How Do We Find Men Who Will Plant Inner City Churches?

    One of the struggles of planting churches in the inner city areas of America is finding the kind of men who are willing and able to do it.  While focusing on the "church planter" let me say that finding the women to be involved in urban ministry is a challenge as well, but my experience leads me to say the women are ahead of the men in stepping up to the challenge.
    I am asked by various pastors and church leaders where they can find someone for their city, or their congregation which wants to help plant a daughter church or new site, or to plant a church in a strategic city that has no witness.  This to me is a wonderful problem, to actually have Christian leaders thinking that such places need churches and want men to plant and pastor them.
    I have been asked to suggest the names of African Americans to do this job, but I will tell you that finding anyone who will do this job, and can do this job, is a daunting task.  I need to clarify that I don't think African Americans are automatically qualified to do the job, nor do I think it right for anyone to assume that this is what they should do.  In my ministry I have sometimes realized that an African American brother was being challenged (even badgered) to go into the inner city when that was not their calling, nor their giftedness.  We will still continue to have the need for white men to go pastor white churches in various places, and for black men, and Latino men to plant churches in their communities.
    While believing that mixed churches and cross cultural churches are a manifestation of true Gospel reconciliation and the power of God to change our ethnic prejudices, I know not everyone will be able to plant or develop such a church.  I don't think of white churches or black churches as sinful due to their racial and cultural make-up; unless of course these are developed with exclusion in mind, then I do think they are sinful and harmful to the saints in that church.  I am a cheerleader and supporter of black men planting churches for black people in black communities, and in the Presbyterian Church in America we have far too few of them.  The racial and cultural handicap for black men to be trained in our circles, and to identify with our denomination (which is mostly an unknown quantity in the African American community) is a difficult hurdle to overcome.  Just as in missions where a national might be brought over the States to study in our seminaries, and then finds himself culturally out of tune with his own people when he returns home, this can happen in ethnic communities here in America.
    Let me speak a little more directly to that issue.  Some black folks are attracted to the PCA because they love Reformed doctrine and teaching.  They may have come from a background where the preaching was not intellectual, nor the teaching applicable to the life issues they were now encountering especially as they became part of the middle class.  Many new converts to Reformed teaching become enthusiastic and unfortunately some can even become self-righteous about what they have now attained in their learning (this is not exclusive to ethnicity).  Young men came become enamored of the kind of teaching they hear in seminary, which for those of us in Reformed circles in very academic, intellectual, and doctrinally rigorous.  Often our preachers don't preach any different than the professors teach so what we hear from our pulpits are lectures and not sermons.
    While praising God for the truths of the Reformation, and enjoying and reveling in Reformed distinctives, and blessed by so many great scholars to enlighten our minds and keep us from error we need to remember that people need truth communicated in a way that they can grasp; that they not only intellectually comprehend but with which they emotionally connect, and with truth that is applicable, relevant, motivating, empowering, and unavoidable.  In short, the people need pastors of the heart and not simply teachers of the mind.  I think everyone needs that kind of preaching, but black culture and the black community demand it.
    I am fully aware of the dangers of emotionalism and shallowness in much American preaching, but African Americans have one of the greatest legacies in the world when it comes to preaching, and preaching that is both moving and full of depth.  We do not want to create clones of intellectual dryness in young church planters.  If you don't love and preach Jesus from passion I think you should just stay home.
    One of the handicaps for anyone planting a church in the inner city is that the planter is not going to be able to attract many folks who have some prior involvement with the PCA or Presbyterianism in general.  Much of the work will of necessity be evangelism and outreach and building from scratch.  The white urbanite middle class churches at least have the power to attract young adults with some former suburban connection  to the PCA, which helps give a planter a "center of mass" to help the new church survive.
    On the other hand, this is exactly the great opportunity we have been looking for; to find non-Christians who are open to the Word of God and the love of Christ.  Poverty gives us an opening; as perverted as that sounds it is true.  It is also true that we have some young adults (even Boomers) who have a cultural resonance with issues of justice and mercy.  They would love to be involved in a dynamic and effective ministry within poor communities.  We need them all to help these kind of churches take root.
    Where do we find great church planters, who are willing to sacrifice themselves and their families, suffer for years in terms of experiencing all the difficulties of the inner city, living at a lower level of income, being patient with a small church that grows slowly, enduring the agony of watching dysfunctional people come to grips with  real discipleship and change and falling down and rising again and again?
    We want men to be ambitious so they have the passion and drive to plant, but then they must be patient to endure smallness and the feeling  that their peers are passing them by in the glory of a denomination that admires success and bigness.  It almost feels shameful to pastor a small and poor church.  It is a different kind of glory, but let no one make the mistake of thinking it is not glory to endure hardship for the sake of Christ.
    Where do we find them?   Well, first we admit that we don't.  God does the finding.  Our job is to begin with prayer, and to stay at it in prayer.  Secondly we realize that we may have to "grow our own." In evangelism and discipleship we find disciples.  We must be about the task of gathering and imparting to new believers, some who are gifted and called by God to become preachers, the truths we have learned.  We do this so they can teach others also.  We must engage and challenge young men when we meet them about the task and the need.   We must mentor, empower, and open doors for young men whenever we can.  This means we need to consciously always be looking for new recruits; developing programs and internships and scholarships for them so they can be trained.  We must encourage others to open positions, we must be creative in credentialing, we must be advocates for those who can be useful.  From day one we have to reduplicate ourselves and be ready to turn the ministry over to the next generation.
     We need to institutionalize this in our church budgets and leadership development must become part of our church culture.  If we make no place for young men they will not wait around long, but will find someplace they can feel well used.  We have to keep our eyes on the Kingdom and not simply our own employment. In the inner city we need men who are cross cultural, who can adapt economically and socially, and while working in small places still have large vision.  We need courage, we need risk, bathed in Gospel joy and hope.  Any race or ethnicity will do if they have been spiritually prepared, called, and gifted by God.  "Lord, give us men."

Community

Recently I was speaking to an urban pastor who is attempting to plant and build a church in the inner city.  One of his key leaders is a man who is heading up a Community Development Organization that grows out of the church.  They together are working on "Community Development." As they spoke they talked about developing community within their church, expanding it outward by loving their neighbors as themselves and letting ministry flow into the neighborhood from those relationships.  They see this as a strategy for effective impact in their neighborhood rather than simply initiating programs.
   As I listened to them talk about their ministry and their location I began to think about the distinctions between building a church and building community within a church.  I thought about the phrase "Community Development" and the distinction between restoring a neighborhood and building community within that neighborhood.  There are obviously different variations on this theme, such as having a church without real community within that church and restoring or developing a neighborhood without creating community.  There is the possibility of having community within a church but the church doing nothing to restore a neighborhood. There is the possibility of having community in a dying or dead neighborhood.
   I know from experience that some people place more value on their experience of community than they do on the life and growth of a church or a neighborhood, and others place more value on the artifacts of material improvement in a neighborhood than they do on the value of spiritual and emotional connections of the people.  Questions arise as to whether or not it matters, and as to whether or not one leads to the other eventually.  Another very practical question is whether or not both things (material/ institutional improvement and emotional/psychological solidarity) can be pursued at one time, or whether or not they ever interfere with each other.  My answer is yes, and yes.
    Have I confused you enough already?  Obviously I am using the word community here differently than simply that of a common zip code or city block.  I am speaking of relationship, and interaction, and a sense of commonality and purpose, and a positive solidarity of mutual help and support.  If urban living has taught us anything it is that living in a densely settled area does not rule out living in anonymity.  We can be completely isolated and alone while living in one of the most densely packed neighborhoods in the world.
    Sociologists have taught us that there are different kinds of communities, and these kind of communities vary in their positive effect.  Affluent urbanites tend not to need geographic solidarity except in the matters of property values and security.  They don't need to like each other to work on protecting those values.  They can find emotional and psychological solidarity in their vocations or avocations, their religion, their various kinds of social, civic, athletic clubs or affinities (to include causes, movements, gender issues, etc.)
    This is why we have "commuter churches" in the inner city that have nobody from the neighborhood where the church building stands attending that church, and no one from that church wanting someone from the neighborhood to attend.  The commuter church might indeed have a great score card of what makes community positive (for themselves) but absolutely no concern or compassion for the suffering that goes on around them.
    When I think of friends of mine who started works in the inner city I think of how they by necessity had to work on community.  They had to develop friendships with people who lived there in the neighborhood.  They were in the homes, hanging out on the stoop, the porch, playing ball in the playground, community center or sandlot.  Some of my friends had neighborhood kids literally move in with them, and life was filled with the drama of being close and intimate with broken and dysfunctional families.  These relationships were often intense, full of love, sometimes led to great disappointment and loss, even grief.  They were the seedbed of lots of stories that most urban ministers need to raise support.  For many of us they will forever be the thing that gives us identity with the city and we will always see the struggle personally from the perspective of those relationships.
    The challenge is both to stay there and to move on to greater impact.  I do believe both can become a false idol masquerading as the Kingdom.  In some ways it is the difference between Acts chapter two and 2 Corinthians chapter eight.  In both of these chapters in the Bible we see early Christians sacrificing for other Christians but in slightly different ways.  In Acts chapter two we see individual saints not calling anything their own, eating in one another's homes, and loving each other.  It is powerful and appealing and we sometimes wonder how come we don't see more of that today.  Then in 2 Corinthians we see congregations sacrificing for one another, but not so much an emphasis on communal living.  Latter letters of Paul stress believers working for themselves and making sure they care for their own families. In fact the Corinthian Christians are being asked to come to the help of those very Christians written about in Acts chapter two.
    If we don't keep our eyes on both aspects of the growth of the Kingdom we will shortchange ourselves, shortchange those we lead to confess Christ, and actually misrepresent the Kingdom of God.  What value if we rehab all the houses, re-pave the streets, rebuild the schools and school system, reform the police and municipal systems, and plant beautiful parks with playgrounds while all living as strangers?   What value if we love each other intensely, know all about our small group's family struggles, faith struggles, financial struggles, and love each other's cooking but change nothing in the systems that affect the health, security, education, and aspirations of all of our children?
    Some have complained about "Pietism" as a self indulgent kind of Christianity that pursues a personal walk with God to the neglect of a call to see Christ as Lord in all of life, in our culture, and in how we interact in our society.  While Ana-Baptists have been accused of creating alternative communities at least they have a sense that within that communal culture they will care for the whole human being.
    I guess I want it all.  I want to personally (call me a Pietist if you wish) know Jesus, and to love him and know his love for me.  I want it to be an intensely personal, mystical, and exhilarating relationship.  I also want community, the kind so that people are in my life and I am in theirs, where I feel their love and concern and I give of myself for my friends and where they lean on me and I lean on them.  I don't want to be isolated, and I don't want to be lonely, either individually or as an organization of Christians.  I want and need accountability and encouragement and want to give that to others.  I want to work on common problems and rejoice in the victories and weep together in the loss.  I want to feel a part of a team.  I want to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.  I want to be a city set on a hill, collectively, doing good works not for my own glory or our own glory, but for God's glory.
    I want to get something done, and not just gaze at our collective navels.  If there is poverty in my city, country, and world I want to know what causes it and what we can do to stop it.  If there is injustice I want to stand up against it.  If there is illiteracy, fatherless-ness, and abuse, and gang violence, and sexual trafficking then I want to know what solutions we can create to change and stop it.  If there is common malnutrition I don't want to just give groceries to the person in my small group at our small church, although I will certainly do that.  I intend to grow a garden, build a grocery store, and learn what it means to eat healthy and share that with everybody.  If this leads to economic and or political action then so be it.
    In my life I have been in neighborhoods where suddenly there was a power failure, and people came outdoors.  I have been in neighborhoods where there was a snow storm and everyone was stranded.  Suddenly all of these isolated and self centered urban dwellers had to pitch in and help each other, and we laughed and found out that those we knew little about might just be interesting people.
    So may the church be the church and do it right.  Let it build community within itself, but let that community overflow into the streets of its neighborhood, and let this growing community take on the issues of its common contextual life (with programs, projects, organization, and whatever else it takes); never compromising its call to worship in Spirit and Truth but never denying itself to the world, which needs salt, and light, and goodness.