Jesus Reaches Out To the Elite Right?: Urban Church Plants Model Jesus' Model For Church Planting

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?"

Is Jesus Really That Meek?: How Jesus' Bucking Against Religious & Political Authority Communicates in the Urban Context (Christology Part III)

 
   We have finished two installments about Christology. We examined the need for low Christology in the first blog. In the second blog, we discussed building bridges to Christ.  In this third installment on Christology, we will discuss low Christology in terms of Jesus' bucking of authority and how we use that in building bridges to Christ in an urban context. I know I said there would be only three, but God keeps working things in me around Christology. I have split the last couple of topics, because I wanted these blogs to be a quick read.  In the next blog, we will discuss his fellowship with sinners and how that communicates in the urban context. Without further adieu lets jump into our topic.

      In Reformed theology, we sometimes focus so much on the grace of God, that we can make Jesus seem passive and weak. We make it seem like he never challenged the leaders of his day on their hypocrisy. On the contrary, Jesus regularly bucked the authority of the religious elite of his day. To be sure Jesus was meek, but he not was not passive. Meek with respect to authority is defined as: showing patience and humility; gentle.  We usually interpret Jesus' meekness as that people walked all over him. Reading scriptures with that picture of Jesus does not fit with the stories we find in scripture. I would argue that Jesus was meek when it came to "sinners" and  "outcast", but not meek when it came to fighting against the religious elite that had lost sight of God's agenda. I am not advocating every Christian with a grievance toward their various authority structures imitate Jesus' manner in these particular stories and cause division, but I am arguing that our picture of Jesus meekness needs some adjusting. 

    We must have caution in misrepresenting meekness, when it comes to people in the inner city, because they have usually experienced authority in a paternalistic or oppressive way. In some cases, people have experienced both things simultaneously.Moreover, if you grow up without a father you have a fundamental distrust for authority, because the person that was supposed to represent it was not present. In addition, most people of color have experienced misuse of authority from the police.   (Not just brown people from the hood either)  Lastly, a lot of times churches have misused authority to make people from the inner city feel judged and not welcome. Sadly these actions resemble the actions of the Pharisees. Truth be told a lot of churches need to repent for the way they have treated those of us from hip-hop culture. For these reasons, we must have a level of cultural awareness when we talk about Jesus' meekness, because what people tend to do is to tune Jesus out. They tune him out, because if he is "meek", meaning he won't do anything to correct evil and injustice, then he can not help my situation. If Jesus stays silent while people in authority oppress me and do injustice to me, then he does not have anything to do with my life and my problems.

     As a corollary, we must show people that Jesus bucked against oppressive and hypocritical structures of his day. For instance, in the Sermon On the Mount he calls the people praying, giving to the poor, etc that were doing those things for public recognition hypocrites. Everyone in the crowd knew that the "hypocrites" Jesus spoke of were the Pharisees and probably the Sadducees. (Matthew 6: 5-6; 15) In addition, Jesus refers to the Pharisees as a "brood of vipers" in Matthew 12: 34 after they accused him of casting out demons in the name of the devil.  He also calls them a "brood of vipers", in Matthew 23 in response to them refusing his testimonies. Jesus is using strong language for that day, when he says "brood of vipers".  Some commentators even liken his use of the phrase with curse words (the f-bomb).  Jesus also calls out their hypocrisy in Matthew 15; Matthew 23, and in Luke 13:14-15. Lastly, when he was before Pontius Pilate, he told him if he wanted he could call an army to handle Pilate if wanted. (Matthew 26:53-54)  This fact shows us that Jesus bucks Gentile authorities as well. Moreover, he said these things publicly, which means these interactions  undermined their authority.  He does not mince any words with his criticisms either.I do not want to take up space to cover all those passages that show Jesus' bucking of authority. I merely wanted to make the point that Jesus calls out the hypocrisy of the leaders to their face.   This aspect of Jesus shows us that Jesus does not sit idly by while people misused authority, especially religious authority. In the urban context,  it can build a bridge to the gospel.

  The first bridge we must build in the church is one built on repentance. The church has misused it's authority, when it has come to the inner city. We must be real with people and admit that there are some shady pastors out there taking advantage of people. We must repent of their sins on their behalf. Usually we say to people in the urban context, "Well that's them, but our church does not do that". On the contrary, we should own the sins of our brothers and sisters and call it just that "sin". I think doing this repentance genuinely, will show our humility and increase our ability to connect with those in the urban context.

   Secondly, we must not just stop at showing people that Jesus, bucked authority. The work is only half way done. We mus teach people in our context that  Jesus spoke out against and bucked authority for the sake of others. He spoke out against authority, because he desired his kingdom to function as a place where people that do not have it all together can come to him. We must move on to teach people that Jesus ultimately  bucked the two authorities that can truly get us: sin and death. Yet,  he did it in the most counter intuitive way: he died on the cross to overturn authority based on injustice and might. He proved he had ultimate authority by God raising him from the dead. This raising from the dead proved he was equal to God and he was God. Scripture says  that now all powers are subjected to him. (I Pet. 3:22)  Jesus did not only speak out against authority and conquer it on the cross. He overcomes and embodies his authority through his people, who do deeds of eliminating poverty, injustice, and oppression in the earth: the church. The good news is that  we can participate in his rule and reign with the authorities of this world not  having ultimate say over our life. We do not have to right to participate in the rulership with money, good works, nice cars, or nice clothes, but  by having faith in Jesus Christ alone. Now that's a savior worth following.




Image from: http://hiphopwired.com/2012/10/21/is-the-games-jesus-piece-album-cover-blasphemous/

Christology Part II

In my last installment, we discussed the need for low Christology.  As a review Christology is the study of who Jesus is and what he does. Low Christology emphasizes Jesus’ humanity and his connection with the here and now. This emphasis does not mean completely abandoning High Christology, which emphasizes his divinity. Reformed culture goes from Jesus’ divinity and then his humanity. Yet, we must reverse this progression. We must start with his humanity, then bridge to his divinity. Daniel White Hodge labels the Jesus of  low Christology “Black Jesuz”. In describing him, Hodge says: “The Black Jesuz opts for a “low Christology” (that is, a Christ who walked among the people) emphasizing his humanity, over against the “high view” that emphasizes Jesus’ divinity.”[1] A Christology that will connect with the urban context focuses on Jesus’ humanity, which leads to his divinity.  We  will focus on two practical ways to present low Christology in the urban context in this blog: Jesus’ multiracial background and Jesus’ impoverished background.

Firstly, Jesus’ multiracial background can connect with people from the urban context.  Jesus genealogy shows that he was related to Ruth, who was in the royal line. Ruth was not a Jew, she was a Gentile from Moab. Jesus was not a blond-haired, blue-eyed dude, but he was a Jew with mixed ancestry. This fact about Jesus can have power in black neighborhoods, because Jesus did not come in the form of a white male, but a minority male. Although we Presbyterians like to overlook history, history teaches us that most minority cultures have had the dominant culture (white culture) oppress them in implicit and explicit ways. Donald Macleod says, concerning his connection with oppressed minorities:“As the true biological son of his mother Jesus is particularized as a well-connected first-century Jew, born in humble circumstances and sharing the poverty and harassment of an oppressed under-class.”[2]  We tend to overlook the fact that Jesus grew up as a minority in his land and he experienced being a refugee at the age of two. Jesus connects with minority cultures more than we have emphasized in Reformed theology, because Reformed theology has had white males set the tone. 

In addressing this issue, Daniel Hodge says:  "Hip Hop as a culture is composed of many different ethnicities. If you ask many U.S. Christians today what they think Jesus looks and talks like, they would characterize him as White, with long wavy hair and a beard, and a British accent. By contrast, the Hip Hop Jesuz is multiethnic"[3]Consequently, we in the Reformed culture have made a minority culture Jesus into a deity that mostly identities with middle class to upper middle class white culture values and mores.  Our LORD in a lot of ways had more connection with growing up a minority without power and access` in his land than he did as a person with political, social, and economic power. 

People in the urban context need to see this aspect of Jesus’ humanity and it will help them build a bridge to his divinity, because they live in the same political, social, and economic context as our LORD. I think once people can connect to these aspects of our LORD, then the cross can look beautiful.

You may ask how do we build this bridge? We have to make him look beautiful. Our job is not to get people converted, but our job is to make the Jesus of scripture look beautiful. The Holy Spirit does the converting.  Jesus lived as an oppressed minority, but the oppression he faced was not the end of his story. Jesus faced so much oppression that he died because of it. He  suffered as an ethnic minority with no power. In other words,  Jesus did not suffer as a white savior, but he suffered as Leroy down the street.   Isaiah 53 says about him:

 For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. [4]

We can all agree that no one man can eliminate the problems that come along with being a minority by just empathizing  the problems that come with being a minority. On the contrary, if Jesus merely empathizes with our problems,  but cannot do anything to take them away, he is not any good to anyone.  Yet, what makes Jesus different is that though oppression caused his death, it was not the end of the story.  God raised Jesus from the dead, although oppression killed him. His resurrection struck the final blow to all oppression on the face of the earth. Jesus’ death and resurrection was a preview to what all Christians will see in the future and get to be a part of: the overthrowing of oppressive structures in this world. This gives us hope that whatever oppression that we face in our  lives right now will not have the final say over us.  The only way to truly receive victory over oppression is to embrace the rule and reign of the risen Jesus that lives forever, because he is also God. 

In addition, Jesus understood the plight of growing up in the inner city. Our High Christology underemphasizes Jesus’ impoverished background. If history proves true during the ancient times there were two classes of people the “haves” and the “have nots.” Our LORD most likely was from the “have nots” class. There is a reason why they said, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”[5] It’s ironic that our LORD came from the other side of the tracks, but we have made him seem like he’s a suburbanite teacher who was a radical. Jesus was more Compton, than Beverly Hills.  Jesus was poor, because his momma and daddy were poor. His friends were poor and outcast, because he was poor and outcast in some ways himself. Jesus grew up in the urban contexts of Rome and not in the “gated” communities of the Roman Empire. Why else would people in his day be looking for him to restore the nation of Israel?

Jesus’ impoverished background means that our LORD probably did not have access to the best jobs in the city. He probably did not have access to the best education in the city. It means he probably experienced oppression and harassment from the Roman law enforcement. It means that he knew what it meant to live pay check to pay check. It meant he knew what it meant to see his parents work only to just make the rent.  He probably battled the demons of low expectations. “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”[6]These facts will connect will people in the inner-city and help build bridges to the divinity of Christ, because people in the inner-city have experienced all these things and more that I have not listed here.  

You may ask how does one bridge his divinity? Again we make the gospel beautiful. . Jesus experienced all the consequences of growing up poor and coming from the wrong side of the tracks. We already know the he is able to empathize with the plight of the inner city. Jesus never denied where he was from, because where he was from was the very means of our redemption. He could not accomplish his mission without being from the ‘hoods of Rome. Hebrews 2 said he had to sympathize with humanity in every way in order to accomplish the forgiveness of sins. It says:

¹⁴ Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— ¹⁵ and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. ¹⁶ For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. ¹⁷ For this reason he had to be made like them,[k] fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. [7]

The beauty of Christianity that main line evangelicals miss sometimes is that we are not saved by a Harvard grad, but we are saved by  a sinless ‘hood dude. It’s like being saved by Jay-Z rather, than Mister Rogers. Therefore, Jesus knows Ray Ray's rough spots, but he does not send him away. On the contrary, he gives him an invitation to join him. He’s worth joining, because not only is he a ‘hood dude, he has the power to change everything. He has this power, because he was God incarnate. God incarnate is more ‘hood, than we believers want to realize. That’s a savior we should follow.

 Next time we will focus on Jesus’ fellowship with sinners and his bucking of religious authority of the day.

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[1] Hodge, Daniel White. The Soul of Hip Hop. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2010. (127)Link to this book  

[2] Macleod, Donald. The Person of Christ. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1998. Print.(162)Link to this book

[3] Hodge,136

[4] ESV, Isa 53:2-3

[5] ESV, John 1:46

[6] ESV, John 1:46

[7] NIV, Hebrews 2:14-17 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+2 accessed 10/30/2013

Christology Part I: The Need for Low Christology For The Urban Conxt

Christology is the study of Jesus’ person and his work. In other words, it is a study of who Jesus is and what he does. Reformed theology emphasizes what is called High Christology. High Christology focuses on Jesus being God and totally other from humankind. In other words, it’s a Christology that starts with Jesus Christ’s Godness.  One could argue that the reformed system depends on High Christology, because we only know grace in the reformed system by knowing God’s supreme transcendence. We tend to view grace through the lens of God existing in his transcendent heaven dealing with human sin from his sense of superiority from mankind. To be sure we do not formally agree with this statement, but we implicitly tend to view grace from this perspective. Consequently, reformed circles tend to shy away from Jesus’ humanness which is a very important part of Christology. Therefore, we have a Christ that tends to be too transcendent to deal with human kind.  In my experience working in the urban context, transcendence tends to be not trusted. Therefore, we have to bridge people in our neighborhoods to Jesus not through the high Christology that makes us comfortable, but through low Christology that connects Jesus’ humanity with their humanity.

High Christology without properly viewing Jesus’ humanity has led to five main portraits of Christ that tend to make Jesus incompatible with the urban context:

1.      Jesus as an authoritarian Lord who reacts in authoritative ways

2.      Jesus as a moralist constantly judging those who do not fit that “moral” code

3.      Jesus as a wrathful adversary

4.      Jesus as an unquestionably obedient son of his Father

5.      Jesus as a God who responds only to “sinful” acts [1]

These things tend to turn people off from the LORD. Let’s briefly examine a few reasons these characteristics might turn people off. In my next essay we will examine why these things tend to turn people off from the LORD as we present him.

 First, while not denying Jesus’ right to exercise his authority in his people’s lives, our view of Christology tends to make Christ not a God exercising proper authority, but a dictator that will punish his people brutally for disobedience.  In the urban context, people tend to distrust authority. In the urban context, one gains authority through building trust and respect through relationships. Honestly, a lot the distrust of authority comes from real encounters of injustice from dealing with police. In addition, the urban context tends to have a lot of fatherless households. I have experienced that as a male people tend to trust you less, because a lot of people in my neighborhood through no fault of their own had their fathers abandon them. For instance, I have experienced a greater sense of leadership and authority over the Harambee kids on my crew. That sense of leadership and authority did not come from the fact that I am tall black and I can talk loud. On the contrary, it came from years of walking with the same group of kids in order to gain a measure of respect and trust. Yet, we tend to paint Jesus in light of his kingship and underemphasized that he gained the right to his kingship through serving people and walking amongst the disenfranchised. We must remember that the disciples followed Jesus the man before they got to the point where they worshipped him as God. We must emphasize Jesus’ right to have authority, because he was willing to get dirty amongst the people as opposed to simply emphasizing his deity. In the same way, we must lead people to the divinity of Christ by helping them respect how he connects with their humanity.   This emphasis will create a sense of respect for Jesus that is required in the urban culture. Respect has an important place in communities that tend to be overlooked by the mainstream or exploited by the mainstream. T.I. once said: “Ion't know what ya do for your respect, but I'ma die for mine”.[2]We want people to recognize his deity, but we do that by building their respect for Jesus through emphasizing his humanity.

Secondly, we make him a moralist that puts in place a moral code that no one can possibly meet and then judging people accordingly with no sense of grace. People in the urban context, just like any person in postmodern America, do not like feeling like Jesus, the Moralist judges them at every turn.  In church culture, we tend to make up rules that define what it means to be a Christian. These rules tend to be extra biblical. For instance, we tend to focus on whether or not people have their pants sagging rather than leading them to the savior. We want to make people talk without cursing. We want people to stop smoking weed, then come to church. We want to make people conform to holiness before they get a chance to meet the savior. This way of thinking contradicts what Reformed Theology holds at it center: holiness based on indicatives not imperatives. We can focus on all the rules that we have set-up and not the people that God has given us. The harvest is ripe in the entire world including the urban context. The savior says that: "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest." [3] Jesus expects morality from his followers, the Sermon on the Mount, teaches us this fact. Yet, he does not expect those outside of the church to get everything as soon as they come into his presence. Evidence that we tend to present Jesus and ourselves this way comes from my own experience. There have been times when people around me have been cursing, drinking, smoking weed, and they apologize to me, because I am a Christian. They do this apologizing out a sense of respect, but more out of the sense that churches have presented Jesus, the Moralist, and not Jesus that allows people to have flaws.  Jesus did not expect people to scrub up around him and neither should we expect that of other people.

Thirdly, we tend to make Jesus out as a constant adversary to those not in the church. Jesus himself says: “I have not come to save the righteous, but sinners”[4] This reason does not need much explanation. In the gospels, Jesus’ harshest critiques are not to the gentiles that needed to get into line. His harshest critiques were usually against the church folks. In today’s church, we tend to have a hyper critical attitude toward those outside the church and against each other. We usually go into these neighborhoods in the ghetto with an attitude that every facet of the neighborhood needs to be fixed. We (I say we because I am guilty too) can tend to think we need to redeem people of every facet of their lives that do not line up with middle class values. Yet, we miss that these neighborhoods' have people in them made in God’s image. For instance, I have learned about true community from my time living in my neighborhood. People in my neighborhood tend to share resources a lot easier than people I have ever seen before. They do not mind inviting you into their house to hang out. They do not mind sharing their food with you and making you feel welcome. Every person’s house I have been in has gone out of their way to make my wife and I feel welcome and a part of their family. This attitude lines up with how Jesus interacted with those outside of the church. Our LORD invited himself into “sinners” homes. He got accused of being a party boy, because he hung out with the “sinners”. Scriptures say: “The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!'” [5]A Jesus like this communicates better than the Jesus that just is an adversary to everything.

Lastly, we tend to make Jesus into a perfect person that did not defy the social norms of his time. We tend to make the lion of Judah a choir boy. Jesus may have been sinless, but he was definitely no choir boy.  He called the rulers of his day “brood of vipers”. Hood culture does not line up with many of the things we call decency in middle class church culture. We must come to terms with the fact that if we do ministry in an urban context and do not expect our culture to change we have a mistaken notion of doing ministry. Doing ministry in the urban context means that we might have to forsake or adapt our culture to meet the norms. Hood culture seems more adversarial, angry, and controversial. In some ways, that can have validity. In other ways, we can see it as more direct and honest. I appreciate that in working with the kids at Harambee I never have to wonder how they really feel about me. Honestly, we need more truth tellers in our churches who “tell it like it is”. Jesus’ bucking of social norms in his day will connect with those in the urban context who buck against mainstream social norms. They do not want a Jesus that stands for the status quo, but a Jesus that will tell leaders when they have messed up. They want a Jesus that does not fit neatly into the “meek” and “humble” push over. Jesus was “meek” and “humble”, but no push over. He went against social norms for the sake of truth. The Sermon on the Mount was not a pretty speech, but challenged everything the religious institution held dear. When people from the urban context come into our  churches, our norms will be challenged. Jesus did the same thing. These aspects of our LORD’s character if emphasized can have a chance at communicating to the culture in the urban context.

These four reasons generally tend to turn people in the urban context off to Jesus, because we made him too transcendent and not someone they can relate to.  Urban culture is much more here and now and tangible. Therefore, people look for a Jesus to relate to in the here and now rather than a transcendent being that seems to have nothing to do with their here and now. Calvin, while still focusing on High Christology, speaks to the necessity of his humanity:

 …setting the Son of God familiarly before us as one of ourselves. That no one, therefore, may feel perplexed where to seek the Mediator, or by what means to reach him, the Spirit, by calling him man, reminds us that he is near, nay, contiguous to us, inasmuch as he is our flesh. And, indeed, he intimates the same thing in another place, where he explains at greater length that he is not a high priest who “cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Heb_4:15).[6]

In light of Calvin’s quote,  how will we make Jesus recognizable in the urban context? Stay tuned my next blog will try to answer this question.

             

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[1] Hodge, Daniel White. The Soul of Hip Hop: Rims, Timbs and a Cultural Theology. Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Books, 2010. Print., (126) Adapted from Carter Heyward’s four theological portraits of Jesus (Saving Jesus from Those Who Are Right [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999], pp. 18-20).

[2] “A.S.A.P”. Song by T.I.  From the album Urban Legend.  Released 11/30/2004 by Atlantic Recording Corporation for the United States and WEA International Inc. for the world outside of the United States. 

[3] ESV Mat 9:37-38

[4]ESV Luke 5:32

[5] ESV, Mat 11:19

[6] John Calvin. The Institutes of the Christian Religion. Book 2, Chapter 12, Section 1. Electronically Accessed on E-Sword 8/11/2013. 

The Need For Contexualized Churches In The Reconciliation and Justice Movement

It seems en vogue to do to plant churches committed to social justice and reconciliation. Four ingredients generally describe these type churches.  Ingredient one you must have a well-intentioned white male that will take on the responsibility for leading the church. Two you must find an African-American pastor to walk with the well intentioned white male. Three you must have a core group of middle class folks that have caught a hold of the vision of reconciliation and justice for the poor. Fourth you must identify a place where this wonderful vision of reconciliation and justice will take place. Usually we pick a predominantly black neighborhood without many social, economic, and structural resources. In other words, we pick the ‘Hood.

 Many well-meaning middle class Christians white and black go into low income black neighborhoods with good intentions, but ill equipped to create a Christian community that is for the people in the neighborhood. As a result, we end up creating churches that minister to the ‘hood, but not churches for the people in the ‘hood. We miss that fact that  the Hood is not a tabula rasa for Reformed Culture, but it is a place with an already established culture: Hip Hop. Therefore, the new breed of “Urban Missionaries” must not go into the ‘Hood to live out Micah 6:8 without considering the fact the “Hood has a culture. Urban Church planters must contextualize the gospel for the culture in the hood.

The first reason we must start these churches intentionally considering the culture of the ‘Hood is because the Hood already knows that it has a culture. The only people that have not figure this important fact out are Christians. We have largely ignored this fact. I want to highlight some lyrics from a song from DJ Khaled feat, Trick Daddy, T-Pain, Plies, Rick Ross “I’m So Hood”:

 I'm So Hood (Listen)//I Wear My Pants Below My Waist//And I never dance when I'm in this place//'Cause You And Your Man Is Planning To Hate (I'm So Hood)//And I Got These Golds Up In My Mouth If You Get Closer To My House Then You Know What I'm Taking about// I'm Out The Hood And If You Feel Me Put Your Hands Up (hood)// My Hood Of Niggas Can You Stand Up (I'm So Hood)//If You're Not From Here You Can Walk It Out And You Not Hood //Then You Don't Know What I'm Talking about[1]

These lyrics show that people in the hood are not ashamed of their culture, but they are proud of it. It does not matter if middle class black, white, Asian, Latino, etc. Christians do not think they should have a sense of pride about their culture, because they do not care. The implication of this sense of pride in the culture means that we cannot do church in a traditionally Reformed way and expect that magically black folks in the neighborhoods would want to be a apart. On the contrary, we must see the need to contextualize the unchanging gospel in a changing world.

Secondly we must contextualize the gospel for the culture of the “Hood, because it communicates respect for the people that live there. Despite our experience in doing Urban Ministry we tend to think in our hearts that we have all the answers. If people listen to us, then the community would change. This line of thinking has a dangerous superiority behind it, because it means we do not relate to our neighbors on an equal basis, because we tend to think we are better than them. This attitude communicates disrespect. In his explication of Psalm 8, Jerram Barrs says concerning respect for people:

God has given us such great dignity as those who are made in His image that, as the psalmist says, even God Himself is “mindful” of us. If God is respectful of the glory of our humanity, how much more should we honor the divine image in all those we meet?[2]

People pick up on these attitudes of superiority and they put up barriers in their heart toward us. We merely become another service provider and not a true community for them. We want the attitude that John Perkins describes:

Those who answer the call of commitment develop a very special and mutual relationship with the poor; the poor community becomes their home; the needs and interests of the inner city become their very own. These people I call comrades. You see, God’s love is very personal and own to earth.[3]

Let us think of what the results might be if we came as learners of the culture there and not saviors. What if we sacrificed what we hold dear in our Church culture and planted our churches intentionally using elements of Hip Hop culture? We have the hope of not functioning as service providers and have the distinct possibility of building a community with the neighborhood we work in. If we hold to the ultimate desire of seeing people come to Christ, then we follow in the footsteps of Paul who said:

¹⁹ For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them.

 ²⁰ To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law.

 ²¹ To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law.

 ²² To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.

 ²³ I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings. [4]

We do not seek to assimilate people from the ‘Hood to church culture. On the contrary, we want to show respect for our brothers and sisters. The ultimate form of respect occurs when we sacrifice our culture in order to make room for the culture of others as Paul did. Does the gospel mean that much to us?

Thirdly,  you can never hope to restore “at risk” communities without the people in the community. The trend that I tend to notice in reconciliation and justice church is that we do a lot of good things in the community, but we often do not intentionally think through long range plans for developing indigenous leadership in the community. We cannot hope to develop any community without that community participating in the life of our congregation and our ministries. Perkins says:

Comrades learn from one another and help each other grow. Reshaped through the purifying and refining of the convert process, those who have transplanted themselves make a positive and vital contribution. At the same time, the need for local indigenous leadership doesn’t diminish but intensifies as we recognize firsthand the need for visible, strong leadership relevant to the aspirations and needs of the black community.[5]

 We usually develop leadership from within. If we do not have people from the community apart of our church you do not have a pool of people to develop leadership. As a corollary, you will have a sprinkling of people come to your church, because of relational investment over years of working in the community. Yet, you might find developing leaders from  the community for the community difficult. If you do not have a pool of people from the community in your church you do not have many options for leadership from the community to take root. John Perkins says about developing leaders:

We have seen over the years that the key to bearing lasting fruit is not in developing programs. The key is in developing people-leaders. I believe that developing creative leaders is both the most essential and the most difficult part of Christian community development. It was the heart of Jesus’ strategy. It must be the center of our strategy, too.[6]

Consequently, we have to start thinking about the contextualization of our churches.

Lastly, we seek to build the church and not programs. Our goal in doing justice and pursuing reconciliation is not because it is cool or looks innovative on paper. On the contrary, the goal behind all that we do as a congregation should be to build God’s church. Contextualization of Hip Hop culture does not aim to be cutting edge or innovative, but it aims to build God’s people. The Great Commission was not about building programs or innovative church models, but about building the body. We aim to make disciples. Jesus says: “19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." [7] Jesus aims to make disciples and so should we. Perkins says about the importance of Evangelism:

Christian community development cannot happen without the work of evangelism. The goal of Christian service to the urban poor is not programs that change the environment a little bit here and little bit there. Instead, we are praying for the Holy Spirit to overturn the power of darkness. Conversion brings about not only spiritual change but also development in individuals, and as those individuals take leadership, they bring about the development and conversion of others.[8]

Contextualization will afford  us more of an opportunity to make disciples and not just programs, which will build God’s Church.

In conclusion, these four reasons for contextualization do not make an exhaustive list, but I want my writing to spark the conversation. I hope we can add more to what I have already written. Let’s continue doing the work of reconciliation and justice to the poor, but with an eye toward contextualizing our churches for the ‘Hood.

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[1] DJ Khaled. “I’m So Hood”. Produced by The Runners, from 2007 album We The Best. Track #5.

[2] Barrs, Jerram. The heart of evangelism. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2001. Print.. (193)

[3] Perkins, 163

[4] ESV 1Co 9:19-23

[5] Perkins, 164--165

[6] Perkins, John. Beyond charity: the call to Christian community development. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1993. Print  (74)

[7]ESV,  Mat 28:19-20

[8] Perkins, 87