Evangelical Christian churches tend to plant among people with power, money, and influence. We treat urban church planting among millennial young urban professionals as the gold mine of evangelical church planting . In other words, we plant among people with power and influence. We tend to want to reach the powerful, because we think that reaching the powerful will get our voice heard in the mainstream. After all, if we reach those with influence and power they will speed the efforts of making the gospel known in all the earth. For this reason we tend to gravitate more of our church planting efforts to urban centers with wealth before we go to poor minority neighborhoods. This fact causes us to miss the reality that Jesus did not start the most important task in the world's history by calling Donald Trump as his disciple. On the contrary , he did his ministry among those who could not get him power and influence. This aspect of our LORD's work should first draw us to the inner-city and other low income communities. Let's call a spade a spade unless it's entertainment, people from the inner city and other types of low income communities do not have power and influence in our culture. Would you care about Lebron James, if he was not a great NBA player?
I do not want to communicate that Jesus does not care about or want the wealthy as a part of his kingdom. If that were the case, then relative to the rest of the world all of our American churches would not fit into his kingdom. I am instead, pointing out that the amount of resources that go into reaching urban professionals is disproportionate to what we read in scriptures and where we find our LORD and savior using his resources. Therefore, we need to rethink how we use our resources in church planting and where we target our communities. Let's examine what the scriptures show us.
Jesus' background shows us his preference for those who do not fit the "target community". The person that is a type of the messiah, David ,was a murder and adulterer. He slept with another man's wife and killed him in order to cover up the fact he committed adultery. Moreover, one of his ancestors, Rehab was a prostitute. In addition, Judah was an adulterer and had baby momma drama. He slept with his widowed daughter-in-law and impregnated her, because he was trying to avoid giving one of his sons to her in marriage like God's law demanded. If these figures where not bad enough, Jacob (known as Israel) was a bad husband to Leah. He lied, cheated, and stole most of his life. Moreover, Ruth was a Moabite widow. Jesus was also related to Bathsheba: adulterer. We must not forget about, Solomon, who spent most of his life as a womanizer and had an oppressive reign as he forsook the covenant with Yaweh. Mary, Jesus' mom was a teen mom, who got pregnant out of wedlock. Lastly, most of the kings in the Davidic line were horrible kings, who turned away from the covenant and led God's people into exile. For all intents and purposes Jesus' background contains a lot of people that would not be our first picks if we were going to plant a church. Most of the people reflect the brokenness we see in the inner city and other low income communities. Yet, God brought the Messiah through all of these type of individuals in scriptures that do not fit into the mold of people that would get us power and influence.
In addition, Jesus' life with sinners and outcast communicates that he was not into reaching out to those that would get him power and influence. Jesus heals the centurion's servant. One might say well he was a Roman soldier and that would get him influence. On the contrary, he was healing the enemy, because the Jews were at odds with Roman rule. Jesus would have been seen as a sell out for helping a Roman among a substantial amount of his Jewish contemporaries. Jesus also healed the woman with the issue of blood. She was an outcast and would have not been allowed to participate in any religious festivals or religious rites, because she would have been ceremonially unclean. She was an untouchable, but he allowed her to touch him. Moreover, women often did not have elite status in the bible days. Jesus also talked with the woman at the well. She was with five different men and was co-habitating with the man she was currently in relationship with. Yet, Jesus turned her into an evangelist. Jesus also showed compassion on the woman who cried on his feet and dried them with his hair. The bible says she was a known "sinner", but Jesus welcomes her as a daughter. Jesus also often ate and hung out with the tax collectors, which would not exactly confirm his messiahship among the Jews. In addition, Jesus showed compassion to the woman caught in adultery, throwing his lot in with a person who could not gain him influence. Lastly, Jesus proclaimed a message in Luke 4, quoting Isaiah 61 which showed the messiah threw his lot in with the ones that could not gain him influence. The question becomes: "IF JESUS SPENT HIS CHURCH PLANTING EFFORTS AND RESOURCES REACHING OUT TO THOSE WITHOUT INFLUENCE, WHY DO WE SPEND MILLIONS REACHING OUT TO THOSE WHO HAVE INFLUENCE ,WHILE IGNORING LOW INCOME COMMUNITIES WITHOUT POWER AND INFLUENCE?"
