recognize the transformational message of the gospel if we keep it to ourselves or if we fail to consistently go into dark places in the world?

Reflections on the Fourth Century Church in North Africa

According to Ray Bakke, during the fourth century AD one-fourth of the world's Christians lived in Northern Africa. Today, Christianity can hardly be found in that region except for a small amount of Coptic Christians in Egypt. How did Christianity lose so much real estate? A surface look into the situation would find that Islam conquered the region and implemented their own religious beliefs. However, looking deeper into the situation one finds that the church actually set the stage for their own demise in several key areas.

1. The church in North Africa never figured out the race issue. They pushed Christianity onto people from a top-down perspective, the rich to the poor and the majority culture to the minority cultures. Do you see any comparisons to the church in America today? Many modern Christian churches are not taking the time to figure out the whole race issue. The homogenous church growth principles are in, and most churches are segregated as a result. As history has shown, this mindset actually weakens the church even though our individual church numbers may grow. As I've said many times before, Christians should be LEADING THE WAY on the issue of race in America, not perpetuating the problem. Are we willing to change? Nobody said it would be easy, but this is a crucial issue for the long term sustainability of the church.

2. The church in North Africa had language issues. They never bothered to interpret the Bible into the languages of many different people groups in the region, forcing them to assimilate to the dominant cultural languages and symbols. The only attempted translation was into Coptic, which happens to still be around today. Do you see any comparisons to the church in America today? The message from many churches is "We have a corner on the truth. Come to meet us on our turf (church building) on our time schedule (precisely 11am on Sunday morning) in our language and in our denomination and with our style of worship and with our stained glass pictures of what Jesus looks like and with our Bible translation." This type of thinking leads to exculsivity, or what I call the country club mentality. Do you want to belong to our club (our church)? Then you need to assimilate to us. On a broader level in America, this is true of the immigration debate. From a Christian perspective (not necessarily a government policy perspective), Christians should be embracing our neighbors from the south with open arms. What an amazing opportunity to share the gospel message! Many of the folks who cross into America are Christians... our brothers and sisters in Christ! If they are not Christians and we are given the opportunity to introduce the gospel to them here in America, think about how many people they could influence for Christ back in their home countries with their families and friends. What is the point of white Americans sending missionaries to Latin American countries when we could be more effective by reaching out to them when they come here? Instead, many Christians in America dehumanize "illegal aliens" and treat them in their minds as sponges who come here to mooch off of our systems. If white American Christians do not try to figure out the issues of language and culture in spreading the gospel, then our churches will continue their decline and we will have nobody else to blame but ourselves.

3. The lack of indigenous people in the North African church was a problem. The church was always ruled by outsiders, or the power base which was in a different region. The local Christians were never empowered in North Africa. Do you see any comparisons to the church in America today? Poverty is not the absence of money, it is the absence of power. As Christians in America, we need to stop making the people we are trying to reach dependent upon outside resources. Instead, we in the church should be seeking to empower others. We need to disciple people and elevate them into positions of influence. The problem is, influential American Christians often feel most comfortable when we are in positions of power. We are often raised on power, so it is disorienting for us to empower others and humble ourselves. However, the church becomes much weaker when we fail to empower others.

4. The North African church developed an escapist theology when Constantine endorsed Christianity as an imperial religion. They promoted sanctification over justification. Christians fled "messy" environments. Their own invididual souls became more important than their neighbor's souls. Do you see any comparisons to the church in America today? Many Christians have fled the culture in America at an alarming rate. We are, in fact, very close to creating the perfect Christian bubble for ourselves. We have Christian music, Christian schools (or home schools), Christian books, Christian businesses, Christian coffee houses, and even Christian breath mints to get rid of that pesky Christian coffee breath. We think we can escape the messyness of the world if we try hard enough. After all, it is our own souls and our family's souls that matter most, and not those unpleasant neighbors of ours. Right? Well, actually I believe that Christians are called to engage culture. With so many Christians running away from messyness in America, will any remain to share the gospel? Or will we head up to our ivory towers and shout the truth down to masses with our megaphones (or maybe our protest rally signs)?

5. The "truth" churches and "love" churches fought each other in North Africa, and they eventually split. This goes back to the persecution of Christians during that time, where some chose to be martyred and some rejected the faith only to want back in when the persecution had died down. The truth Christians were unaccepting of their weakness and brokenness, while the love Christians embraced brokenness and welcomed those people back into the faith community. Do you see any comparisons to the church in America today? We still have truth Christians battling love Christians, and truth churches battling love churches. We lob bombs (metaphorically speaking) back and forth at one another. As another example, conservative Christians in America go to battle with liberal Christians, and we somehow lose sight of our mission to reach the lost along the way. The church in America may not be sustainable over the long run if we don't change our ways.

I love the church. I love my church. I desperately want to see the body of Christ grow in America. But, that is not happening right now and it is not only because of influences beyond our own control. In many cases, we are doing it to ourselves. The history of the church in fourth century Northern Africa may repeat itself if we don't learn from them and then change our ways.