EGC’s (Inaugural) Shalom-Seekers Book List

EGC’s (Inaugural) Shalom-Seekers Book List

Liza Cagua-McAllister for EGC staff

The Emmanuel Gospel Center (EGC) exists to catalyze kingdom-centered, systemic change for the shalom of the city and the glory of God. If you are also on this amazing mission, our staff recently put together a list of books that have influenced and helped us along this challenging journey!

We asked our team: What books from diverse authors have you read that have contributed meaningfully to your shalom-seeking in the urban context? Why were these books significant to you? 

Submissions ranged from systems thinking primers to books on racial healing, from urban ministry classics to challenging new works less than a year old. From the 28 books mentioned by our team, we selected about a dozen to display in our EGC breakroom. Here are a few of those noteworthy titles, with staff comments.

“I find this book important for shalom-seeking in the urban context because... ”

A Multitude of All Peoples 

A Multitude of All Peoples: Engaging Ancient Christianity's Global Identity by Vince L. Bantu (2020) 

In order to know where we are headed, we need to know where we’ve been. Dr. Bantu — a former EGC staff member — brilliantly challenges Western mental models and makes the case for how the Church’s very foundation is multicultural.

Buried Seeds

Buried Seeds: Learning from the Vibrant Resilience of Marginalized Christian Communities by Alexia Salvatierra and Brandon Wrencher (2022)

Rev. Dr. Salvatierra and Rev. Wrencher glean powerful learnings from faith communities facing brutal challenges and evidencing tremendous power and imagination! From these historic movements, they offer present-day applications to different audiences, which is very helpful given urban shalom-seekers’ diverse experiences and social locations.

The Color of Compromise

The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism by Jemar Tisby (2020)

Dr. Tisby offers an eye-opening and thoughtful account of how the Church has been complicit in creating and maintaining the unjust structures of systemic racism in America. This is an important book for understanding one of the key issues of our times.

Ecosystems of Jubilee

Ecosystems of Jubilee: Economic Ethics for the Neighborhood by Adam Gustine and José Humphreys III (2023)

The authors richly engage Scripture to address the relationship between justice and economics, which is so central to making things right in our world. We can’t really live out the gospel without having it reshape our economic ethics, and this is a great beginning!

Seek the Peace of the City

Seek the Peace of the City: Reflections on Urban Ministry by Dr. Eldin Villafañe (1995)

Dr. Villafañe applies the “Jeremiah paradigm” for ministry in the city, laying the biblical and theological groundwork for engaging issues such as violence and reconciliation in the city with the wisdom and truth of God’s word.  

Thinking in Systems

Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella H. Meadows (2008) 

We work in a complex web of interrelated living systems. Understanding systems is fundamental to our work, and this is the classic primer on what systems are and why they matter. It’s a great starting point or great refresher for your systems journey.

Other titles you can find in the EGC breakroom:

• Beholding Beauty: Worshiping God through the Arts by Jason McConnell (2022) 

• Beyond Welcome: Centering Immigrants in our Christian Approach to Immigration by Karen González (2022) 

• First Nations Version: An Indigenous Translation of the New Testament trans. by Terry M. Wildman with consultant editor First Nations Version Translation Council (2021)

• Healing Racial Trauma: The Road to Resilience Paperback by Sheila Wise Rowe (2020)  

• I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation by Chanequa Walker-Barnes (2019) 

• The Alternative: Most of What You Believe About Poverty is Wrong by Mauricio Miller (2017)

• The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict by The Arbinger Institute (2006)

Come by EGC to borrow one of these copies, check them out at your local library, or purchase them at your local, independent bookstore through bookshop.org!

These books help us pursue the shalom of the city for the glory of God. How about you?

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.

Urban Youth Culture Research [Resource List]

Urban Youth Culture Research [Resource List]

by Rev. Dean Borgman, Professor of Youth Ministry

How are people of faith to understand urban youth culture? How can the Church best interact with urban youth?

This post provides qualitative research resources for the urban youth practitioner to develop a framework and approach for more effective ministry.

Current Resources

“Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship,” by Gregory Boyle (2017)

Though not social science, Barking to the Choir offers what I call “qualitative research snapshots”. This spiritual and biblical reflection on the lives of L.A. homies illustrates what is required for effective qualitative research: time spent and trust felt.  Urban researchers will see possible results of their work, as this book describes how homies from negative origins can transform into effective workers and young entrepreneurs.

“Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion,” by Gregory Boyle (2010)

Though Father Boyle is not a social science researcher, what this white, adult, professional (a priest) displays in the way relationships can provide the most "human" kind of information, and serve as a passage from gang-ridden neighborhoods to positive community development (a thriving bakery business). This book is about a God who shows up in surprising ways and places with unconditional compassion, sense of humor, strength and firmness.

Urban Research Network

This site includes description of “Community-Based Participatory Research,” “Research, Action, Activism: Urban Gathers for Third National Meeting: ‘critical solidarities and multi-scalar powers,’” and “From Youth Organizers to Social Justice Activists' Experiences of Youth Organizers Transitioning to Adulthood.”

Emmanuel Gospel Center, Boston

Teens of the Making Youth Voices Heard program meeting with students of Boston College School of Social Work in Roxbury, MA, February 2018.

EGC has engaged in urban applied research in collaboration with other agencies for decades.

• EGC Youth Resources

• Youth Violence Systems Project

• Making Youth Voices Heard

 

 

 

 

Resources on Economic Systems

Without understanding economic realities surrounding urban youth, we do not have a complete picture of what drives youth culture. Employment challenges and informal/underground economic systems are two of these realities. For a recent study of global informal underground economic systems, see Edgar L. Feige and Paulina Restrepo-Echavarria.  

“Defining and Estimating Underground and Informal Economies: The New Institutional Approach,” by Edgar L. Feige (10 Jun 16)

“Measuring Underground Economy Can Be Done, but It Is Difficult,” by Paulina Restrepo-Echavarria (Jan 2015)

Classic Resources

Article:  “The Code of the Streets,” by Elijah Anderson (May 1994), The Atlantic

Understanding the influences, behaviors, and motives of urban communities and their youth has been greatly furthered by the work of African-American sociologist Elijah Anderson, Professor at the University of Pennsylvania (and now Yale). Anderson’s work is must-reading for urban street workers and should be understood by all serving urban neighborhoods. It is worth quoting from this insightful article:

“Of all the problems besetting the poor inner-city black community, none is more pressing than that of interpersonal violence and aggression…. The inclination to violence springs from the circumstances of life among the ghetto poor—the lack of jobs that pay a living wage, the stigma of race, the fallout from rampant drug use and drug trafficking, and the resulting alienation and a general lack of hope for the future.”

Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City by Elijah Anderson (1999)

Anderson’s book further builds on his 1994 article and describes the details of the code of the streets that so strongly influences inner-city life. Inner-city youth come out of their apartments to “Win-Win/Lose-Lose” street situations… as part of a “zero-sum game.” They are forced into a “campaign for self-respect,” where “juice” (or power over others) are crucial. Code of the Street details the bigger picture—the systemic context for what average citizens see as a stereotype of urban lives from the evening news.

Streetwise: Race, Class and Social Change in an Urban Community by  Elijah Anderson (1990)

Anderson’s earlier book, Streetwise, is a careful analysis of social neglect and intrusion (gentrification) in urban life.

Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum by William Foote Whyte (1993)

Back in the late 1930s William F. Whyte, on a fellowship from Harvard, lived in Boston’s North End. As an early social scientist he attempted to describe life in that Italian-American community of first-and second-generation immigrants. First published in 1943, it was entitled Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum. Whyte’s work is important to us as it pioneered what he described as “participant observer research,” and provides a foundation for systems thinking ministry.  

Street Corner Research: An Experimental Approach to the Juvenile Delinquent by Ralph K. Schwitzgebel (1993)

Also coming out of Harvard and influenced by the work of William Whyte is Ralph Schweitzgebel’s Streetcorner Research: An Experimental Approach to the Juvenile Delinquent. Its considerations of qualitative research emphasizes the importance of genuine relationships for urban study of youth, and describes delinquency as having a variety of psychological and sociological causes.

Ain’t No Makin’ It: Aspirations & Attainment in a Low-Income Neighborhood by Jay MacLeod (1995)

Any urban program using interns, and certainly urban interns themselves, should be interested in the story of three students wandering into an urban housing project seeking to set up a youth program.

Working with youngsters in a poor neighborhood for several summers, the author decided to write his undergraduate thesis on the occupational aspirations of two contrasting cliques of older teenagers in the project—the Hallway Hangers and the Brothers: “I immersed myself in their peer cultures for a year and tried to understand the two groups from the inside. Exploring their aspirations led me into a thicket of enduring social issues about the nature of poverty, opportunity, and achievements in the United States.” MacLeod’s book continues to be a classic sociology text.

In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio by Philippe Bourgois (1995)

A study emphasizing the importance of urban economics is Philippe Bourgois’ “In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio”. This anthropologist and urban researcher moved into Spanish Harlem, NYC, and established long-term friendship and trust with Puerto Rican, street-level drug dealers... spending many a night in crack havens. “I was interested in the political economy of inner-city street culture…. I wanted to probe the Achilles heel of the richest industrialized nation in the world by documenting how it imposes racial segregation and economic marginalization on so many of its Latino/a and African-American citizens.”

Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago, by LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman with David Isay (1997)

Community programs hoping to use youthful residents for urban research can learn from Jones and Newman, two young teenagers who retrieve a story about the incomprehensible dropping of a five-year-old boy from a 14th floor window by 10-and 11-year old kids because he wouldn’t steal candy for them. With transistor recorders and some coaching from Isay, these teens collected what can be considered informal, qualitative research for two years—when they were thirteen and fourteen years old. Reading their report allows for a better understanding of inner-city values and attitudes.

“Constructing Meaning About Violence, School, and Community: Participatory Action Research with Urban Youth,” by Alice McIntyre (2000), The Urban Review, Vol.32, No.2, 2000.

A scholarly article describing how a group of adolescents were equipped to study and report on “a toxic environment, limited social services, poverty, crime, drugs, and inadequate educational resources.”

Final Note:  Most of the above suggest going beyond relief and incarceration and even prevention to community development. But few go as far as to suggest what needs to be changed in the realm of what might be called systemic injustice, which includes racism and classism. 

A Bigger Fire: 2018 New England City Forum

A Bigger Fire: 2018 New England City Forum

By Kelly Steinhaus, Director of UniteBoston

New England has the reputation of lacking a Christian presence. But my experience shows otherwise—Christians in New England are some of the most faith-filled, gospel-driven people I’ve ever met.

At times, I get discouraged by what I think I should see of gospel impact in New England. But when I come together with other Christian leaders, my perspective changes. I get filled with faith and excited about how God is at work in our midst.

For this reason, I love working with UniteBoston and the New England City Forum. Within the walls of our churches and church networks, we can feel isolated. Coming together, we can see the larger story of God’s movement emerging.

 

Learning Together at the New England City Forum

This year’s City Forum brought together 96 leaders from 17 cities throughout New England. Many participants expressed to us how refreshing it is to be with people from different settings with similar visions and goals.

We heard city presentations in the morning from New Haven and Springfield. In the afternoon, we hosted a “world cafe” style discussion, where people chose topic tables to discuss and collaborate on how to advance the gospel in New England.

We then asked participants in the forum to share with us what they took from the day that would most impact their ministry. Here’s what we learned.

1. God is on the move across New England—but we don’t hear about it.

We asked participants why they came to the forum. The most frequent reason they shared was to discover what God is doing more broadly in New England.

“I felt led to get out of my comfort zone and engage with others,” said one, wanting to “know New England better and what God is doing here.” Another attended “to learn about what God is doing in New England and meet some of the people He’s doing it through.”

Looking back over the day, one participant responded with the observation, “God is doing much in terms of our cities/movements. Most Christians are unaware beyond their own church, much less in other New England cities.” Another came away with the conviction that “God is moving—stay the course.”

2. Collaboration is the next normal.

Both of the city reports from New Haven and Springfield stressed the need for collaboration. Collaboration is celebrating the uniqueness of each community while partnering across differences.

“God has given charisma to all the churches, so we need to ask for them and each other,” shared one, acknowledging our need, “to humble ourselves and stop saying to other parts of the body, ‘I don’t need you.’”

Another added that we need collaboration across denominational, racial and socio-economic lines for the Church to “fulfill her calling and fully grow into her potential,” so that “revival can become a reality.”  

Through Christ, we're all adopted into God’s family, and thus we are all on the same team—like it or not. So we have to be intentional about partnering across the beautiful diversity of Christ’s Church: across race, denomination, and generation, to name a few.

Rather than individually blowing on our own fires and hoping for success, it is time for us to take down the walls and come together to build a bigger bonfire. As we humbly open our hearts for greater partnership, a vision bigger than preserving our individual ministries will emerge.

I believe such unity is a tangible sign of the “revival” for which many have been longing and praying. To this end, the Luis Palau Association’s City Gospel Movement website was recently launched to help people to connect with gospel-oriented collaboration throughout the nation.

3. Building diverse leadership and sharing power are essential.

Building kingdom collaboration requires diverse leadership. To make this goal a reality, we must commit both to racial reconciliation and power-sharing.

After viewing a video of Christena Cleveland, which emphasizes Jesus’ way of the first to be last, many participants echoed the need to develop diverse leadership.

Watch Video

“Racial reconciliation can be modeled by pastors becoming friends,” wrote one participant, “learning to trust one each other and serving together as individuals and churches.”

Another responded in the form of a prayer, “God, please give me the heart and mind that is curious to genuinely seek to hear the power and truth of the person in front of me.”

Working together across our differences isn’t easy. As Pastor Todd Foster of the New Haven multi-church collaboration Bridges of Hope observed, “Being in the same room doesn’t mean you’re on the same page.” In his experience, we need to deal with the issues intentionally if we are to tear down the necessary walls.

But a fuller movement of God will come when we take the next step beyond mutual understanding. Real momentum will come when, as one participant shared, we become “ruthless about developing diverse organizational/neighborhood leaders,” with a commitment to “share the airtime.”

I’m convinced that if there is one thing needed in New England, it's a humble willingness to lay down our power to serve one another. I believe now is a God-ordained season where we must recognize we need one another like never before.

When we asked how we could improve the forum, many people suggested taking steps towards greater diversity among forum participants on various dimensions—ethnicity, vocation, and cities represented.

Internally, we’ve also held multiple conversations about what it could look like to develop more diverse leadership within the forum and ways we have not yet hit our own marks.

Looking Forward

Each Christian—each church—is a part of something much bigger than we can see. A united vision emerges the more we come together. The Emmanuel Gospel Center, Vision New England, and UniteBoston are committed to supporting unity-focused collaborations and creating spaces to learn from one another.

We’re grateful to NECF hosts and participants for fruitful conversations over the past three years. We’ve been encouraged to hear what God is doing and privileged to connect leaders in a shared learning space.

At this point, we do not plan to reconvene the New England City Forum next year.  Instead, our team would like to take some time to reassess God's leading as we support more learning opportunities for Christians across ethnicity, vocation, denomination, and New England geography. We welcome your input.

Contact

We'd Love to Hear From You!

We are grateful for your participation in the New England City Forum and are eager to see how the Lord will bring us together again in the future.