Urban Ministry and Cross-Cultural Ministry

You know, Darrell, there's a lot that could be said about place in ministry, place in the gospel. I think it's important for us to know our gifts and talents, but it's also really important for us to know where God has called us to serve him. So Detroit is my home. Married here, born here, lived here, and ministered here. So 1998 is when I made my first step into formal pastoral ministry in this local church here called Detroit. I'm sorry, called Evangel Ministries in Detroit.

So we are about 90 percent African-American, about 10 percent other; predominately white, but we have Latino, Hispanic within our congregation as well. But I will say because of our reach through media as you noted, radio media, we reach our region. So that will include a strong Middle Eastern demographic here is you know.

So we live at the intersection as well. I think when we talk about cross-cultural ministry though, much of it Darrell, boils down to language. We have to understand that you meet individuals who can be bilingual ambassadors. Individuals who can speak to both groups. Kind of like what CS Lewis did; living in kind of the Oxbridge world of Oxford and Cambridge, but also in the Anglican Church. Being able to speak both as a churchman and as an academic so that when these groups met finally they could kind of hear one another's language.

Welcome in the same way I think that we need bridge builders who can speak the majority culture as well as be sensitive to the cultural realities of being an ethnic minority. I think that this is the call that God has given me.

Things were a lot worse than that when you think about the atrocities of slavery. When you think about the terrors of Jim Crow. The best way for me describe it is, what would it be like if the terrorist group that you had to defend yourself from was your own government, your own country. For African-Americans, for much of our history in America, for large portion of our history in America, the group that we would label as ISIS, the group that terrorized us often times had the power to codify this type of discrimination into social structures.

I thank God there has been extreme improvement and I'm a product of that. I'm being able to sit in leadership roles and positions, but it has not come without intensive struggle. That's something I often don't hear by white brothers and sisters wanting to engage in. Often times the senses, can't we just look forward without looking back. I think it's important for us to be able to look back.

Then as we talk about right now, what we have to recognize is whenever the church has been honest about how racism, bias, discrimination has impacted social structures and we've addressed it we've done well. We've been able to bring a sense of healthy equality, but whenever we deny that prejudice, discrimination, racial bias can impact social structures, we don't address it and those structures go unchanged.

So when you say to the African-American community, you all should be doing better on family issues. There is an element of course in which that's true, but there's also an element in which there's been a huge contribution in which the past has contributed to where we are in the present. Fair?

The role of the church in cities and communities; I think that leads to better analysis if we can have honest conversations, black-and-white, about the causal factors and not just brush over those things.

Now multiply the challenges of that across the community. Not only an entire neighborhood, but an entire section of the city. The reality is that the average person in my community has experienced tremendous trauma and we can get into a long list of the reasons why, but you have to build within that individual hope. Yet to bring mental and emotional stability before you can get into the work of some of the niceties of theological training programs and some of the other Christian educational things that we would love to do.

We have to start with the individual being restored through Christ and the inner man; this whole redemptive work. Then being build up emotionally, psychologically, and in a lot of ways, the economic realities of poverty and what that brings when you live in poverty all around you on a daily basis when you're walking by dilapidated buildings, overgrown fields, where crime is your reality. These are challenges that are presented to the urban minister that I believe are unique.

I will also say this Darrell, I don't sense at all that I've given more to the city that the city has given to me. I'm very much a part of the city and I will say that the city has shaped me in ways. It has helped me to understand what the gospel looks like lived out in ways that are innumerable, immeasurable, and that I'm eternally grateful for. Doing ministry in an urban setting is so rewarding that I feel like an unofficial PR rep that we should be running into these communities and not running away from them.

But we have to understand that the primary ethic of the church though, is love. This is the primary ethic of the church. So where we can live out our faith and love that is tangible; love being a verb, an action word; we should do that. We should search for communities where the love of Jesus Christ and the reality of the implications of the gospel of Jesus Christ are not being seen and we should bury ourselves in these communities and work until Christ returns.

If you think about repentance, you think about normally you would say, well, what relationship am I talking about when I think about repenting. Well, you would say, I'm thinking about my relationship to God. I'm thinking about how I walk with God, but in every one of the answers that John the Baptist gives, repentance expresses itself in how I treat my neighbor in one way or another.

But you know, that's not what the gospel compels us to do. It compels us to be able to leverage our influence to be able to win them to woo them to Christ. So being able to live out in a pluralistic society that is broken and falling, the love of Christ and the truth of Christ is our mission or mandate. To contextualize that is what this show is all about and to be up to live it out effectively requires wisdom and it requires a lot a conversation and communication.

Let me just say this Darrell too, that I don't want people to feel like, hey, I wasn't born or raised in the neighborhood or in that type of city are setting so that means I don't have anything to offer. Here's the thing, the great equalizer is the truth of the gospel. It is the – is the message of Christ and it is the recognition that we can improve schools, we can improve the job market, we can improve the economy to bring the best of capitalism and free market economic thinking has to bring to the city, but unless we see internal transformation, the heart being transformed, there will not be any sustainable change.

"The person who has two tunics must share with the person who has none. The person who has food must do likewise. Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, teacher, what should we do? He told them, collect no more than you are required to. Then, some soldiers also asked him; and as for us, what should we do? He told them, take money from no one by violence or by false accusation and be content with your pay."

What's really interesting about this passage is you see a willingness to be generous. You see a hesitation to take advantage of someone because they are in a vulnerable position and you also see care to exercise one power and authority by not overstepping that power and authority and is trying to be sensitive to the people whom you – who you are supposed to soldier if I can say that way.

The mistake of the social gospel or by extension a liberation gospel, is that you have an oppressor and oppressed groups and that your salvation or redemption comes in being a part of the group that is oppressed and that your eternal damnation is being a part of the group that is oppressor as if these are kind of eternal categories which cannot be changed. What the Scripture teaches us is that no matter what group we are a part of, we're all sinners and this is a quality. Biblical equality is that we are all sinners in need of his grace and that the salvation is offered at all.

So when you are building a ministry, if you're going to be serving in an urban area, you better structured in such a way either through a CDC, community development corporation, or under the umbrella of the outreach of the church, you better have services that can minister to the whole man. That is so critical.

They built a – the first thing they did after they built a church was the built a gym to become a community place –

But I will say Darrell, that one of the major keys to healthy partnering is that it has to be mutual.

This is a unique period in time where we can and our voices are – they are hungry for our voices and our voices are needed. I also challenge suburban churches to say, get more involved in local missions as much as possible.

So we like to categorize our practical ministries in those areas. Can we offer educational opportunities, employment opportunities, entrepreneurial opportunities, but also recognizing there are times that we need to be there for emergency assistance for the person who is homeless, for the person who is hungry, for the person that is in need.

All these things are present as well and I want to talk about great fathers, wonderful marriages and healthy churches because it's a sad thing if we think that there's only negative things happening in the hood. There's great things happening as well.

Of course, the answer was, it was their Christian commitment and a religious commitment that brought the change.

Well no, we can do harm that way. We need to connect with people who are going to the lift of the name of Christ high and connect with people who are good models of faithful Bible ministry. If we find those people who can also effectively serve the community, I think that's a great healthy partnership.

Church can't just be known for what is against, but we also have to celebrate the beauty of marriage. Then marriage for lifetime; be faithful in marriage, and then raise children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. This is the way we transform communities; one family at a time.