A Full Week of Ministry in the City

As I look back over this past week, I am thankful for the opportunities that God gives me to build relationships with so many different types of people at North Way East End. Serving as an urban pastor allows me to get to know people in a way that transcends socioeconomic, racial, and cultural barriers. This week I met with a businessman who attends the church to encourage him as he helps influential people in our city to steward the resources that God has given them. He is a financial planner, and he is serving God right where he is supposed to be serving God. My goal as a pastor is to continue to point him toward Jesus. I am proud of the way that my friend is honoring the Lord with his vocation.

I spent almost the entire part of another day this week navigating the Allegheny County court system with a young friend of mine from East Hills who managed to get himself into some legal troubles. We've spent at least four or five days over the past three months showing up at court appearances and being bounced around from pretrial event to pretrial event and from magistrate's offices to court rooms. We both know that God is in complete control of the whole situation, and we are trusting God with the outcomes while trying to learn everything that we can from the circumstances. I have been given the gift of time with this young man... lots of time sitting and waiting. We've had some great conversations about life and God and just about everything else. I am thankful for the gift of time.

I prayer walked our city with a pastor friend from Guatemala who leads a ministry that is making a huge difference in many different parts of our world. I served in executive leadership team meetings to help to make decisions that will guide the direction of a church that reaches thousands of people on a weekly basis. I got to serve with the amazing staff at North Way East End... some of my favorite people on this planet who are impacting many people with the Good News of Jesus Christ. I was able to read the Bible, read other books, write, and pray a lot. I led people closer to Jesus during Sunday morning worship at a performing arts theater in the heart of a diverse, urban neighborhood. I spent time with people that I bumped into in the heart of that neighborhood during the week. I spent time in an elementary school in Homewood with board members from our LAMP partner organization. We dreamed about ways that we could continue to impact some of the most vulnerable children in our city through mentoring.

There were so many other experiences this week that I won't take the time to write about in this blog post. However, the important thing for me to remember is that all of this is about people growing closer to God. I am learning to love my city and to love the people that God has called me to lead. I pray that God will continue to stretch me and grow me to build meaningful relationships with many different kinds of people in my city. The city isn't a problem to be solved. The city is a gift of common grace, and its inhabitants are sons and daughters of the Most High God. Leading in this environment is truly a privilege. 

Prepare: Community and Mission

What does it mean to be a part of a church? I'll be teaching on this topic tomorrow at North Way East End, and all week God has been giving me insight on what to share with our congregation. We haven't even officially been a church for two years, but there have been many difficult moments and many incredible break through moments along our journey together. There are some aspects of Christian community that are strengths for us, and some aspects that are still developing.

The common thread throughout our young journey as a church is that the Holy Spirit is bonding us together. We are a community of followers of Jesus Christ who are caring for one another and for our neighbors in Pittsburgh and around the world. We are joyful participants in God's redemptive mission. We are all flawed people, so we sometimes struggle in our relationships with one another. Still, I love our community and I'm looking forward to seeing what God has in store for us in our part of the city of Pittsburgh.

If you're reading this and you're searching for a church home in Pittsburgh, I hope you'll come and check us out some time. We worship at 10am on Sunday mornings in East Liberty at 5941 Penn Avenue. North way East End has incredible worship, solid biblical teaching, a great kids church experience, small groups, and many outreach efforts both locally and globally. God is leading us to be a church that is uniquely urban and cross-cultural. We have a heart for reaching our city.

Reflection and Action

Leadership involves both reflection and action. I have a lot to reflect on from what God accomplished through my trip to India. My faith was stretched to the max as I first was not able to go in August, and then as we waited on God's timing to be able to go in September. I learned more about perseverance and waiting on God. My faith was strengthened by my time spent in Trichy and Lonavola. I interacted with so many leaders who are dependent upon God to bring vision and resources. I left India feeling encouraged by everything that God showed me, and inspired to be a better leader in my context in Pittsburgh.

My reflection on India leads me to action in Pittsburgh. God has given me an incredible church family to shepherd at North Way East End. The incredible mentoring activity through LAMP continues in Homewood. God is transforming lives and drawing people closer to him in my city. I'm excited to preach live at East End this coming Sunday. In addition, we have baptisms and a worship night this coming Wednesday night. And, I am really looking forward to teaching Encountering God in the City at North Way East End from October 23rd through November 20th.

God continues to call me to be a leader through serving as a pastor and mentor. When I visit places like India, God changes me through a process of displacement. Taking risks and experiencing God in other cities and other cultures causes me to be a more effective leader in my own context. I'm more inspired than ever to lead a multi-site, muti-ethnic, church that is on mission to reach a diverse part of my city. I'm more excited than ever to participate in God's mission to redeem my neighborhood and my city with the transforming love of Jesus Christ. 

Signs of Hope in Pitcairn

I had the opportunity to spend some time in the neighborhood of Pitcairn last night at the home of Gary and Carol Agate. The Agates have an amazing incarnational ministry. They moved to Pitcairn to be able to reach out to the kids and families there, and they are mobilizing volunteers from local churches to get involved in the work. Last night I got to be a part of the community meal that they share with a bunch of kids in their neighborhood. The kids powerhoused slopply joes and homemade french fries while the adults built relationships with the kids. We spent about 30 minutes with the kids on a little Bible lesson and some "real talk" about life. Then after the kids left I hung around for a while to talk to the adults about the challenges of incarnational urban ministry and how to build transformational mentoring relationships with kids over time. The entire evening was so much fun.

God is doing a great work in Pitcairn, and he is doing that great work through followers of Jesus Christ who are simply being obedient to the calling that God has given them. The ministry is built on relationships, not necessarily programs. The ministry points the young people toward a relationship with Jesus Christ. The ministry is being contextualized to the neighborhood. The leaders are truly trying to find out where the Holy Spirit is working, and they are joining that work. If more people like the Agates would reach into other Pittsburgh-area neighborhoods, we would see God literally transform this region. I was thankful to get a small snapshot of what God is doing in our city last night. I am encouraged to pray that God will continue to raise up more leaders in Pittsburgh to participate in transformational leadership in urban neighborhoods.

Reconciliation and Relationships

I've been having some great conversations with the North Way East End staff this week about our church's role as reconcilers in our city. Most of our discussions have focused on how we can build authentic, transformational relationships that transcend ethnic, socioeconomic, and cultural boundaries that are so strong in our society. As humans, our relationships are often damaged because we are broken people. Yet, as we grow in relationship with God, our relationships with one another grow as well. We become supernaturally reconciled to one another if we will follow the lead of the Holy Spirit.

Robert J Schreiter suggests that "reconciliation is not a skill to be mastered; rather it is something that is discovered: the power of God's grace welling up in one's life. Reconciliation becomes more of an attitude than an acquired skill; more of a spirituality than a strategy." At North Way East End, we are starting to experience the power of God's grace welling up in us. God is changing hearts and drawing people closer to one another.

As a pastor and a leader in my city, my prayer is that God will continue to open my eyes to be able to discover where he is at work in reconciling relationships. I am committed to putting everything on the line, living in the tension that so often comes in bringing others together, so that I might be able to experience the fullness of the human experience. There is great joy to be discovered in seeing people being reconciled with God and with one another. 

Living in God's Grand Adventure

I recently spent some time looking through photos of my mentoring adventures, and I was kind of surprised about how many times my two daughters popped up in the photos. By choosing to live in the inner city neighborhood where I also work at leading a mentoring program, I have intentionally brought my family along as a meaningful part of the adventure of life. My calling is not a special solo mission for daddy. My daughters are learning how to live in God's mission to reach others on a daily basis. The gospel message of Jesus Christ is real to them on a daily basis because we all live it out together. I am excited to see what God does in their own lives as they grow into the callings that God has for them.

It's impossible to be effective at advancing the kingdom of God from a safe distance. The best ministry happens through hands on experiences and authentic relationship building. I'm happy that my daughters are learning these things from a young age. Our family loves living in God's mission together.

Celebrating Reconciliation

I had a good conversation this week with a fellow pastor in the city who is also leading a cross-cultural church. We discussed the challenges of being reconcilers across cultures (racially, socioeconomically, etc.), and we also celebrated the break throughs that God has been able to accomplish. The Harvest Party and House of Manna last night definitely represent reasons to celebrate how God's profound reconciling love is bringing people in Pittsburgh together. People from many different neighborhoods converged in Homewood to spend time together at multiple events. It was incredible because Christians were leading the way in organizing these environments. Often, Christians drag our feet when it comes to reconciling across cultures. Instead, we should be leading the way in engaging people from all different walks of life. We should be excellent relationship builders across cultural boundaries because that is what God requires of us. It's as simple as that, yet it is a challenging process. I am encouraged to see what God is going to do in Pittsburgh over the months and years to come as we continue to build on the solid foundation that is being built.

Cultural Diversity at Kidz Gig

Both city campuses at North Way Christian Community have teamed up for an amazing week of Kidz Gig. As I was standing with a whole bunch of kids worshipping God this morning, I was struck by the diversity of the people in the room. I noticed strong representation from African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and Caucasians. We had Christians and nonChristians in the room, and people from many different socioeconomic backgrounds and various neighborhoods.

The cultural diversity at North Way is not an accident. Too often, churches in America represent some of the most segregated social institutions. As a pastor in the city, I am committed to leading a church that represents the racial and socioeconomic diversity that is so prevelant in our neighborhoods. I am committed to moving beyond paying lip service to the issue and just hoping that it happens. At North Way East End, we are working hard to develop cross-cultural leaders and cross-cultural styles of worship. We are working to build meaningful, authentic relationships with each other while trying to learn from each other. After all, our eternal destiny, the kingdom of God, is going to be extremely diverse. Modern Christians should be setting the tone for what the kingdom of God looks like now. That's why we are so intentional about engaging people across cultures. We have a long way to go in this area at North Way! Still, this week of Kidz Gig has been greatly encouraging to me. We are starting to make progress.

Prayer-focused, Cross-cultural, and Missional

This morning I gathered to pray with several people who have committed to praying for North Way East End every Saturday morning at 7am. The time together is always unique because there are so many details to launching a church campus and new prayer requests arise on a daily basis. One of the things I am committed to as a pastor is that our church will be built on a foundation of prayer. Many churches and church leaders talk about prayer being important, but they fail to emphasize prayer or model it for people and so corporate prayer can become lost in the shuffle.

I've also been intentional about building cross-cultural community in the East End, and Pastor Freedom and I have been out in the community each week building relationships across cultures. I've been encouraging the staff and elders at North Way East End to go out of their way to emphasize authentic relationships across cultures. I wouldn't say that we have "arrived" at being cross-cultural by any stretch of the imagination, but we're making good progress toward that goal. Many church leaders like to talk about being cross cultural, but I want to actually be a cross cultural faith community.

Another emphasis of North Way East End is that we are a missional church community. That means that we serve the poor and marginalized people in our city and across the world. We serve people outside the walls of the church well beyond Sunday mornings. We gather together to worship on Sundays so that we can go out and impact the world in every sector of society and across socioeconomic boundaries. As a pastor, I spent a great deal of my time this week with people living in desperate poverty in the inner city. I also spent a significant amount of time with business leaders who steward a lot of resources throughout the course of the week. Many churches like to talk a lot about serving the poor and being missional, but our leaders in the East End are working toward following God's lead to make this a part of everything that we do at the church and in our city.

Prayer-focused. Cross-cultural. Missional. These are key foundations of the North Way East End church, and we are seeking to live them out in the city so that God will be glorified. We are just starting in the process, and we have a long way to go. We are, however, off to a promising start in these areas!

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!

Building Relationships Across Cultures

The Harvest Party in Homewood on Friday was a big hit! Hundreds of people from Homewood and many other neighborhoods came together to build relationships around a special event for families and friends. These types of things are so close to the heart of God. God designed human beings to be in relationships with one another that bear fruit in the Kingdom of God. That includes building relationships across cultures, racially, socioeconomically, and in many other ways. Christians should be leading the way in this area, but too often we lag behind as Sunday mornings are culturally segregated and disconnected relationally. One way Christians can overcome this reality is to plan for worship together that is cross-cultural. However, special events are also helpful in drawing cultures together so that people can enter into an environment where they can build relationships. This happened on Friday night at the Harvest Party as people from many diverse backgrounds came together to enjoy one another's company. It was a beautiful thing to be a part of. God is so good to open those kinds of doors for us to build community with one another, and hopefully the seeds of reconciliation through relationships took one more tiny step forward.