Why I Love CUME

Why I Love CUME

by Jeff Bass, Executive Director 

On January 21, I attended the opening convocation day at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary’s Boston campus, more commonly known as CUME, or the Campus for Urban Ministerial Education. I am an adjunct professor at CUME, and each spring, I teach one of their core urban ministry courses, Living Systems in the Urban Context. 

Attending the convocation is one of the obligations of teaching at CUME. But even though I went out of duty, it didn’t take long to reconnect with my sense of why CUME is so important and to remember why I make teaching there one of my priorities. Throughout the day, I was reminded why I love CUME, and I went home with a renewed appreciation for and commitment to CUME’s vital ministry in urban Boston.

I love CUME because it is a genuinely diverse expression of the church in Boston. The Bible is clear that we are heading for a multiethnic reality, with people “from every nation, tribe, people and language” standing before the throne (Rev. 7:9). The CUME community is the best representation of this that I have experienced. The room has no majority and is a glorious mix of Black, white, Asian, and Latino; men and women; people from different countries and backgrounds; and a range of ages from young adults to seniors. It’s a joy to worship, pray, interact, teach, and learn in this beautiful expression of the kingdom of God in Boston.

Jeff Bass teaching a class in the Living Systems in the Urban Context course in Spring 2023. Emmanuel Gospel Center.

I love CUME because of the passion and commitment of the students. The vast majority of CUME students have jobs as well as active ministries. In one small group session, we heard from a student who has a full-time job, is a senior pastor and a grandfather, and is, of course, taking classes at CUME. His energy for his life and learning was palpable, as was the energy from all the students I interacted with that day. It’s inspiring to be with so many people who expressively love the Lord, invest in their learning and growth, and put their faith into action in their whole lives. 

I love CUME because of the real difference it makes in the lives and ministries of its students and graduates. CUME students are urban ministry practitioners. They are not there just for academics but also to deepen their knowledge and practical skill sets so they can engage in effective ministry now and in the future. While I was eating my lunch, a student came over and spoke to me for five minutes about how he is applying what he learned in my systems class and how it is positively impacting his ministry. CUME undergirds the active ministries of its students with theological understanding and tools for practical ministry, and it is fun to see the enormous impact this has had across the church in urban Boston over decades.

“CUME undergirds the active ministries of its students with theological understanding and tools for practical ministry, and it is fun to see the enormous impact this has had across the church in urban Boston over decades.”

— Jeff Bass

I love CUME because of its strong and dedicated leadership. I’ve known CUME’s dean, the Rev. Dr. Virginia Ward, for many years now. She is a gifted and passionate leader who is building a solid team around her. The feeling at the convocation that day was one of confident team leadership, with all the parts working together to create an excellent experience for the students. Despite its many challenges, CUME is well led and is moving forward with strength and competence. 

I love CUME because its mission is critical to the health of the church in urban Boston. CUME’s mission dovetails beautifully with EGC’s mission, and this dovetail is intentional. CUME was founded in the 1970s to provide theological education to urban ministry practitioners. At the same time, EGC was re-envisioned as a center for applied research and ministry development, all in the service of Christian leaders. As we approach the 50th anniversary of CUME’s founding, I love seeing CUME’s vision and mission still being turned into a beautiful reality each semester as we continue to work together to strengthen Christian leaders and seek the peace and prosperity of this city to which we have been called.

Snapshot of CUME

Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary—Boston

Campus for Urban Ministerial Education (CUME)

1976

CUME was founded in September 1976 at Twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury, Massachusetts.

Student Body*

For the 2021 to 2022 academic year, total enrollment at CUME stood at 138 students, including 86 men and 52 women. 72% of the enrolled students are ethnic minorities, not including international students. The students represent 28 denominations and come from 19 different countries. Like other theological schools, CUME’s enrollment has been negatively impacted by the COVID pandemic.

• African American: 46 students (33%)

• Asian: 25 students (18%)

• Hispanic or Latino: 26 students (19%)

• White: 12 students (9%)

• Two or more races: 2 students (1%)

• Unknown/Unavailable: 19 students (14%)

• International Students: 8 students (6%)

Faculty

CUME has two full-time and 14 adjunct professors.

• African American: 10 (63%)

• Asian: 1 (6%)

• Hispanic or Latino: 1 (6%)

• White: 4 (25%)

Certificate and Degree Programs

• Urban Ministry Graduate Certificate

• MA in Christian Ministries

• Master of Divinity, including the Urban Ministry Track

Languages

Classes are taught in English as well as some in Spanish and Portuguese.

*The data is based on Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary’s ATS Enrollment Reports for Fall 2021. The numbers are based on fall census data from September 27, 2021, and not on full-year totals.  

Contact Jeff

New Form

Would you be willing...?

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?”

— Jeff Bass

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.

Loving Everybody is Powerful

Loving Everybody is Powerful

by James Seaton

““When we were told to love everybody, I had thought that that meant everybody.” ”

— James Baldwin

The summer of 2018 evoked in me a complex mix of positive and negative emotions.

I witnessed my beautiful, intelligent sister graduate from her Long Island high school. Amidst the burgers, jokes, and laughter during our family celebration at IHOB (IHOP? IHOB? I can’t keep up), I felt as close to my family as I ever have. At the same time, I was saddened to learn about the thousands of immigrant children separated from their parents at the Mexico-United States border.

I had the pleasure of immersing myself in beautiful Boston neighborhoods such as Dorchester and the South End as part of my summer internship in city missions. But I also learned about how wealthy residents have moved into these same neighborhoods and, whether they meant to or not, have contributed to increases in rent, making way for the displacement of lower income, long-time residents.

In my living situation, I experienced the embrace of a diverse Christian community of 11 students from places ranging from Singapore to New York. But I also watched the news as White Americans called the police on others with darker skin just for using a coupon or selling water.

Such is this world—a place full of dichotomies and complexity.

James Seaton (center), Rev. Cynthia Bell (back left), director of EGC’s Starlight homelessness ministry, Stacie Mickelson (back center), EGC director of Applied Research & Consulting, Liza Cagua-Koo (back right), EGC assistant director.

Love and the Church

I have often asked myself whether we, the Church, are loving well in these times. The Church—what began as a small group of people following Jesus, sacrificing their money and possessions to help others and spread the gospel, a group some predicted would become irrelevant—has developed into a body of over two billion people.

I’ve heard many stories about how the Church as the Body of Christ has been a positive agent of change. In my own life, I’ve witnessed how much I’ve matured  because of the community surrounding me at my home church, the House of Judah, in Long Island. I believe that the Church has had a unique ability to tackle tough individual and broad-spectrum issues like racism, homelessness, poverty, lack of healthcare, and more. But all of that begins with one word: love.

In one of my favorite Bible passages, Titus 3:3-4 (ESV), Paul writes that he and Titus were once “hated by others and hating one another,” until the “goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared.” We now have the Holy Spirit to aid us in loving everyone—even those who are not like us or who do not agree with us.

Despite this message of hope and truth, the Church has sometimes struggled to love. Many perceive a lack of love within the Church as some Christians demonstrate hatred towards undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers, remain silent on racism and police brutality, condone misogyny, and take a pro-birth but not pro-life stance.

Because of this, some brothers and sisters have decided to leave the Church. James Baldwin, a prominent gay, Black author of the 20th century who once identified as a Christian, is one example of someone who immersed himself in the Church and, after finding various hypocrisies, decided to abandon it. In a sobering paragraph in The Fire Next Time, he writes,

“The transfiguring power of the Holy Ghost ended when the service ended, and salvation stopped at the church door. When we were told to love everybody, I had thought that that meant everybody. But no. It applied only to those who believed as we did, and it did not apply to white people at all. I was told by a minister, for example, that I should never, on any public conveyance, under any circumstances, rise and give my seat to a white woman. White men never rose for Negro women. Well, that was true enough, in the main - I saw his point. But what was the point, the purpose of my salvation if it did not permit me to behave with love toward others, no matter how they behaved toward me? “

In this instance, Baldwin speaks about agape love, the sacrificial love by which we love everyone, even those who have hurt us or have a different skin color.

This summer, I was an intern at the Emmanuel Gospel Center and on Boston summer mission with Cru, a Christian campus ministry. In my time there, I experienced several ways that I and others can better love one another.

2018 EGC Interns praying together: Chelsie Ahn (left), James Seaton, (center), and Evangeline Kennedy (right).

Love Others As You Love Yourself

First, to love others, it is critical both to understand and love yourself. True self-understanding starts with confronting our personal myths. In The Fire Next Time, Baldwin writes,

The American Negro has the great advantage of having never believed that collection of myths to which white Americans cling: that their ancestors were all freedom-loving heroes, that they were born in the greatest country the world has ever seen, or that Americans are invincible in battle and wise in peace.

What myths do we cling to, as individuals or as the body of Christ? Whom do we believe ourselves to be? Whom does God say that we are? I think that, by coming to a clear understanding of who we are, we can then treat ourselves with love and empathy.

Love Reaches Out

Secondly, it is critical to get to know people across dividing lines—whether it be friends, neighbors, or leaders of various organizations.

I regret that I have often prioritized comfort and individualism over relational development and sacrifice. I’ve preferred to stay within my room at Cornell University or the box of my schedule without making time to be interruptible or learn more about the community that I inhabit.

Love Pays the Cost

Perhaps the hardest lesson I’ve learned is that to love means to sacrifice or “do the hard thing.” To love those who hate us is a sacrifice of pride and personal will, as well as a representation of Jesus’ love for us. The great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in a sermon entitled, Love Your Enemies, said,

Click on the image to hear Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King give the sermon, Love Your Enemies.

Another way that you love your enemy is this: When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it...That is the meaning of love. In the final analysis, love is not this sentimental something that we talk about. It’s not merely an emotional something. Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men.

Loving someone who hates us or looks at the world differently from us is difficult. But the Holy Spirit equips us to complete this action in a society in which hate is rampant in various forms. “That,” as King says it, “is the meaning of love.”

I hope that we as individuals and as the Body of Christ will love everybody better in the future: the homeless veteran, the hungry child, the immigrant fleeing dangerous circumstances back home, the widow, and any other person we may deem challenging to understand and help.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

James Seaton is a senior at Cornell University, studying communication. In 2018, James interned with EGC’s Applied Research & Consulting. His research focused on urban housing and racial justice.

Too Much Feel-Good Funding—Nonprofits' Recipe for Disaster

Too Much Feel-Good Funding—Nonprofits' Recipe for Disaster

By Nika Elugardo, EGC Leadership Systems Architect

Most people enjoy the immediate gratification of giving money to organizations that count impact in letters from children, goats delivered, or shoes donated. Grant-making organizations, too, want to see as much as possible of their money going towards visible impact in the community.

For this reason, non-profits and ministries often fund much of their work through "project" grants and donations. Project funding covers a specific event, program, or service, allowing organizations to add immediate value to the people they serve. If the project funding is properly aligned to a ministry's mission, it also keeps the ministry attuned to their near-term impact outside their walls.

But serious problems arise if a ministry relies too heavily on project money to fund their entire organization.

RECIPE FOR DISASTER: 4 PROBLEMS WITH a PROJECT-HEAVY FUNDING STRATEGY

1. Priority Drift

Project funding can create incentives for ministries to “follow the money", instead of working to discern which ministry activities would most strategically advance the vision. This "feel-good funding" at times may be driven more by emotion or trends than by commitment to system-wide, sustainable impact.

2. Custom Evaluation + Reporting

While project monitoring and evaluation are necessary for any ministry, project funding often creates additional burdens on the ministry to track special types of changes the funder cares about most. Such customized reporting requires additional personnel hours to satisfy, eroding the bottom-line benefit of their funding dollars.

3. Short-term Gains

Project funding often measures impact in near-term project outcomes, not in markers of sustainability. Focus on funding for short-term success can distract us from the equally important need to fund the longer-term viability and ultimate impact of the project and the organization.  

4. Unfunded Sustainability Work

“Their dollars go further when they invest in ministries with the discipline for proper organizational self-care.”

Project funding is restricted to use on staffing and expenses for specified projects, defined activities, and target populations. Activities critical for organizational health, like partner development and project redesign, may be invisible to project investors. Organizations who value long-term sustainability—and all healthy organizations do—still must spend significant time and resources on these activities—but unfunded.

Broken for Good, a new documentary film about why non-profits are paralyzed because of the way we think about funding.

THE ANTIDOTE: BALANCE PROJECT + STRATEGIC FUNDING  

1. Make the Case

Ministry leaders must make the case to funders that investing in ministry sustainability is just as important as saving babies, or whatever the ministry goals may be. Successful return-on-investment is about more than short-term outcomes—it's also about how the funding is ensuring the organization's health and stability for long-term impact. Demonstrate for funders how their dollars go further when they invest in ministries with the discipline for proper organizational self-care.

2. Report on Organizational Health + Sustainability

Wise strategic funders see the crucial role of activities like professional and leadership development, collaboration building, and communications, and they want to see regular progress in those areas.

Healthy organizations and their funders need reports with concrete indicators of sustainability work as the tangible fruit of their investment. For example, report on leadership trainings, new partnerships, and progress in vital infrastructure.

3. Look for Funders Who Value R+D

No two communities are the same—each demands contextualized services and relationships. Keeping up to date with the changing needs and priorities of the community requires significant, ongoing investment. Ministries that last:

“When a ministry is new or growing, strategic investment funding is even more critical than project funding.”

• keep their finger on the pulse of community demand for their work

• continue to learn from new models and best practices

• build relationships with stakeholders who care about the community at all levels

• recruit and develop leaders who will invest in long-term community transformation

• craft stories and multimedia to communicate the real-time impact of their work

Strategic investors will underwrite the critical cost of research, development, and innovation that allow ministries to function robustly over the long-term.

When a ministry is new or growing, strategic investment funding is even more critical than project funding. Cultivating local ministry relevance grounded in data, strong leadership, and communication takes time and money—long before visible community impact.

4. DON'T BE AFRAID TO SPEAK BUSINESS LANGUAGE

Philanthropists with a business background understand that you have to pay for innovation if you want to a company to survive. Investing in leadership development, partnerships, infrastructure, technology, and communications is essential practice for most for-profit entrepreneurial ventures.

But these investors may not be accustomed to viewing non-profit ministry this way. You can draw on the management values they understand intuitively, in service of a humanitarian goal.

New and growing ministries, who work tirelessly for the well-being of the community, deserve no less than the basic supports required—in any sector—for a robust impact.

Nika Elugardo

EGC's Leadership Systems Architect, Nika began her career as a coalition-builder and advocate in 1996, managing the National Consumer Law Center’s Foreclosure Prevention Project, a research-driven, private-public sector partnership. Nika’s work since has focused on equipping corporate, nonprofit, and public leaders to work together to plan and impact sustainable and data-informed social movements. She holds a B.S. from MIT, a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and a J.D. from Boston University. Before attending law school in 2007, Nika worked at EGC for seven years in development and consulting. She has also served on EGC’s Board of Directors.

High-Rise Gospel Presence: A Case for Neighborhood Chaplains

High-Rise Gospel Presence: A Case for Neighborhood Chaplains

By Steve Daman

In recent blogs, we’ve been talking about Boston’s soon coming population increase and asking how the Church might prepare for that growth. Will some of Boston’s 575 existing churches rise to the challenge and create relational pathways to serve the many new neighborhoods being planned and built in Boston? 

We hope they will, and that church planters will pioneer new congregations among Boston’s newest residents. But can we do more? Might there be other ways to bring the love of Jesus into brand new communities? 

Asking the Right Questions

Dr. Mark Yoon, Chaplain at Boston University and former EGC Board Chairman, starts with a question, not an answer. “The first question that comes to my mind is: who are the people moving into these planned communities? Why are they moving there? What are the driving factors?” 

According to Dr. Yoon, thoughtful community assessment would be the obvious starting point. To launch any new outreach into these neighborhoods will require “serious time and effort to get this right,” he says. “Getting this right” will likely require innovative solutions.

Let’s assume, for example, that a community analysis shows that many of Boston’s newest residents are young, urban professionals. Dr. Paul Grogen, President & CEO of the Boston Foundation, noted recently, “Boston is a haven for young, highly educated people. Boston has the highest concentration of 20-to-34-year-olds of any large city in America, and 65 percent of Boston’s young adults have a bachelor’s degree or higher”, compared with 36 percent nationally.  

If the people moving into these new communities are affluent, educated young people, it is likely that many may be what statisticians are calling nones or dones. 

Nones are people who self-identify as atheists or agnostics, as well as those who say their religion is “nothing in particular.” Pew Research finds nones now make up 23% of U.S. adults, up from 16% in 2007. 

Sociologist Josh Packard defines dones as “people who are disillusioned with church. Though they were committed to the church for years—often as lay leaders—they no longer attend,” he says. “Whether because they’re dissatisfied with the structure, social message, or politics of the institutional church, they’ve decided they are better off without organized religion.”

Adopting New Church-Planting Models

It would seem likely that the dones and nones won’t be looking for a church in Boston—at least not the kind of church they have rejected. 

“To make inroads into these communities,” Dr. Yoon continues, “one’s gospel/missional perspective will be paramount. Most of our church leaders have old church-planting models that focus on certain attractions they roll out.” 

What will be required instead, he says, is a church-planting model “built on vulnerability and surrender, and skill on how to engage, and prayer.” This combination, he feels, although essential for the task, will be “a rare find!”

What, then, might be some non-traditional ideas for establishing a compelling Gospel presence in a brand new, affluent, high-rise neighborhood?

Neighborhood Chaplaincy

What if Christians embed “neighborhood chaplaincies” into emerging communities? Rather than starting with a church, could we start with a brick-and-mortar service center, positioned to help and serve and love in the name of Jesus Christ?

Imagine a church, or a collaborative of churches, sending certified chaplains into new communities to extend grace and life in nontraditional ways to new, young and/or affluent Bostonians. Could this be a way to implant a compelling Gospel presence among this population?

Picture a storefront in sparkling, new retail space—a bright, colorful, inviting and safe space where residents in the same building complex might make first-contact. I envision a go-to place for any question about life or spirit, healing or wholeness, a place where there is no wrong question, where Spirit-filled Christians are ready to listen and offer effective help.

The neighborhood chaplaincy office may serve as a non-denominational pastoral counseling center, offer exploratory Bible classes, and sponsor community-building events. As with workplace chaplains, neighborhood chaplains may serve as spiritually aware social workers, advising residents about such issues as divorce, illness, employment concerns, and such. They may be asked to conduct weddings or funerals for residents. As passionate networkers, they would serve residents by pointing them to local churches, agencies, medical services, and the like.

Community Chaplain Services (CCS) in Ohio provides one intriguing ministry model.  According to their website, CCS “is designed to offer assistance to those in need, serving the spiritual, emotional, physical, social needs of individuals, families, businesses, corporations, schools, and groups in the community.” This ministry grew from a community-based café ministry into a full-service educational resource and pastoral service provider. 

Other than this one example, a quick web survey uncovers little else. Given the ongoing worldwide trend toward increased urbanization, coupled with the biblical mandate to make disciples of all nations, including the urbanized communities, the lack of neighborhood chaplaincy models is surprising. One would think the idea of embedded chaplaincy among the affluent would have taken root by now. 

CURRENT Chaplaincy Models

Certainly, the core idea of chaplaincy has been around a long time and has seen various expressions around the world. One can find chaplaincy venues such as workplace and corporate, hospitals and institutions, prison, military, public safety (serving first responders), recovery ministry chaplains, and more. 

Community chaplaincy in high-crime or low-income neighborhoods is also widespread. Here in Boston, the go-to person for this kind of urban community chaplaincy is Rev. Dr. LeSette Wright, the founder of Peaceseekers, a Boston-based ministry working to cultivate partnerships for preventing violence and promoting God’s peace, and a Senior Chaplain with the International Fellowship of Chaplains. 

Through Peaceseekers and other partners, Rev. Dr. Wright initiated the Greater Boston Community Chaplaincy Collaborative, which has trained over 100 people to serve as community chaplains. Rev. Dr. Wright says their main work is to be a prevention and response team, “quietly serving in diverse places" to provide spiritual and emotional care among New England communities. 

Trained chaplains minister "everywhere from street corners to firehouses to homeless shelters, barber shops, nursing homes, boys’ and girls’ clubs; meeting for spiritual direction with crime victims, lawyers, nurses, police officers, doctors, construction workers, students, children, clergy, etc.”

“We do not have a focus on the affluent or the new high rises,” Rev. Dr. Wright admits. “We do not exclude them, but they have not been a primary focus.”

Who Will Pay For It?

Rev. Dr. Wright says that the biggest challenge she has faced establishing a network of community chaplains in Boston is funding. Some churches and denominations have provided missionary funding for chaplains. She says the interest and openness from the community for this initiative is high, and “with additional funding and administrative support in managing this effort we will continue to grow as a chaplaincy collaborative.”

If Boston were to plant neighborhood chaplaincy programs in new, emerging, affluent districts, funding would still be an issue. 

Rev. Renee Roederer, a community chaplain with the Presbyterian Church in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has been writing about this kind of outreach, asking the same questions. “What if we could call people to serve as chaplains for particular towns and neighborhoods, organizing spiritual life and community connections in uncharted ways?” she writes. “Who will pay for it?” 

Rev. Roederer further considers, “What would be needed, and what obstacles would have to be cleared, in order to create such roles? What if some of our seminarians could serve in this way upon graduation?”

“I’m a realist, knowing it would take a lot of financial support and creativity to form these kinds of roles,” she says, “but the shifts we're seeing in spiritual demographics are already necessitating them.”

TAKE ACTION

Attend a Discussion Group

Are you interested in joining a follow-up discussion with other Christian leaders on the potential for Neighborhood Chaplaincy in Boston?

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Sign Up - Neighborhood Chaplaincy Discussion

Go Deeper

We have more questions than answers! Check out the questions we're asking as we consider fostering a Neighborhood Chaplaincy movement in Boston.

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WHAT DID YOU THINK?

Reflections on Charlottesville

Reflections on Charlottesville

Lead Editor Liza Cagua-Koo, Assistant Director of EGC, with contributions from the EGC Team

As a community of Christians who are grieved by the violence in Charlottesville, VA, and what it represents, the Emmanuel Gospel Center humbly offers some reflections in service to the Church and communities of Boston—the city we love, where God has called us to minister.

We urge our brothers and sisters in Christ to denounce the evil of White supremacy (in all its forms) and affirm that all people are created in the image of God. Indeed, it is our hope that all Bostonians regardless of faith will affirm the dignity and value of every person.

Our Lament

We lament the violence and loss of life in Charlottesville, as well as the larger social situation that allowed such a tragedy to arise.

We lament the fear, personal trials, social conditioning, and isolation that leads some to participate in these public expressions of hatred.

We lament the ways these destructive behaviors hurt most Americans—of every background—as they can encourage more private and public expressions of bigotry, ethnocentrism, and the tendency to hoard resources and opportunities out of fear for the well-being of oneself or one's group.

We lament our country’s long and painful history of prioritizing the welfare of one group over another. We long for this legacy to be increasingly less evident so that we might each stand as equals, not just before God, but before police officers, mortgage brokers, and others in positions that can promote or stifle justice for entire communities.

Our Prayers

We pray for each family—in Charlottesville and beyond—that has experienced the pain of racism, whether acutely through a white supremacy rally or in their daily barriers to opportunity. We ask God for healing, resilience, and courage to continue forward in hope, love, and action.

We pray for those who have been deluded by the lie of White supremacy, and especially those who would say they are followers of Jesus. We pray that Jesus would speak to them by his Spirit and through his Body, the Church. May they in Christ experience freedom from lies they believe about themselves and others, the country, and the world. May they by the Holy Spirit see the choices they can yet make to love others as they love themselves.

We have all these same prayers for ourselves. We ask for God's guidance in the choices we will all make in the future to make another Charlottesville less likely.

Our Calling

Indeed what remains now, what has always remained—even if Charlottesville had never occurred—is our daily calling as Christians, individually and corporately, to relate across lines. We have the privilege and calling to offer a redemptive response to pain, fear, violence, and injustice.

The Church has incomparable resources—in God’s Word, the richness of our faith traditions, and the fullness of God’s Spirit—to bear His love and healing presence. If any community has the shared resources to respond to fear with hope, to injustice with change, to hatred with love, it's the Body of Christ.

Let's commit to go beyond our isolated silos of self-protection or short-sighted action. Let's seek God’s wisdom together, and contribute to Christ's restorative work, all by his grace, in step with his Spirit, and in his name. 

ABOUT THE LEad Editor

Jesus captured Liza's heart while at Harvard, and after several years in the private sector leading technology initiatives, she joined urban ministry startup TechMission in 2002. There she launched tech programs and co-directed a youthworker program, all in partnership with local churches. In 2006, Liza joined EGC as senior program director, and has served as assistant director since 2010. A member of Neighborhood Church of Dorchester, Liza learns about growing up in Jesus from being mamá to Jacob & Camila, spouse to Daniel, and daughter to one of the world’s best abuelitas.

Reconciliation in Troubled Times

By Rev. Dr. Dean Borgman and Megan Lietz, STM

 Includes excerpts from “Reconciliation in Troubled Times”, the inaugural Dean Borgman Lectureship in Practical Theology, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, March 20, 2017. 

Megan Lietz is Director of Race & Christian Community at EGC. Her ministry focus is to help white evangelicals engage respectfully and responsibly in issues of race and racism.

Disclaimer from Megan Lietz: This post is based on a lecture from March, and not written in direct response to the Charlottesville violence. While not stated explicitly in this article, we condemn white supremacy in any form. Many congregations in Boston are working together to develop a unified response. I am in consultation with many Boston-area church and organizational leaders. I look forward to sharing the fruit of those collaborations for action planning.

Our society is deeply divided. These divisions can be found in our national, communal, and church life. From polarization between political parties to disagreements in our response to immigrants and refugees, these divisions are rooted in a fear and distrust of people different from ourselves.

These divisions are not recent phenomena. Rather, they are shaped by our history. How we see ourselves and others, and how we choose to interact with the world around us is colored by what has come before. Unfortunately, much of the division and inequality that has tainted our history was reinforced by faulty anthropologies, psychologies, and theologies that are still with us today in various forms.

We all have a part to play, and the Church should be responding.

Christians today, black or white, wealthy or poor, new or old to this country, must be concerned—be distressed—over our divisions and the inability of our system of economics and government to provide adequate remediation and relief to the suffering.

The God who freed the Hebrews and the American slaves, and who brought relief to the segregated and oppressed under Jim Crow—that God will hear the united cries of American Christians, should we humbly pray for justice. 

In the News: Boston Faith Leaders Responding to Charlottesville Violence

Begin with Lament

Lament is a biblical practice, where we acknowledge that things are not right—in the world, nation, community or church—and where we embrace our role and responsibility in it. Lament comes not out of a spirit of complaint. Rather, it invites God into the situation so healing and justice can occur.

For example, laments and confessions came from Moses, Daniel, Nehemiah and other prophets, and Christ on the Cross—for sins they didn’t individually commit. They were earnest, prayers of systemic confession.

Furthermore, of the 150 Psalms, the majority are Psalms of Lament. They provide us examples  and guides for the expression of our desire for social, political and church reconciliation.

Biblically, lament is often coupled with confession of how we have contributed to the problem at hand. When Nehemiah is lamenting over the broken walls and associated disgrace that had come upon Jerusalem, he first makes a confession:

LORD, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments… I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s family, have committed against you. We have acted very wickedly toward you... (Nehemiah 1: 5-7a, NIV)

Nehemiah was not born in the land where such injustice was taking place. He had never participated in the sins he was confessing. But he still confessed the sins of his people and lamented over them, even though he wasn't personally responsible.

We must reflect, lament, and confess today, whether or not we feel personally responsible. We all have a part to play, and we can all go before God to change ourselves and affect healing in our land.

Choose to be Reconcilers

After we lament the division around us, churches must make a choice to engage the division in our midst. Such work is not something that people enter into casually. Rather, it requires intentionality and effort.

Any church or group must first decide that they are committed to biblical social reconciliation. They should be committed to giving this important challenge some time and thought.

Study the Realities and Positive Examples

It's important that we learn more about the division around us and how to be agents of reconciliation. We could begin with understanding the biblical notion of reconciliation, centered on God's reconciling work in Jesus Christ. But we must also gain understanding of sociological, psychological, historical, and theological realities.

Consider the examples of Black churches under slavery, during Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement and continued discrimination. Their spirituals, their persistent prayers, and their courageous demonstrations invited collaboration, and slowly produced some measure of social justice. They provide countless examples of how to be agents of reconciliation in a broken and divided world.

We must also seek to understand the perspective of those today who are different from us—this is especially true for white evangelicals. It is very important that we invite the 'others' into conversation, and give them a chance to voice their own stories and hurts.

We can also learn from local organizations. Some of EGC's partners doing reconciliation work include:

Unite Boston

Collaborate Across Lines

As we listen, we must also work together with people across dividing lines. We must reach across the chasm of differences and choose some shared Kingdom priorities in which we can invest. As we collaborate with "the other," healing takes place. As we engage with the other, we get glimpses of the coming Kingdom of God.

“It is very important that we invite the ‘others’ who are different from us into conversation, and give them a chance to voice their own stories and hurts.”

Imagine how you might be able to come together with others around shared kingdom values:

• spending time with those outside our fortunate situations

• hearing the stories of those who have been freed from oppression or rejuvenated, experiencing the hope of the seemingly hopeless

• hearing the deep cries and music of the oppressed

• seeing victims become survivors and then confident leaders

These are the “now-but-not-yet” experiences of God’s coming Kingdom. When we share mutual love, respect, and inspiration with those who because of our privilege have so much less, we experience something of God’s beloved community—a community of hope.

TAKE ACTION

STOP. REFLECT. PRAY.

• What does our city need from its churches?

• How might churches collaborate in bringing peace and welfare to the city?

• How can seminary educators collaborate with other serving and training organizations working for shalom—the peace and welfare of our city?

JOIN With A REFLECTION/ACTION GROUP

Are you a white evangelical who wants to join with others in a journey of respectful and responsible conversation and engagement of race and racism issues? 

Contact

Contact Form

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

About Rev. Dr. Dean Borgman

About Megan Lietz, STM

WHAT DID YOU THINK?

Why Christian Activists Wait For God

Why Christian Activists Wait for God

by Jess Mason

Christian social activists are a busy bunch. They’re action-oriented, and the world never lacks work for those concerned with the suffering, the marginalized, and the oppressed. But if Christian social activists run on the same steam as everyone else, they’re not actually making Christ’s difference in the world.

At a worship gathering of over 30 EGC leaders and social activists, the worship leader posed the question, “In all that we have going on, what’s the value of waiting for God?” I was moved by the breadth of responses. I felt it such a rare privilege to be in the company of so much gathered wisdom that I wanted to give other Christian leaders in Boston a taste.

I pray that these perspectives encourage you in your waiting for God—possibly the most strategic action we can take to make a lasting difference in the city.

Nika Elugardo, Chief Growth Officer

I feel personally transported to another dimension when I move into a quiet space of recognizing God's presence. In those moments, it's not that I am invited into God's reality, but that I invite myself into an awareness of reality itself.

This deeper awareness seems to unlock the constraints of our physical world and release God—who seems to restrain himself by the very laws he created—to be who he is in this (our) world, where our sin has closed us off to him. It’s in stillness and quiet that new buds of faith flower.

Brian Gearin, EGC Missionary

We wait for God so that we can "be with Him" and know His purposes for each issue we face. I think that He desires us to "know Him" and respond to issues with His guidance.

Liza Cagua-Koo, Assistant Director

I wait for God for the same reasons I ask my kids to wait for me.

First, it's dangerous without me—There's a street to be crossed ahead! Also, I want them to value that staying together is more important than getting something done, or getting there first—No one gets left behind! The importance of togetherness with God can't be overestimated. He waits for us, though we often think we're having to wait for him!

When I am the one having to wait for my kids, when I see how small they are, or how much practice it takes to learn something, I am reminded of how patient and steadfast God is with my own growth. He never leaves me behind. He waits for me.

When I wait on him, I become present to those realities, which in turn fills my tank for being able to wait on others—and be patient with myself—as we all travel this pilgrim road.

Sarah Blumenshine, Co-Director of Greater Boston Refugee Ministry

Waiting puts us in a posture of receiving. God is the main actor, and we act as we receive direction. Waiting trains us to discern his voice. It requires us to back away from our impulses and evaluate, “Is this God leading, or is it me, or something else?"

Caleb McCoy, Development Manager

God is outside of time. Waiting on him helps us to reconnect with the mystery of His timing and submit our plans to his will.

Jeffrey Murray, Director of Operations

Any response or action taken without waiting before God runs the risk of being idolatrous. We are— intentionally or unintentionally—elevating our thought processes and plans above God's intentions.

God's commandment clearly instructs us, “You shall have no other gods before me" (Ex 20:3, Deut 5:7; NIV). To take action (i.e. move, do, respond, etc.) prior to—and thus outside of—seeking God's will is a way of going against his instructions for us.

Jeff Bass, Executive Director

In 1 Kings, Elijah is running from God. God comes to meet him, but not right away. God was not in the wind, the earthquake, or the fire. He came after, quietly. Elijah had to wait to experience him that day.

God's timing is often not our timing. We want things now, but God's plans take time. God called David to be King, and Samuel anointed him. But he didn't get to be king until years later, after Saul was removed. We need to wait if we want to stay connected with God's plans.

Gregg Detwiler - Director of Intercultural Ministries

Waiting on God is a gift from God—it’s rest for our souls.

In God’s presence, we also become more self-aware of our inner world, the broken and darker parts of our being, and our motivations. There we can submit our lives and our plans to God to lay them in his hands, so that we can give him glory for anything good that comes out of our action.

Even youths get tired and weary; even strong young men clumsily stumble. But those who wait for the Lord’s help find renewed strength. They rise up as if they had eagles’ wings. They run without growing weary. They walk without getting tired. - Isaiah 40:30-31 (NET)

Sarah Dunham, Former Director of Abolitionist Network

Waiting on God helps us remember that we are not in control. We need to stop striving, and running around trying to make things happen.

Once we step back and remember who is really in control, then we can really join God in what He is doing. Christian social action is not about a frenzy of doing things for God—it’s knowing God, and allowing him to work in and through us.

Elijah Mickelson, Director of Communications

We see in part, God sees the whole.

RESPOND

The Psalms Vigil

Waiting on God is both healthy and strategic. The Psalms Vigil is a simple, ancient practice that helps focus our hearts with God. I have found the Psalms Vigil to be a powerful form of active waiting on God. The vigil has a simple, three-part rhythm:

1. Read a psalm.

2. Talk or journal to God about any emotions or issues come up in your heart from what you’ve read.

3. Rest in silence for anything else the Holy Spirit may want to do in your heart.

When you feel ready, you can move on to a new psalm, repeating the three-part rhythm with as many different psalms as you like. 

Connect with Jess

Contact Jess Mason

Jess Mason is a former licensed minister and spiritual director. She is currently a ministry innovation strategist in Applied Research & Consulting at EGC, and the chair of Christian Formation at a church in Jamaica Plain. Her passion is to see God’s goodness revealed to and through Christian leaders and pillars in the Boston area.

From the Bible Belt to Boston: What God's Doing in New England

From the Bible Belt to Boston: How God’s Moving in New England

by Kathryn Hamilton

Do the numbers lie?

In the most recent “post-Christian” study by Barna Group, a research organization focused on the intersection of faith and culture, Boston ranked 2nd among “The Most Post-Christian Cities in America: 2017.” In fact, eight out of the top 10 are located in the Northeast, five of which are located in New England.

To qualify as “post-Christian” for Barna’s study, individuals had to meet nine or more of Barna’s 16 criteria that indicate “a lack of Christian identity, belief and practice, including, individuals who identify as atheist, have never made a commitment to Jesus, have not attended church in the last year or have not read the Bible in the last week.”

https://www.barna.com/research/post-christian-cities-america-2017/

As I reflect on my two months interning for EGC and prepare to return home to my “Bible-Belt” town in West Texas, I find myself a bit baffled, as my experience has been far from spiritually dry and Godless.

“Saying you’re a Christian in Boston is weighty. There is no cultural norm influencing your religious affiliation. ”

Knowing the Lord was calling me to Boston, it was seeing numbers Barna posted in 2015 that sparked my initial interest – that Boston ranked 4th among the top dechurched cities. However, as I settled into my temporary home in Cambridge and plugged into a local church there, I was in awe of how “Christian” the Christians in the Boston area were.

Cultural Christianity is prominent in my region of Texas. You grow up “Christian,” go to church on a regular basis (or at least on Christian holidays) and hold to what you consider “good Christian morals.” You hear the Gospel preached so much that the meaning numbs and you fall prey to the comfort and ease of day-to-day life.

Let me disclaim, this is a broad generalization. I'm where I am spiritually because of devoted and loving Christian parents and mentors that demonstrated the hands and feet of Jesus. I generalize the culture of the Bible Belt to make the point that saying you’re a Christian in Texas and saying you’re a Christian in Boston can reveal starkly different fruit. Saying you’re a Christian in Boston is weighty. There is no cultural norm influencing your religious affiliation. You’re a Christian because you choose to follow and live for Jesus.

The Christian community that I have found here in Boston is unlike anything I’ve seen or experienced before. The community seen in the early church of Acts is still alive, and, from my experience, flourishing. It’s small but strong.

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Acts 2:42-47 has been my Boston.

Where I thought there was going to be nothing but pluralistic, moral relative doctrine, I have found sound, Gospel-oriented teaching. Where I expected to see scattered believers, I have seen great unity. Where I knew social injustices and needs to be present, I saw the church on the front lines. Where I expected to be a lone believer and disheartened by the lack of believers, I’ve been the one nurtured and influenced.

“Where I expected to see scattered believers, I have seen great unity. Where I knew social injustices and needs to be present, I saw the church on the front lines.”

So if Boston Christian community is anything like the early church, the Lord is going to “add to their number daily” those who are being saved.  

I’m sure that Barna’s numbers are accurate, and that Boston is in fact one of the most post-Christian cities in America. But as church planters who come to Boston because of that number partner with and learn from the Christian vitality already here, the fruits of both their labors are multiplying.

Seeds are being sown on good soil in Boston, and a revival is growing roots.

RESPOND

Are you from the Bible Belt? Do you agree? Disagree? Have a different experience? I'd love to hear from you! 

Share Your Thoughts

Contact Kathryn

Are you interested in internships with EGC? We have volunteers, interns, associates, and fellows working with us each semester.

Inquire

Inquire about Internships

About the Author

Kathryn Hamilton is a Summer 2017 Communications BETA at EGC. She graduates in 2018 with an Advertising and Public Relations major from Abilene Christian University. Growing up in the church in Dallas and Abilene, TX, she developed a heart for missions among unreached people groups. After graduation, she plans to work in the non-profit sector or with corporate social responsibility. In Boston, she has enjoyed the diverse culture, the "T", lots and lots of J.P. Licks and, of course, the people. 

Neighborhood Chaplaincy: 8 Open Questions

Neighborhood Chaplaincy: 8 Open Questions

By Steve Daman

Neighborhood Chaplaincy is an innovative approach to ministering the love of Jesus in emerging communities. In High-Rise Gospel Presence: A Case for Neighborhood Chaplains, I share why I believe Boston would benefit from neighborhood chaplains. 

But we have more questions than answers. Here are the major issues we believe will need to be addressed on the way to fostering a Neighborhood Chaplaincy movement in Boston.

1. Culture CHANGES

What shifts in spiritual attitudes and lifestyles are happening with the emerging neighborhood demographics of Boston? How do we as the dynamic Church in this city respond, as we yearn to bring the love and life of Jesus to every Bostonian?

2. BEYOND FIRST CONTACT

If we establish physical space in a new neighborhood, what’s next? Do we plant churches out of that space? Or do we exclusively refer people to existing churches?

3. Online Presence

Is a physical space enough? What kind of web- and social media presence will a neighborhood chaplaincy require in order to generate a flow of people seeking services?

4. Funding

From where might a stream of funding for neighborhood chaplaincy be sustainable?

5. Job Requirements

What would be the duties of a neighborhood chaplain? What about credentials? How and where will neighborhood chaplains be trained and certified? Are local seminaries preparing graduates for nontraditional, outside-the-box, Kingdom-of-God building ministry?  

6. Community Relations

How do we sell this idea to a community development enterprise? Of what value is a neighborhood chaplaincy program to a high-rise development complex? Can it be demonstrated that a spiritually and emotionally healthy neighborhood is a better neighborhood and a neighborhood chaplaincy can produce a healthier community?

7. Recruiting

How will we attract those rare individuals whom Mark Yoon envisions would pursue a contemporary church-planting model “built on vulnerability and surrender, and skill on how to engage, and prayer”?

8. What's Happening Now

Is anyone in the Boston area already doing Neighborhood Chaplaincy, or something similar? Are there leaders or groups regularly praying about it? Has anyone begun work towards such a movement?

TAKE ACTION

Are you interested in joining a follow-up discussion with other Christian leaders on the potential for Neighborhood Chaplaincy in Boston?

Inquire

I would like to learn more about Neighborhood Chaplaincy

What Did You Think?

What's Next: My 5 Dreams For Church Planting in Boston

What’s Next: My 5 Dreams for Church Planting in Boston

by Rev. Ralph Kee, Animator, Greater Boston Church Planting Collaborative

Where are we headed as the Church in Boston? What might be some goals, dreams, and potential growth points for the Body of Christ in Boston over the next several decades?

As I’ve engaged with the Boston 2030 initiative, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to what it means for Christians in the next several decades. Here are my dreams about Boston’s church planting future:

Dream #1: Holistic Churches Multiplying Churches

I see Boston filled with Gospel-permeated, holistic churches.

By holistic churches, I mean those that serve the city with the whole Gospel by ministering to the whole person. I think that’s what God dreams and wants for Boston, because that’s what he wants for all his created people. Paul writes, “God has made known to us the mystery of his will,” and his will is “to bring all things together in Christ, both things in the heavens and things on the earth.” (Eph. 1:9,10)

Boston is staged to grow. I moved to a Boston of 641,000 in 1971. By Boston’s 400th birthday in 2030, the population is expected to jump to 724,000 or more. In light of this growth, we at the Greater Boston Church Planting Collaborative have been asking two key questions:  

1.     Where will these new Bostonians live? Whole new neighborhoods are underway to house several thousand people each, all within Boston’s city limits.

Learn More: Where to Plant a Church in Boston: Areas of Growth

2.     Where will these new Bostonians go to church? Will the Church be ready? Who will lead the way to envision new expressions of Church for new Bostonians? The apostolic task of the Church, a leading task from Ephesians 4:11, is to multiply communities of faith—churches multiplying churches. Let’s do it!

Learn More: Multiplying Churches in Boston Now

Dream #2. Both Gentrifiers and Born-Bostonians Playing a Part

I see Gospel-entrenched gentrifiers and neighborhood-based Christian activists together salting the city.

Boston is becoming more and more gentrified. Researchers spot gentrification where census tracts show increases in both home values and in the percentage of adults with bachelor’s degrees. I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that in the neighborhood where I’ve lived for 46 years, I too, am a gentrifier.

Today, gentrifiers include young Christian professionals moving into older neighborhoods all over the city to be salt and light, to love their neighbors, to do Jesus-style thinking and living in that neighborhood. These folks can be “entrenched gentrifiers,” incoming residents who, in their own minds and hearts, want to appreciate and have purposeful “attachment to the local meanings, heritage, history and people” they are now living near.

For example, intentional Christian communities—where several families or singles live together in shared commitment to each other and to their neighbors—are flourishing.

Boston’s "Gospel-entrenched gentrifiers", as I call them, are not pioneers, but reinforcements. They join embedded Kingdom builders—second-, third-, and many-generation Bostonians—Christ-followers who are dreaming big dreams for their neighborhoods.

“Boston’s Gospel-entrenched gentrifiers, as I call them, are not pioneers, but reinforcements.”

One such Kingdom builder is Caleb McCoy, a fourth-generation Dorchester resident and EGC’s Development Manager. Caleb has a homegrown knowledge of and love for the city. He says, “I believe my role in the church is to help make the Gospel relevant and personal to people that may not feel that God’s plan applies to them.”

Caleb’s vision is to use his musical and communications gifts to inspire “a revival of young and middle-aged adults, joined together, exemplifying the Gospel through preaching and the arts.”

I am excited about Caleb’s vision. I have a dream that such neighborhood-based Christian activism will be the engine to drive effective ministry today and tomorrow.

Dream #3. Relevant, Hands-On Ministry of Reconciliation

I see today’s Boston’s Kingdom citizens reconnecting what has been severed by sin.

I am dreaming that Boston’s visionary, prophetic Christians will, with God-inspired imagination, help build new communities of faith. These newly imagined churches will demonstrate the Kingdom of God in today’s urban context.

The prophetic task, as I see it, is to cast a vision for a redeemed creation. Empowered by the Spirit of God, today’s prophets can work to reconnect what was disconnected by sin.

When sin entered the world, it entered the whole world—not just the human heart, but the very heart of the created order. Original sin instantly caused four original schisms, (Learn More: The Prophetic Task):

• humanity separated from God

• humanity separated from the created order

• man separated from woman

• people separated from people

What is to be done about these painful schisms? Thankfully, they are all resolved in Christ, as we the Church fulfill the prophetic task! We proclaim the Kingdom of God, and partner with God in his work of connecting, redeeming, healing, and bringing Kingdom-of-God life and peace to every facet of Boston.

Consider the refugees coming to Boston today. What will they find? Will they experience more schism in their torn lives? Or will some neighborhood church in Boston welcome them, embrace them as valued people loved by God, and begin to effectively reverse the curse of schisms in their lives by loving them well? (Learn more: Greater Boston Refugee Ministry).

And if some Boston residents were to observe Christians living in their neighborhood, reversing the curses of the four schisms, would these observers not be more ready to listen to the spoken Gospel message?

Dream #4: The Good News Proclaimed in Boston’s Heart Languages

I believe God is calling evangelists to speak the Gospel in the languages of Boston.

I want to see Boston gifted with many evangelists, men and women who can speak and live out the Gospel in the languages of Boston’s old-timers, of second- and third-generation Southies, or Townies, or Dorchesterites. Who will speak the Gospel to:

• the retired men of South Boston who hang at the coffee shop every day?

• the women who gather at Ramirez Grocery or Rossi Market?

• the generations of men and boys who gather at the corner barbershop?

• the freshmen or grad students at BU or BC or MIT?

• those who speak the 100+ languages of newcomers arriving from the four corners of the earth?

We know the Gospel is two handed: word and deed. We need to do both: preach the Word and do the Gospel.

Today particularly, we need to be careful not to focus only on meeting basic needs and neglect preaching. One follows the other. After neighborhoods see the Gospel in action, I think they will be more ready to have someone fully explain it to them and invite them to believe in Jesus themselves. Show and tell.

Who of those already living in Boston are called to evangelistic preaching in Boston specifically? Who yearns to spend their lives preaching the Gospel in Boston? Do you?

In Romans, Paul asked, “And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’” (Rom. 10:14,15)

Dream #5. Church Planters Collaborating Closely

I want to see church planters in Boston thinking of themselves as players on a Boston-wide team.

The Greater Boston Church Planting Collaborative started gathering in 2000, and we chose the word “collaborative” intentionally. In the Book of Acts, the story of early church planting, we see nothing but collaborative ministry efforts. One church, one basic team, one overarching goal everyone shared and worked toward—that’s the Acts of the Apostles.

Collaboration is basic to church planting—and so it should be in Boston. I want to see Boston’s church planters meeting face to face, setting shared goals, being mutually accountable and passionately focused.

I imagine church planters setting Boston-wide church-growth and church-planting goals collaboratively. I envision shared strategies to cover ground and to plan over time—setting 6-month, 12-month, 2-year, and 15-year goals.

“How long will it take you to build the wall, Nehemiah?” King Artaxerxes asked (Neh 2:6). Nehemiah, a slave in a foreign land under a tyrant, was the last person in a position to guarantee any purpose-driven time goals. But he did tell Artaxerxes a time goal, because he had to. And they met it—the collaboration of faithful residents working side by side in Jerusalem finished the wall in fifty-two days!

Let’s collaborate, set some prayerful goals, and see the work get done!

To see the full-length article, click here: I’m Dreaming About Boston’s Future—Are You?

TAKE ACTION

So those are my five big church planting dreams for Boston. What do you think? Are you dreaming with me? Dream big! When we get some more ideas, we’ll share them in a future post. Send me an email—I would love to hear from you.

Email Ralph

Email Ralph

Are you a church planter? I invite you to join us at the Greater Boston Church Planting Collaborative!

Ralph Kee came to Boston in 1971 to help plant a church emerging out of the Emmanuel Gospel Center’s neighborhood outreach. Starting churches became his clear, lifelong calling. He has since been involved in launching or revitalizing dozens of churches in and around Boston. In 2000, Ralph started the Greater Boston Church Planting Collaborative, a peer mentoring fellowship to encourage and equip church planters. Today he spends time mentoring church planters, mostly one-on-one, usually over coffee.

Christianity in Boston 2030: What's The Church's Vision?

Christianity in Boston 2030: What's The Church's Vision?

by Rudy Mitchell and Steve Daman

The City of Boston has released “Imagine Boston 2030,” a comprehensive vision to prepare for an expected population surge by the city’s 400th anniversary in 2030. Can the church articulate a similar vision for what the Kingdom of God could look like in Boston 13 years from now?

“Boston needs dreamers.”

Rev. Ralph Kee, veteran church planter and animator of the Greater Boston Church Planting Collaborative at EGC, thinks Boston needs dreamers. “God has a big dream,” he says, “and people have dreams. When people start to share their dreams, that builds enthusiasm.”

THE TASK AHEAD

Imagine Boston 2030 has articulated goals in the social, economic, cultural, and physical realms. Through the Prophet Jeremiah, God instructed exiled Israelites to “seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” Urban Christians can seek the prosperity of our city and the success of these goals, finding ways to join in.

At the same time, we have the privilege and mandate to discern together goals and desires God has for our city.

Population growth alone should get our attention. With significant growth in Boston’s population recently and projected into the future, Boston’s churches will need to consider how to expand their outreach and service, as well as replication into new congregations.

Between 2010 and 2030, Boston could add from 84,000 to more than 190,000 new residents. Reaching and serving that many new people would require growing our present churches and planting new ones.

Image from Imagine Boston 2030 draft, p. 19; data source: ACS 1-Year Estimates (2011-2015), U.S. Census Bureau; BPDA Research Department, September 2016

DREAM INNOVATION  

What church solutions would best fit the city in the coming decades? More meeting spaces would be a must—though many new churches may never own a building.

Learn More About Space Sharing: Under One Steeple

“More meeting spaces would be a must—though many new churches may never own a building.”

New churches could take a variety of forms, including small groups, house churches, and cafe churches. Larger traditional churches could meet in a variety of traditional and nontraditional spaces and contexts.

A collaborative of churches could own or rent some multi-use space in Boston’s new neighborhoods. Some developers may already be creating community meeting spaces in new neighborhoods that could be rented by local church groups.

Can we start to envision the possible? What would it take to make the dreams happen?

“Should we convene Christians to talk about Boston 2030,” Ralph Kee asks, “including bankers, architects, real estate agents, construction executives? Can these leaders get together? The city is going to grow. Even what was Suffolk Downs is going to be a mini city. How are we going to get churches there?”

TAKE ACTION

What is your vision for Christianity in Boston in 2030? Would you weigh in by filling out a brief survey? We’d love to hear from you!

Share your Thoughts

Share Your Thoughts

Contact Rudy Mitchell, Senior Researcher, to continue the conversation.

Connect

Contact Rudy Mitchell

Get to know veteran church planter Rev. Ralph Kee and plan to visit the next Greater Boston Church Planting Collaborative gathering.

A Word to White Evangelicals: Now is the Time to Engage Issues of Race

PERSPECTIVES

by Megan Lietz, ARC Research Associate

We are at a critical moment in the history of our nation—a time not when new problems have arisen, but when old problems have been revealed. The violence against young Black men, the tension that inspired the killings of police officers, the division surrounding a heated election, and the exclusion of the Muslim community are just a few indicators that things are not well.

How will we respond in our increasingly diverse nation as racial tensions flare across our land?

Like a doctor removes a bandage to reveal a festering wound, these national incidents are exposing deep-seated racial inequities. As a physician exposes a wound to provide treatment, so does exposing these inequities create opportunity for healing. How will we respond to this opportunity? In our choices, we are accountable to the Lord.

The Current Reality 

The racial diversity of our nation is increasing. The US Census Bureau projects that by 2043 more than half of the nation will be people of color. We have already seen this shift occur in Boston when we became a “minority majority” city in 2000. Diversity is our future, and the future is indeed here.

With this diversity also comes division. Some division comes from the differences inherent in diverse cultures, such as disparate worldviews or languages. These types of differences are not inherently bad. Other divisions, however, happen because disparities exist between White people and people of color. These disparities have a profound impact on people’s daily lives and foster tension and fear.

Consider the racial disparities in education, health care, and financial well-being in Boston. In 2016, rates of graduation from the Boston Public School System in four years were 13 percentage points lower for Black students, and 15 percentage points lower for Hispanic students, than their White counterparts. In 2015, a 2011 health report found that, compared to White people, Black and Hispanic people in Massachusetts have higher rates of infant mortality, cardiovascular and circulatory system related deaths, and diabetes.

Most notably, in 2015 the median net worth for White families in the Boston area ($247,500) towered over that of Hispanic ($3,020 for Puerto Ricans, $2,700 for other Hispanics) and Black families ($12,000 for “Caribbean Blacks” and $8 for “U.S. Blacks”). Furthermore, there is little hope of this improving without significant change, as these national wealth gaps by race have remained relatively consistent for the last 50 years.

These inequalities shape the future ministry of the Church and invite White evangelicals to the work of racial reconciliation. The invitation is open. Our city isn’t waiting. Will we see the problem before us? Will we respond in a Christ-like way to the hurt and division across our land?

Stepping Up 

I believe it is time for White evangelicals to step up in this moment of crisis and walk into the opportunity for conciliation it provides. As a White evangelical myself, I am choosing to step up. Neither my faith nor my conscience allows me to do otherwise.

“These inequalities shape the future ministry of the Church and invite White evangelicals to the work of racial reconciliation.”

I am stepping up by calling other White evangelicals to join me on a journey toward racial reconciliation, and I am committing to walking with them along the way. More specifically, I am developing an initiative at the Emmanuel Gospel Center called Race and Christian Community. I’m designing the initiative to meet White evangelicals where they are and help them take concrete steps to engage in racial issues respectfully and responsibly.   

While my primary motivators for action are God’s Word (e.g. Eph. 2:11-14, John 17:20-23, Jer. 29:7) and the grave need, my desire to engage is also personal.  There was a time when I was unaware of my race and privilege and culture, when I didn't know what God's Word had to say about the racism and division and discord that sullies our land. At that time, I had fellow Christians come alongside me as I began my own journey towards racial reconciliation.

Born and raised in a predominantly White, rural town, growing up I never imagined myself in multiracial ministry. It was not until I was immersed in communities of color during my college years that I wrestled with my own race and culture. It was not until then that I had considered how racial reconciliation related to my faith.

“I had fellow Christians come alongside me as I began my own journey towards racial reconciliation.”

As I reflect on my involvement in those early days, I recall my desire to help, my good intentions, my uncertainty about what to do, and my remarkable ignorance. At the same time I recall God’s faithfulness. He extended me grace and guided me, through the Spirit and the saints.

In this space I came to discover my culture and racial identity. I began to genuinely appreciate the cultures of others. My view of God expanded, and I began to more fully live out my faith.

Similar to how the Lord used others to lead me on my journey toward racial reconciliation, it is my hope that I can partner with the Lord to guide others who are starting out.

Join the Journey

I invite you to join me in reflecting on the racial tension our nation is experiencing and to consider how you might respond. As the inequities and divisions are coming to light in ways that White evangelicals can no longer deny, we are posed with the question, "What will you do about it?" It is a question that, though powerful, is often brushed off by a barrage of competing priorities: the problem of good people having too many good things to do.

I challenge you to not brush off the question of how you will respond too easily. In our complacency, we hurt both people of color and ourselves. After centuries of being largely disengaged from pursuits of racial equity, now is the time for White evangelicals to begin to change our legacy.

Perhaps the incidents of violence and upheaval that cross our television screens are a means of God’s grace to us. Perhaps God is using these incidents to interrupt our daily routine with moments of clarity—moments that  invite us to engage in the reconciling work that is not a partisan issue but is essential to the work Christ did on the cross (Eph. 2:11-21).

“Now is the time for White evangelicals to begin to change our legacy.”

Will you join me, broken and faulty as I am, on a journey toward racial reconciliation? Will you join me, with wounds and fears and insecurities? Will you join me with confidence, not in our ability to bring about reconciliation, but in Christ’s ability to work through those who say, “Yes, Lord, send me”?

Take Action

I invite you to :

• Attend an EGC small group conversation for White evangelicals. Saturday, April 1, 10 am - noon, at Emmanuel Gospel Center, 2 San Juan Street, Boston. Discuss obstacles and insights you’ve encountered in your own engagement of race, and brainstorm how EGC could support you to do so more effectively.

SIgn Up for Group Conversation

Thanks for your interest in the small group conversations on race for White evangelicals! Sign up below to RSVP for this or future group events. - Megan

• Speak into the development of EGC’s Race & Christian Community initiative by connecting with me personally. I value your perspective and want this initiative to be shaped by the voice of the community!

Connect with Megan

Would you like to speak into the development of EGC’s Race & Christian Community initiative? I value your perspective and want this initiative to be shaped by the voice of the community! Sign up below and I'll be happy to contact you. I look forward to connecting with you! -- Megan

• Explore my recommended resource list to begin learning about race and how to engage these issues.

• Refer a church, organization, or individual who is already engaging racial reconciliation. I’d like to connect with them, learn from them, and explore how what we do at EGC can complement, not duplicate, their efforts.

Refer Someone

Refer an Individual, Church or Organization Engaged in Racial Reconciliation

• Offer financial support to EGC’s Race and Christian Community initiative.

If you are willing to join me, I welcome you to the journey. May we walk it together, bearing the good news of Jesus' reconciling power and allowing him to use us as his hands and feet.

The Process of the Gospel

The Process of the Gospel

A Relational Foundation for Doing God's Work God's Way

by Doug Hall

It is an inestimable privilege for me to “do God’s work” and to be a “fellow worker” (1 Cor 3:9) with God.[1] This high calling makes me very nervous, however, because I take doing God’s work very seriously, and I have always carried within me a deep fear of being counterproductive.

Over the years, I have come to see that this fear has been beneficial, because it has motivated me to seek God more, and has allowed me to become involved in very fruitful, multiply productive ministry.

One way of being hugely counterproductive is to do ministry in a programmatic manner. I am very convinced that ministry must not be carried out programmatically but rather through genuine relationships.  The Process of the Gospel is not a program but a relational tool for doing God’s work. It creates a relational foundation for very effective ministry that will be multiply productive rather than counterproductive.

Earlier this summer, we took students from our Doctor of Ministry class on a tour of ministries in Greater Boston.[2] We picked ministries that we felt demonstrated integrity, long-term practice, fruitfulness, and cooperative participation across the Body of Christ. On our visits, I heard each ministry leader cite relationships as the most critical factor in their overall success.

Indeed, working through relationships is one of the primary ways God goes about his work. The Bible tells about one relationship after another that God established with individuals, families, cities, and nations. God’s work of redemption requires that his message be planted among us, understood by us, and that it grow and bear fruit. This all comes through relationship.

We know this is true, but I want to understand how God does it.

• What actions does he use to create relationships with his fallen children?

• How does he introduce, communicate, and affirm his message?

• And then, how does he go about planting his message in our hearts and nurturing that message to maturity?

I believe that if we can get a handle on how God does his work, maybe we can learn to do our work in the same way. And if we learn to do things the way he does, I believe there is a stronger likelihood that our work as ministers of the Gospel will bear the fruit God desires to see.

Process of the Gospel in the Bible

Consider what Jesus did during his ministry on earth and how he communicated the Father’s message to us. In other words, what is the process he used to bring us the Gospel?

I identify six stages of the Process of the Gospel:

1. Observation

2. Positive Appreciation

3. Relevant Communication

4. Meeting Perceived Needs

5. Meeting Basic Needs

6. Multiplication

Here is what God did:

• God observed his fallen creation. Our sin condemned us to death. We were eternally lost without him.

• Because he knows us and loves us (positive appreciation) he sent his Son who communicated relevantly through his life, his parables, and teaching.

• When Jesus walked among us, he identified and met our perceived needs with miracles, as he meets our needs today, and then he met our basic, core need through the atoning work of his death and resurrection.

• Finally, he prepared his disciples for his leaving, laying the groundwork for the multiplication of his Kingdom through his church, made possible through the coming of the Holy Spirit.

These stages describe a pattern that God has designed to allow the power of redemption, working in and through living systems, to grow his Kingdom.

By definition, a living system is an orderly, highly complex, and highly interrelated arrangement of living components that work together to accomplish a high-level goal when in proper relationship to each other.[3] When people come together, living systems like families, churches, cities, and nations are formed.

Because the Process of the Gospel helps us to align with and engage God’s living systems, it can be used not only for ministry with individuals, but with larger social systems, such as a local church or an entire city.

This cycle can be repeated many times in ever-widening realms of influence, from an individual person to a neighborhood or a local community of faithful people, to the community of faith in an entire city, to many cities working together. It works in one-on-one relationships, in ministry development, in cross-cultural missions, in church planting, and in community organizing. With it, one can reach the poor and the rich. It can work in both sacred and secular settings. It can and has transformed entire cities and has allowed Christianity to grow throughout the world.

I call this six-stage pattern an archetype because these elements work together as a unit, an entire process that follows an enduring, stable pattern or model that transcends time and space across all human history.

For almost five decades through our work in Boston with the Emmanuel Gospel Center,[4] we have found countless opportunities to use this approach, and it has helped us to avoid counterproductivity while consistently producing long-lasting fruit for the Kingdom of God.

The fruit we have seen God bring during this time is not insignificant. We have been privileged to experience an incredible revival in Boston that we call the Quiet Revival. In four decades, the number of churches in Boston has nearly doubled, from approximately 300 in 1970 to 575 in 2010. Also, the estimated percentage of the city’s population in churches has increased from about 3% to about 14% and has demonstrated many of the characteristics of healthy growth, including increased unity and prayer, trained leadership, and effective ministry that produces significant social change. [5]

It is an exciting place to be at work in God’s Kingdom, and it is from this context of vibrant and sustained growth of Christianity that I write today. Let me first share with you how I stumbled across this pattern.

Discovery

The Process of the Gospel evolved out of suggestions originally intended for short-term student participants in urban ministry. To guide the students in properly relating to people in the community, I reflected on what had worked well for Judy and me in the past.

Several basic characteristics of our relationships with our neighbors surfaced over and over again and I wrote a short teaching paper to help my students navigate relationships with our urban neighbors. It eventually became evident that the relational approach we suggested to these students was the pattern Jesus had followed in his ministry. Therefore, in using it, we would be doing what Jesus did. The “Process of the Gospel” was born as I realized that what I had originally penned as “steps to short-term involvement” was really something deeper.

Because living systems are at issue, readers must resist the temptation to take the easy way out, to try to make the Process of the Gospel into a program, rather than allow it to become an integral part of who they are. Those who make it into a program will be missing the point entirely, and missing the opportunity for fruitfulness, which is the goal.

Defining “Process”

A simple definition of process would be “a series of actions directed to some end.” Although that captures the heart of it, I see it as so much more. It is important to make the distinction between process and procedure as we are not talking about a new procedure for ministry, but an age-old process.

I view procedures as isolated steps we need to do in order to complete a task in a systematic, orderly way. Process is different. The goal of process is not merely to complete some isolated task but to see transformation or change in something, to move toward a desired outcome that is much bigger than ourselves and is beyond our control.

While procedures are people-driven, processes are driven by the larger living systems we engage. For example, to grow tomatoes, we work within the rules and powerful forces that already exist in the environment, including the weather, the presence or absence of pests or diseases, the need for nutrients in the soil, and so on. We might follow certain procedures for growing tomatoes, but the actual process is very complex, and the result of all we do is really up to God.[6]

The same holds true for the Process of the Gospel. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians, “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow” (1 Cor 3:6). So it is never about how well we follow the steps and do the task. Rather, it is about how well we work with the complex and interrelated processes God has already put in place. He is the Author of all life and the Lord of all living systems. In the end, he will get all the glory for all he has done.

Stage One: OBSERVATION

I love the city. I love to be in an inner-city neighborhood with all the people sitting on their stoops, the children in the playground, the youth playing baseball, the neighborhoods that seem filled with baby carriages, poor people, or elderly folk. My city has a pulse, and I feel it beating.

The highest levels of observation are required to perceive social systems, large or small, as living realities. When we are able to do this, we do not simply see streets and buildings, but a complex social organism called Boston, Philadelphia, or New York, for example.  

The Old Testament prophets addressed entire cities and countries as though they had the characteristics of a living person. New Testament writers wrote to cities as though each city, represented by its one church, were persons who could receive a letter.[7] They understood the “body of Christ” and the “Kingdom of God” as living systems.

God himself models this skill of observation for us. Moses wrote, “God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them” (Exod 2:25). God’s compassionate observation of the children of Israel in slavery under Pharaoh moved him to action.

“Observation is a humble skill. Anyone can do it. No college degrees are needed. But it challenges the greatest intellect to assimilate and make sense of what one sees.”

God's observation is very thorough. Is there anything about us he does not see? The writer of Hebrews says no. “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Heb 4:13). He knows every intimate detail about us. “And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered” (Matt 10:30). He knows what we are thinking now and what we are going to think later. “Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely” (Psalm 139:4).

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem, a full thirty years went by before he began his ministry. What was he doing for thirty years? We know little about those days, but we can be sure he was observing and learning about the people who lived in Nazareth and the surrounding region. Most of Jesus’ earthly life was lived in the critical observation stage, through which his Father was preparing him for the day when he would begin to proclaim the Kingdom of God.

Observation is a humble skill. Anyone can do it. No college degrees are needed. But it challenges the greatest intellect to assimilate and make sense of what one sees. We study the situation. We try to see real people in the way they really operate. We pray, “Lord, give us eyes to see!” And here, of course, we are not merely asking for physical eyes but for deep insights, revelations, intuitive understanding, and subconscious vision.

Since the mid-1970s, the Emmanuel Gospel Center has had a full-time researcher on staff. Over these many years, Rudy Mitchell has gathered information on Boston’s neighborhoods and churches to help us see and understand what God is doing in our city. Not only has our research informed our own ministry decisions, but we share what we learn with others to help them make wise decisions about their ministry objectives.

Today, a lot of our research incorporates team learning. By engaging others in the learning process, we work with the community to deepen everyone’s understanding of the issues, obtain new information, clearly articulate the issues, and assist those affected to develop and implement an appropriate response.[8]

The conversations that emerge from this observation and research process lead everyone involved to deeper understandings and positive appreciation of the people and issues involved. This paves the way for practical responses that make sense both to those seeking to serve and those being served.

No matter where you find yourself in ministry, become a learner. Humble yourself to be open to what God will teach you as you look around. We do not start by doing. We start by observing. Take the time to do the research.

The deep understanding we gain from keen observation will naturally flow into the next stage of the Process of the Gospel, a positive appreciation of the people around us and their unique environment.

Stage Two: POSITIVE APPRECIATION

The second stage, positive appreciation, means making room in our hearts to respect honestly and actively and care about people and their potentially foreign cultural context.

There is a marked difference between respecting people for who they are and helping people merely because they have needs. In fact, if you jump in to help people because they have needs, without respecting and loving them first, you may be accomplishing nothing at all. Is that not what the Apostle Paul meant when he wrote, “If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing” (1 Cor 13:3)?

If our relationship with someone is not based on affection that emerges from esteem, but is only built on our ability to give some service or thing to the receiver, there is danger that the relationship is paternalistic and dehumanizing. That kind of relationship produces short-term results or dependency or both, but not spiritual fruit.

So, the rule of thumb is this: until you can first honestly appreciate people, do not try to reach them with your message or your acts of service.

Our model for positive appreciation is God himself. God’s unthinkably huge sacrifice, the selfless death of Jesus on our behalf, flows from his perfect love for us. Jesus expressed immense positive appreciation of people. He wept over them as “sheep without a shepherd” (Matt 9:36). John said of the Cross, “Having loved his own, he showed them the full extent of his love” (John 13:1).

The person or group we want to engage may not be willing to engage, either because of fear, hostility, ignorance, brokenness, lack of self esteem, or some other obstacle. Positive appreciation is not necessarily reciprocal at this point, nor does it need to be. Jesus loved us and died for us while we were yet sinners (1 John 4:19). His giving did not depend on our positive response to him.

If we really care about people, they will sense that, and even when we make mistakes—for we will make them—they will forgive us because they know we care about them. We will offend and be offended; we will misunderstand; we will act defensively, prejudicially, or chauvinistically. But most people will eventually forgive us if they know we have a genuine love for them. As the Apostle Peter says, “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).

Positive appreciation may not come easily. But the more we practice it, the more it is going to be perfected in us, though there will always be a huge gap between the way God loves and the way we love. This gap is a reality, not a problem. This is what the fallen world is about.

As we walk through the stages of the Process of the Gospel, we must always keep in mind that we are in a redemptive process, we are always confessing sin and always submitting to God, who will show us what to do.

Stage Three: RELEVANT COMMUNICATION

I think the real goal of relevant communication is congruence—that what you think you are saying is what the other person is actually understanding you to be saying; and that what you are hearing is what the other person is really intending for you to hear.

Relevant communication creates a deep connection between people. Your words will connect first to the matter at hand, but also to the heart of the listener. What you say will be practical and applicable. Your listener will have a sense of inner satisfaction that he or she is being heard, because what you say is congruent with their needs, their interests, their requests, and their worldview. At the same time, we carefully listen, hear, and receive from them.

God communicates through his “Word,” Jesus Christ. The writer of Hebrews makes this point clearly: “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son” (Heb 1:1-2). God spoke all of creation into being, and Job says, “God’s voice thunders” (Job 37:5a). When God spoke to Elijah, however, he spoke in a “still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12). Our God is a God who speaks! And he is also a God who hears our cry, who is closer than a brother, whose Spirit intercedes and groans inexpressible words within us (Rom 8:26,27).

From the beginning of our time in Boston, we would often have people living with us, whether they were people from the streets, ministry students, or fellow workers. The street people who lived with us taught us to be clear in what we said, because they were looking for honest love, and if we said something we did not mean from our hearts, they would pick it up immediately.

They were our textbooks on developing integrity and transparency. If we said we would do something we really did not plan to do, we would see their hopes crushed, and distrust would creep back into their eyes. Many of the people we met had been injured in multiple ways, and trust was not easy for them.

Relevant communication goes beyond words. It goes into the depths of who we really are and how we are communicating who we are. Communication also involves nonverbal cues such as hand gestures and a listening posture. Relevant communication means knowing what people are saying and, to a degree, what they are thinking, and then carefully using stories and other ways to communicate clearly.

Are we listening well enough so that what we hear is really what people are intending to say? Are we speaking carefully, so that what we are saying is really what we intend to say, and our listeners are hearing what we intend them to hear?

Stage Four: MEETING PERCEIVED NEEDS

The Gospels are full of stories about Jesus meeting the perceived needs of the people around him.

You know the story of blind Bartimaeus. When at last he stood before Jesus, the Lord did something very unexpected. He looked at him and asked what seemed to be an odd question: “What do you want me to do for you?” The man was obviously blind! But it was important for Bartimaeus to verbalize his own perceived need. Jesus waited for relevant communication that revealed the man’s own perceived need before he took action.

Bartimaeus was very clear about what he wanted. “Rabbi, I want to see,” he said.

“Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road” (Mark 10:46-52).

Jesus came to provide the answer for our most basic need, that we would be redeemed from sin and death, but on his three-year journey to the Cross he responded to many, many perceived needs that people were concerned about. The Gospel is not only what Jesus said, it is what he did.

God has created us to help others. Paul says, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph 2:10).

Why does Paul say we are created to do good works? Surely it is not to earn our place in heaven. That work has been accomplished on the Cross. Jesus said, “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matt 5:16).

In a very real way, our good deeds, prompted by love, are the Gospel message, without words. We do the Gospel. At the same time, of course, we preach the Gospel using words. God has given us his special revelation, and he wants everyone to hear and know what he has to say to us.

The point is, we want the way we live to speak as loudly as our words. Meeting felt needs is an important step, because it is incarnational ministry. For the recipient, it is spiritual reality experienced through practicality.

“Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead” (James 2:15). James makes it clear that our words are not enough, and actions, including helping to meet perceived needs, spring from faith.

Those of us in ministry are always faced with the immensity of human need all around us. There is no escape from the press of need, and knowing that Jesus is the answer to all our problems, we want to help in his name.

When Judy and I first came to Boston, we felt our lives were coming apart because of the craziness of trying to respond to the needs around us. Judy clearly remembers how busy we would be meeting the needs of just one person: taking her to the outpatient clinic, to the grocery store, to the social security office, to apply for food stamps and fuel assistance, to the welfare office, typing up forms and applications for her, and helping her deal with her addiction and relational problems. And that was just one of scores of people at our door every day of the week.

Here are a few things we learned along the way:

1. Be realistic.

After carefully listening to what the person or group say they need, it is best to choose a need that can actually be met. For especially those people who have lost hope many times, we cannot afford to make promises we cannot keep.

Choose something you have every reason to believe you may be able to accomplish with and through their participation, and then pull out all the stops to make sure it happens.

2. Be collaborative.

Make room for the person or group to fully participate in meeting the need. This should not be a giveaway program. Their participation in the process will build their confidence and ownership of the solution.

Change must come from within, not from without. It is through helping to address a felt need that hope is built in people, and that hope will help them begin to surface their more basic, core needs.

Stage Five: MEETING BASIC NEEDS

When we move from meeting perceived needs to meeting basic needs, you may think that this is no big deal—that we just go from a focus on surface needs to deeper needs. But in reality, a seismic shift takes place as we move between these two.

If you miss the importance of this transition, you will miss the power that comes from the Process of the Gospel. Your ministry may very well stay on the surface, and you may not see the abundant life you want to see take root and grow in the life of your friend.

Here is the best way to tell the difference. Perceived needs are identified by tangible solutions where the meeting of the need is finite. The solution does not internally transform the person, though it certainly brings a measure of hope and relief. The change is additive.

But on the other hand, you know basic needs are met when the solution brings an ever-widening range of other needs also being met simultaneously and spontaneously. There is an explosion of life as one door after another opens in the person’s life. The change is multiplicative.

When, for example, a long-term alcoholic becomes sober, a whole series of needs begins to be met at the same time. These may be physical needs, employment, family issues, a sense of self-worth and value, and gaining a purposeful life.

In meeting basic needs, the transaction is between God and the individual, and unless the individual participates with God in his or her restoration through willingness, obedience, and depending on God, nothing of any lasting significance happens.

We cannot force this. We cannot make it happen. God must do the heavy lifting. “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain,” Solomon wrote (Psalm 127:1). My role is to support and nurture the individual, and make sure he or she is connecting to the broader body of Christ as God is at work doing things I cannot do, and as he brings redemption and restoration.

The basic need is only fully met when my new believer friend is nurtured within a new family of supportive believers that is part of the larger extended family of the body of Christ. Nurturing these family relationships is a good way to “engage God’s living systems” and is the heart of Living System Ministry.

There are some basic needs common to all humankind that have arisen because of the Fall, such as sinfulness, our fallen human nature, separation from God, and rebellion against him. Paul puts this matter very strongly. “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior” (Col 1:21). Our most universal, core spiritual need, then, is for reconciliation with our Creator and the subsequent transformation of our sin nature.

We might think that the end goal of the Process of the Gospel is to see someone come to faith in Christ. But there is one more step beyond that. The sixth stage of the Process of the Gospel is multiplication.

Stage Six: MULTIPLICATION        

Living systems thrive on their own as they receive the sustenance they need.

Judy remembers that when our baby daughter was just two months old, a friend said to her, “Rebecca seems to be thriving!” Judy was beaming, very proud to be a new, successfully nursing mother. “And you probably did not have a thing to do with it!” he concluded, with a laugh.

This took the wind out of her sails, until she realized our friend was really saying that our daughter was experiencing the natural tendency of living things to thrive when they receive normal care and sustenance. Naturally, there came a time when Rebecca moved out to be on her own and a time when our son, Ken, left home to start a family of his own.

This is a normal part of nurturing a living system. We expect to release maturing systems to grow apart from us. Multiplication in an organic system requires that we let go.

Must I empty myself of short-term goals and focus on long-term goals? Must I release the future into the hands of other people when it is easier to organize and do it myself with my group in my way? These things are hard to do but they are necessary. We must empty ourselves of the short-term goals and individualism, both of which will hinder multiplication.

In multiplication, we want to envision those we have walked beside to do the “greater things” that Jesus talks about in John 14. “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12).

A goal in this is leaving in such a way that life flows from the people that we are working with, so they start reaching people we could never reach. Then we have been a part of a birthing process. We want to make disciples who will make disciples.

As we follow the Process of the Gospel, we will, indeed, participate with God in the way he builds his Kingdom. We experience what it means to be a co-laborer with God!

Completing the Circle

We started out wondering how God goes about creating relationships with us, planting the message of the Gospel in our hearts and nurturing it to fruitfulness. Now, as we have come full circle, the effective engagement we sought for is complete. “The fruit that remains” is the goal, and multiplication is the fruit. The recipient now becomes the giver.

The point of Jesus’ death and resurrection was to redeem a lost people who will then actually and zealously join him in his work. This is the Gospel: “Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works” (Titus 2:14).  Yet, even now, multiplication points us back to where we started.

Because the Gospel is alive, this living cycle of redemption starts up again in ever-widening circles.

From multiplication to system-wide balance

The Process of the Gospel restores relational balance to society. Rather than drawing from flawed or self-serving institutions which rely on technological, financial, intellectual, or organizational capital, the Process of the Gospel both draws from and builds up what I call “relational capital.”

While the Process of the Gospel effectively meets real human needs on every level, this process is not needs-based, but asset-driven,[9] because

• it works out from a positive appreciation of everyone involved

• liberally uses the assets that flow from healthy living systems

• throughout the process, develops reservoirs of internal relational capital that nurture the growth and development of living systems

This article was previously published in Missio Dei: A Journal of Missional Theology and Praxis 3, no. 2 (August 2012).

REFERENCES

[1] Scripture quotations in this paper, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

[2] This course is offered through Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary: http://www.gordonconwell.edu/doctor-ministry/Urban-Ministry.cfm

[3] We introduce the idea of living system ministry in our book, The Cat and the Toaster. Hall, Douglas, Judy Hall, and Steve Daman. The Cat and the Toaster: Living System Ministry in a Technological Age. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010.

[4] For more on the Emmanuel Gospel Center (EGC), visit www.egc.org. Judy and I started serving at EGC in 1964.

[5] Based on analysis of data gathered by the Emmanuel Gospel Center, Boston.

[6] Isaiah 26:12 says, “Lord, you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished you have done for us.” (italics mine)

[7] For example, see 1 Co 1:2, “To the church of God in Corinth…”; Eph 1:1, “To the saints in Ephesus…”; Gal 3:1, “You foolish Galatians!” (here referring to a group identified by a geographical region).

[8] Learn more about EGC’s applied research

[9] For more on asset-based community development as compared to needs-based efforts, see, for example, the Asset-Based Community Development Institute. http://www.abcdinstitute.org/