Would you be willing...?
by Jeff Bass, Executive Director
Editor’s Note: In this opinion piece, Emmanuel Gospel Center’s executive director, Jeff Bass, shares how his life took an unexpected turn from the suburbs to the city. His story is one of the many ways God calls different people — from those down the street to others around the globe — to embrace the call to join him in his “divine mission for redemption.”
There I was. Alone in a room with the Rev. Dr. Michael Haynes. He looked me straight in the eye and said, “Would you be willing to go to the city?”
But I wasn’t really alone. I was among thousands of other college students that Dr. Haynes, the senior minister of Boston’s historic Twelfth Baptist Church and former pastor of Martin Luther King Jr., was addressing at Urbana ’79, just south of Chicago. That question has led to other “Would you be willing” questions over the decades, each one shaping God’s call on my life.
Urbana is InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s famous missions conference, but I really had no interest in being a missionary. My college roommate and I had asked the English theologian John Stott a question when he spoke at Princeton a few months back, and Dr. Stott invited us to discuss it more over breakfast if we would come to Urbana in December. In retrospect, I think he was keener on getting us to Urbana than he was truly interested in our question. Be that as it may, after Christmas with my family in the suburbs of Cleveland, I drove to Urbana to have breakfast with Dr. Stott and attend the conference.
Jeff Bass as a young college student around 1979. Emmanuel Gospel Center.
It turned out that Urbana ’79 was an amazing experience. Forty-plus years later, I remember Luis Palau’s dynamic speaking, the energetic worship, the challenging small-group conversations, and a very well-orchestrated communion service with 17,000 participants. I don’t remember Billy Graham speaking, though I see he was on the agenda. I do remember that Dr. Stott’s devotions on Romans each morning were the best Bible teaching I’ve ever heard, and I remember that it was cool to have breakfast with one of the greatest theologians and Christian leaders of our time — though I don’t remember gaining much ground on our question.
What I remember most was Dr. Haynes’ passionate speech about the importance of God’s work in the city. I remember him saying at the end of his talk, “Some of you will be called to the city.” Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I just discovered that what he really ended with was:
“God this day may be directly calling you to personally covenant with him in a partnership to fulfill the most exciting yet demanding and critical mission of the Church of Jesus Christ in this new age and in the decade of the 1980s — right in center city, urban America, USA.
Brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, our Lord is waiting for you to walk and work the city streets of this world with him in a divine mission for redemption. Would you be willing to go to the city?”
I can’t explain it, but it really did feel for a minute like Dr. Haynes was talking just to me — like I was alone with him in that big hall, and the Holy Spirit was asking me: Would you be willing to go to the city? And somehow, I knew at that moment I was being called to the city.
“I can’t explain it, but it really did feel for a minute like Dr. Haynes was talking just to me — like I was alone with him in that big hall, and the Holy Spirit was asking me: Would you be willing to go to the city?”
Of course, I had no idea what that meant. It would not have been any stranger to me if Dr. Haynes had said, “Would you be willing to go to the farm?” I really had no connection with the city, and no real interest in the city either. I grew up in the burbs and was happy there. I picked Princeton over MIT in part because of its bucolic campus. I was studying environmental engineering and thought I would be headed to the woods someday.
But God had other plans. Not only was he calling me to the city, he was calling me to Dr. Haynes’ city. In the summer of 1981, I graduated from college, got married, moved to Watertown just outside of Boston, and started a new job as a hazardous waste management consultant at Arthur D. Little in Cambridge. And so began a journey to develop what so many others have had all along, a sincere love and appreciation for urban communities and urban people in general, and a passion for Boston in particular.
My wife, Ellen, and I did our best to get to know urban Boston. We joined an urban church — Ruggles Baptist on the border of Boston and Brookline. (It seemed pretty urban to us at the time.) We found a little ministry in the Yellow Pages (yes, this was pre-Google) called Christians for Urban Justice and started volunteering with them.
Through Ruggles, we met other people who cared about the city, and eventually, ten of us moved together to Boston’s Mission Hill neighborhood, building homes on land no one wanted. And through Christians for Urban Justice, Ellen and I met folks at the Emmanuel Gospel Center, including Doug and Judy Hall. I took their inner-city ministry course in 1988 and got my first introduction to systems thinking in Christian ministry. Around that time Doug, EGC’s executive director, asked me to join the organization’s board. From there, Rev. Bruce Wall, EGC’s board chair and a spiritual son of Dr. Haynes, encouraged me to join the staff in 1990, and I replaced Doug as executive director in 1999.
My life took a turn in December of 1979. An opportunity to have breakfast with a Christian leader I admired turned into an apparently clear word from the Holy Spirit, which led to a whole series of “Would you be willings”: Would you be willing to come to the city? … to move to Mission Hill? … to raise your family here and send your kids to Boston Public Schools? … to learn from the richness of people often labeled as “poor”? … to become friends with, work with, and work under people who are very different from you?
These “Would you be willings” challenged my faith, caused me to take risks and to grow, and led me to make choices in my life to follow through on what the Lord was calling me to.
More lately, the “Would you be willings” have been: Would you be willing to lament? … to find the courage to speak up even when it’s challenging or costly? … to repent of your arrogance and grow in humility? … to see things from other perspectives? … to give up power to empower others? … to learn to serve in new ways?
The journey has been — and continues to be — challenging, fulfilling, and often unexpected.
I want to continue to be willing…
TAKE ACTION
Since Dr. Haynes spoke to the young crowd at Urbana in the late 1970s, urban ministry has become even more crucial to the mission of the Church of Jesus Christ as more and more people migrate to the world’s cities. A lot has changed since then, and I wonder what challenges Dr. Haynes would have for us today.
I am clear that the Holy Spirit often challenges us with “Would you be willing...?” to invite us to cooperate with what God is doing around us. What “Would you be willings” is the Lord asking of you?
Would you be willing to embrace the new opportunities God has created for the church through the COVID pandemic?
Would you be willing to fight racism and injustice in your settings, even if it is personally costly to you?
Would you be willing to listen to “the other side”?
Would you be willing to follow instead of lead if leading has been your norm?
Would you be willing to take the risk to follow God in a new way in this challenging season?
Jeff Bass
Jeff Bass joined the staff of EGC in 1991, and was named executive director in 1999. A graduate of Princeton University (civil engineering major), Jeff first worked as a consultant for Arthur D. Little, Inc., but left in 1987 to become the business manager of a local church, where he learned first-hand about the inner workings of an urban congregation. In 2014, Jeff was granted an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Gordon College. Jeff is an avid tennis and paddle tennis player. He and his wife, Ellen, have two adult children and two amazing grandchildren.
