Churches: Community Development is the New Community Service

Churches: Community Development is the New Community Service

By Bethany Slack, MPH, ARC Associate in Public Health & Wellness

Churches can have whole-health impacts in their communities. But churches who want to engage the physical needs of a local area need intention, planning, and a fuller picture of Christian love.

At the 2018 GO Conference in February, I attended a workshop called, “Bringing Life to Your Community, “ led by Archbishop Timothy Paul, President of the Council of Churches of Western Massachusetts (CCWM). There he presented a practical vision for engaging the whole-bodied needs of a local area.

The Archbishop reminded us of the insight (often attributed to Teddy Roosevelt), “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Members of a community sometimes don’t know how much churches care until they see us helping to address pressing physical needs.

CCWM fleshes out Jesus’ “do unto others” call into thoughtful ways that churches can discover community needs and develop sustainable programs. The main insight I took away from the workshop was the difference between community service and community development.

Community SERVICE vs. Community DEVELOPMENT

When I was growing up, my church took serving the community very seriously. Our small groups and youth groups regularly volunteered at the church’s food pantry or community clothing distribution center. Our hometown of Harrisonburg, VA, was a prime destination for immigration, so our church helped sponsor refugees and immigrants for resettlement in the US.

Our church also maintained a fund for helping out with community needs. My dad administered the fund for many years, instilling in me a value of thinking beyond the needs of our own family. In my adult life, I’ve volunteered at free clinics and resource centers for the homeless. So community outreach is rooted deep within me.

But I would call my outreach experience “community service.” The Archbishop presented a model for something quite different—community development.

As a public health professional at EGC, I’m developing a Boston-based program to help Christian leaders and healthcare professionals across the city convene to address end-of-life care needs. But I’ve not been involved in community development work connected to a particular church body.

Community development involves going out into the community and doing a needs assessment, discovering with local partners:

• What are the needs and opportunities of this community?  

• With whom can we partner?

• What is the role of our church in the community?

• What is our responsibility to the community?

• How can we help build the community around us?

With the projects CCWM has developed from this discovery process, they’re not just giving out food or other items, but they’re trying to build the community’s own capacities. For example, CCWM is involved in mentoring youth, providing counseling, and other activities that help people get back on their feet or overcome their past.

Fullness of Life, Fullness of Ministry

CCWM’s approach is inspired by John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (NIV). For CCWM, “life to the full” includes five pillars of community health: spiritual, educational, economic, health, and social.

According to their “Vision 10:10” strategy, each of these five areas is an opportunity for the church to strengthen its surrounding community. Some of the ways CCWM has invested in these pillars in Springfield neighborhoods include:

• opening a hotel to create jobs and revenue (economic)

• obtaining a grant to mentor youth with incarcerated parents (social)

• providing counseling for gambling and opiate addiction (health, social)

CCWM developed each of their initiatives in response to needs they observed in the community. For example, their interest in treating gambling addiction stems from the arrival of a new casino in Springfield.

My Next Steps

I’d like to see my current church come together to begin conversation about our role in the local community. That kind of shared discovery is not something I’ve seen. Mostly I’ve seen programs develop from the top down from the leadership, or even from the leadership practices of the churches that planted them.

We’re in Belmont, MA, and my husband and I have been a part of the church there since it was planted. As far as I know we haven’t yet held conversation about what it means to be in Belmont or our role in the Belmont community. We’ll need to also have some theological discussion around what it can mean (and doesn’t mean) to “be the church” beyond our walls.

My first step is to get together with one of the elders of the church and say, “Here are my thoughts about our serving the community. What do you think?”

We already have community outreach activities, and I don’t know how they came about. There may be these kinds of discussions going on behind the scenes that I don’t know about. Those of us not on the planting team haven’t yet had much influence on the kinds of community work the church does. So my first step is to connect with my church leadership.

I think God is inviting me to be open to what community development might look like to my church leaders. I’m not in leadership at the church. Yes, community development is on my heart, but I want to hear what’s in the hearts of the leaders too. Anything we do as a church, I’d want it to be coming not from me, but from the church as a whole.

For Reflection

• Many of us attend churches outside of our home neighborhood or city. How does this reality affect our potential for community impact, individually and corporately, for the positive or negative?

• Most of us attend churches that meet in a fixed location, whether owned or rented. How do we view our “place” in the neighborhood? Is it merely a space to gather, or is there potential or even responsibility to play an active role in seeking the good of the community?

Bethany Slack, MPH, MT, is the Public Health and Wellness research associate at EGC. Her passion is to see Jesus’ love translated into improved health and health justice for all, across the lifespan and across the globe.

Emmanuel Research Review

WHAT IS IT?

The Emmanuel Research Review (2004 - 2014) was a digital journal from the Emmanuel Gospel Center’s Applied Research department. The Review featured regular articles, papers, and other resources to support urban pastors, leaders and community members in their efforts to serve their communities effectively. Ninety-five issues of The Review were published during its ten-year run from 2004 to 2014.

THEN AND NOW

When EGC’s Applied Research and Consulting department began a comprehensive reorganization in 2014, we discontinued publication until we were in a better position to produce new materials that would be even more effective. In 2016, when we launched a new website, the ERR archive was no longer available. Now we are working to repost some of the best from the past while we continue producing new resources addressing a wide range of urban issues.

LIST OF PUBLISHED ISSUES

2014

Issue No. 95 — March 2014 — Knowing Your Neighborhood: An Update of Boston’s South End Churches. (EGC reassessed the status of churches in our own neighborhood, Boston’s South End.)

Issue No. 94 — December 2013 - January 2014 — Understanding Boston’s Quiet Revival. (Steve Daman, Senior Writer, EGC, offers questions and discussion that lead toward a working definition and overview of “the Quiet Revival.”)

2013

Issue No. 93 — October-November 2013 — Mapping A Systemic Understanding of Homelessness for Effective Church Engagement. (EGC’s Starlight Ministries shares a homelessness system map for Boston and suggestions as to how churches can more effectively engage and impact homelessness in their communities.)

Issue No. 92 — September 2013 — “Why Cities Matter” and “Reaching for the New Jerusalem,” Books by Boston Area Authors. (Reviews of: Why Cities Matter: To God, the Culture, and the Church, by Stephen T. Um & Justin Buzzard, and Reaching for the New Jerusalem: A Biblical and Theological Framework for the City, edited by Seong Hyun Park, Aída Besançon Spencer, & William David Spencer.)

Issue No. 91 — July-August 2013 — Grove Hall Neighborhood Study. (Story and statistics on many facets of life in one Boston neighborhood.)

Issue No. 90 — June 2013 — Hidden Treasures of the Kingdom Uncovered. Celebrating Ministries to the Nations: A Manual for Organizing and Planning an Event in Your City. (Rev. Dr. Gregg Detwiler, Director of Intercultural Ministries, EGC, and Dr. Bianca Duemling, Assistant Director of Intercultural Ministries, describe a ministry event and the journey they pursued to pull it together.)

Issue No. 89 — May 2013 — 2013 Emmanuel Applied Research Award: Student Recipients. (Excerpts from the award paper, “Cambridge City-Wide Church Collaborative Cooperates to Meet Community Needs,” by Megan Footit, and abstracts from the three runners-up.)

Issue No. 88 — April 2013 — Perspectives on Boston Church Statistics: Is Boston Really Only 2% Evangelical? (Rudy Mitchell, Senior Researcher, EGC, evaluates the sources, accuracy, limitations, and weakness of some commonly used church statistics, especially with regard to their application in Boston.)

Issue No. 87 — March 2013 — Christian Engagement with Muslims in the United States. (Rev. Dr. Gregg Detwiler, Director of Intercultural Ministries at EGC, hosts a video conversation on Christian Engagement with Muslims in the U.S. Panelists: Dave Kimball, Minister-at-Large for Christian–Muslim Relations, EGC; Nathan Elmore, Program Coordinator & Consultant for Christian-Muslim Relations, Peace Catalyst International; and Paul Biswas, Pastor, International Community Church – Boston.)

Issue No. 86 — February 2013 — The Vital Signs of a Living System Ministry. (Dr. Douglas A. Hall, President of EGC and author of The Cat and the Toaster: Living System Ministry in a Technological Age, shares how Living System Ministry principles serve as vital signs which can guide our understanding and practice of leadership in urban ministry.)

2012

Issue No. 85 — December 2012–January 2013 — “Toward A More Adequate Mission Speak” and Other Resources by Ralph Kee. (An introduction to five booklets by Boston-based church planter and animator of the Greater Boston Church Planting Collaborative, Rev. Ralph Kee.)

Issue No. 84 — November 2012 — The Boston Education Collaborative’s Partnership with Boston Public Schools. (History and highlights of recent collaboration between EGC’s Boston Education Collaborative and the Boston Public Schools Faith-Based Partnerships in building church-school partnerships; and details on the BEC’s “Reflection and Learning Sessions” that provide support for Christian leaders working with students.)

Issue No. 83 — October 2012 — Churches in Boston’s Neighborhood of Mattapan. (Erik Nordbye, Research Associate of EGC, studied and analyzed data on 65 Christian churches in Boston’s diverse Mattapan neighborhood.)

Issue No. 82 — September 2012 — Christian Churches in Somerville, Mass. (A profile of 46 Christian churches in the city of Somerville, Mass.)

Issue No. 81 — August 2012 — Christian Churches in North Dorchester of Boston, Mass. (Hanno van der Bijl, Research Associate at EGC, studied the diverse and vital expressions of the church in the North Dorchester neighborhood of Boston. The report also documents the slow growth in the number of churches over the last 25 years.)

Issue No. 80 — July 2012 — Developing Safe Environments for Learning and Transformation. (Rev. Dr. Gregg Detwiler, Director of Intercultural Ministries, EGC, shares from his experience regarding “a model for personal and organizational transformation” while underscoring the importance of creating a safe environment.)

Issue No. 79 — June 2012 — Emmanuel Applied Research Award: Student Recipients. (The 2012 award paper, “Miriam’s House Ministries and The Melville Park Micro-enterprise Experiment,” by Jim Hartman, is presented in its entirety, and there are links to the executive summaries of the three runners up.)

Issue No. 78 — May 2012 — The Rise of the Global South: The Decline of Western Christendom and the Rise of Majority World Christianity, by Elijah J. F. Kim. (An introduction to the above named book by Elijah J. F. Kim, former Director of the Vitality Project, EGC. Dr. Kim says “the center of gravity of the Christian faith has shifted from the West to the non-West.”)

Issue No. 77 — April 2012 — The Black Church and Hip Hop Culture & Under One Steeple, Books by Boston Area Authors. (Reviews of The Black Church and Hip Hop Culture: Toward Bridging the Generational Divide, edited by Emmett G. Price III, and Under One Steeple: Multiple Congregations Sharing More Than Just Space, by Lorraine Cleaves Anderson, former pastoral of International Community Church in Allston.)

Issue No. 76 — March 2012 — Hartford Survey Project: Understanding Service Needs and Opportunities. (Jessica Sanderson of Urban Alliance shares about the purpose, process, analysis, findings and application of the Hartford Survey.)

Issue No. 75 — February 2012 — Behind the Scenes: Setting the Stage for Conversation about the Church in New England. (Video series from Brandt Gillespie of PrayTV and Dr. Roberto Miranda of Congregación León de Judá in Boston about the church in New England.)

Issue No. 74 — January 2012 — Shared Worship Space, an Urban Challenge and a Kingdom Opportunity. (Dr. Bianca Duemling, Assistant Director, Intercultural Ministries, EGC, outlines the challenges of churches sharing space.)

2011

Issue No. 73 — December 2011 — Let’s Do It! Multiplying Churches in Boston Now. (Rev. Ralph A. Kee, animator of the Greater Boston Church Planting Collaborative, connects first century practices with 21st century potentialities for Boston.)

Issue No. 72 — November 2011 — Crossing Beyond the Organization Threshold. (Dr. Douglas A. Hall, President, EGC, shares thoughts on the limitations of organization and the danger of having it become our ministry’s focus, and how we can use organization and technology appropriately to benefit a living system.)

Issue No. 71 — October 2011 — Human Trafficking: The Abolitionist Network. (Sarah Durfey, director, the Abolitionist Network, an emerging ministry of EGC, talks about how we can address human trafficking using a Living System Ministry approach.)

Issue No. 70 — September 2011 — Urban Ministry Training in Metro Boston. (Hanno van der Bijl, Research Associate, EGC, offers a brief introduction on urban ministry training in Metro Boston, the Urban Ministry Training Directory, a brief analysis, and a list of related resources.)

Issue No. 69 — August 2011 — The Diverse Leadership Project. (Dr. Bianca Duemling, Assistant Director, Intercultural Ministries, EGC, gives a brief overview of the project which seeks to better understand leadership development, styles, and priorities within various ethnic church communities. Includes interviews with six New England church leaders in five different ethnic contexts.)

Issue No. 68 — July 2011 — Metro Boston Collegiate Ministry Project: Focus Group/Learning Team Report. (The story of how the collaborative project began, initial group assumptions, and the “hexagonning” exercise that engaged 50 local leaders in a shared learning process to understand local college ministry.)

Issue No. 67 — June 2011 — Metro Boston Collegiate Ministry Project: Student Enrollment Report. (Who attends Boston’s colleges? This report examines student enrollment profiles for each of the 35 schools in Metro Boston.)

Issue No. 66 — May 2011 — Emmanuel Applied Research Award: Student Recipients. (The 2011 award paper, “Faith-Based Healthcare for the Underserved of Lawrence, MA: A Pilot Project,” by Stephen Ko, is presented in its entirety.)

Issue No. 65 — April 2011 — Boston Education Collaborative Church Survey Report. (How Boston-area churches are engaged in education, what areas of programming they are interested in further developing, and what resources are needed for them to become more involved in education.)

Issue No. 64 — March 2011 — Connecting the Disconnected: A Survey of Youth and Young Adults in Grove Hall. (An April, 2010, report on out-of-work and out-of-school young adults ages 16-24 in the Grove Hall area of Boston, and an interview with Ra’Shaun Nalls and Martin Booth of Project R.I.G.H.T., who share the story behind the study.)

Issue No. 63 — February 2011 — Youth Violence Systems Project Special Edition Review. (An overview of the community-based process that is at the heart of the Youth Violence Systems Project (YVSP), the YVSP strategy lab, the reason why we haven’t solved the gang violence problem, and what we are learning.)

Issue No. 62 — January 2011 — The Urban Apostolic Task. (In this issue, Rev. Ralph Kee, animator, Greater Boston Church Planting Collaborative, illuminates the vision, practical instruction, and urgency of an apostolic ministry that engages the entire church in “new-world building movements.”)

2010

Issue No. 59 — September/October 2010 — A New Kind of Learning: Contextualized Theological Education Models. (Dr. Alvin Padilla, Dean of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary’s Center for Urban Ministerial Education, Boston, considers the challenge theological schools have best serving the needs of diverse cultures in cities today.)

2008

Issue No. 41 — September/October 2008 — Urban Youth Mentoring. (Rudy Mitchell, Senior Researcher, summarizes his research findings regarding various practical aspects on mentoring youth in an urban context. Rudy’s research draws from both secular and faith-based sources regarding preparation, planning, recruiting, screening, training, matching, support, monitoring, closure, and evaluation of youth mentoring programs.)

More to come!

This is just a start. Stay tuned for more back issues listed and posted on this site. Or check out the Wayback Machine link below for another way to find back issues.

Learn More / Take Action

Questions? Is there something missing from our archives that you need? If you have questions or comments about the Emmanuel Research Review, don’t hesitate to be in touch. We would love to hear from you! 

Contact Us

Contact Us

Researchers may find additional back issues by searching the internet “Wayback Machine” here:

The City Gives Birth to a Seminary

The City Gives Birth to a Seminary

The founding of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary’s Boston campus, the Center for Urban Ministerial Education.

by Steve Daman, Senior Production Advisor, Applied Research and Consulting, EGC

What if you want to start a seminary? Where do you begin?

What if, instead of showing up with long-term goals and administrative strategies for organizational development, you

• choose to allow the color and complexity and diversity of a changing city to shape the seminary?

• start by listening rather than directing?

• not only welcome collaboration, you insist on it?

• launch your first class just three months after you get the nod to start?

What would that look like? It would look like CUME, the Center for Urban Ministerial Education, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary’s Boston campus.

Eldin Villafañe

In the fall of 1973, Eldin Villafañe and his wife, Margie, settled into student housing at Boston University (BU) and Eldin started work on a Ph.D. in social ethics. Already a graduate of Central Bible College and Wheaton Graduate School of Theology, Eldin had been serving as director of Christian education for the largest Hispanic Assemblies of God church in the country at the time, Iglesia Cristiana Juan 3:16 in the Bronx. His thought was to come to BU, get the degree, and get back to New York. But God had another plan.

Not long after coming to Boston, Eldin made his way to a little bookstore on Shawmut Avenue, a store bursting with books and music in both Spanish and English, furnished with vintage display counters and decorated with brightly painted maracas, guiros, tambourines and a variety of flags. The little store seemed dark at first coming off the street, yet the room was always full of cheerful conversation, lively music, and warm Christian fellowship.

Eldin struck up a friendship with the manager, Web Brower, who had launched the store in 1970 as a ministry of the Emmanuel Gospel Center (EGC). The store served as a resource center for the growing Hispanic church community as thousands of Latinos were moving into Boston from across Latin America as well as from New York and Puerto Rico.

One day, Web invited Eldin to join the planning team for an inner-city Christian education conference. It was a good fit as Eldin was a seasoned Christian education director and well-respected in his denomination, the Assemblies of God. Eldin remembers, “They asked me to mobilize some Latinos. And Web and the folks were thinking, you know, if we get 20 or 30 people that would be great. Well, because I had been known in my denomination and I knew the pastors, I was able to bring close to 300 Latinos.”

The conference spilled over into two churches. That event built new relational bridges for Eldin, especially with some of the city’s African American leaders such as Michael Haynes, Bruce Wall, and VaCountess (V.C.) Johnson, all on staff with Twelfth Baptist Church at that time. God gave him much grace, he says, and the other leaders valued his contribution to this conference.

Somewhere along the way, Eldin was asked to be a guest lecturer for a few seminary classes held at the Emmanuel Gospel Center. In 1973, the same year that the Villafañes came to Boston, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (GCTS) launched a program called the Urban Middler Year (UMY). Seminarians could choose to spend their second full year of study in Boston, attending classes at the Gospel Center taught by Doug Hall, at that time the director of EGC, and Professor Steve Mott of Gordon-Conwell, with additional help from Professor Dean Borgman and other urban leaders. Students would serve with an inner-city church and be mentored in urban ministry. Then they would return to Gordon-Conwell Seminary in Hamilton for their third and final year. When Eldin spoke at the Gospel Center those few times, he did not realize he would soon be working in partnership with Steve Mott.

The Birth of the Center for Urban Ministerial Education (CUME)

In 1969, one of the mandates of the newly formed Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, arising from the merger of the Conwell School of Theology in Philadelphia and the Gordon Divinity School in Wenham, Massachusetts, was to engage the city in some fashion. Both schools had historical commitments to urban ministry that it was unwilling to abandon; however, the specific shape and form for the new institution remained rather unclear.

Initially, Dr. Stephen Mott was hired to direct a program to be housed in Philadelphia, continuing the Conwell tradition of training African American clergy. In effect, Dr. Mott became a full-time professor of church and society, located at the Hamilton campus of Gordon-Conwell in South Hamilton, Massachusetts.

Other GCTS constituencies, particularly urban clergy, also shared this interest that the seminary’s original urban mandate become a full reality. Dr. Michael Haynes, senior Pastor of the historic Twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and a longtime trustee of GCTS, took a leading and crucial role at this juncture. He became a strong advocate for the Seminary’s need to be involved in the inner city, and powerfully articulated the plight of the church in the inner city to the Seminary’s Trustees and senior administration.

Before Gordon-Conwell launched the Urban Middler Year program, there had been talk of doing more for the city. A few years earlier, in 1969, Doug Hall sent a letter to the seminary’s leadership asking them to consider addressing three critical needs that Doug and his team saw emerging in Boston:

• the need for an urban training component for traditional seminary students, which initially was addressed in 1973 with the start of UMY

• the need for research on demographics and trends in the city to keep ministerial training relevant and to inform the pastors

• the need for contextualized ministerial training for pastors already working in Boston.

The UMY program was importing eager seminarians into the city. Gordon-Conwell never addressed the research concern, but, in 1976, God sent a researcher to EGC. Rudy Mitchell, still EGC’s senior researcher, has been studying the city and its churches for four decades.

But what was to be done about the remaining challenge, the need to better equip pastors already serving? Many pastors in Boston’s newest churches had little or no formal education, many did not speak English, but, with anointing from God, they were leading dozens of Boston’s most effective churches.

Doug Hall remembers conversations with busy, bi-vocational pastors who wanted more training, but wondered how to fit that into their busy lives, as they were already feeling burned out. He also heard his friend Michael Haynes voice deep concerns about the lack of access to evangelical ministry training and higher education for urban residents—a gap that had widened in the twenty years since Gordon Divinity School had moved out of the city of Boston in the mid-1950s.

By 1976, the leadership at Gordon-Conwell was ready to do more. They began looking for the right person to build bridges among urban church leaders across many ethnic groups, someone who could administer new programs—possibly an urban seminary, and teach and mentor students. Professor Steve Mott asked Eldin if he was interested, and then Doug Hall and his wife Judy drove Eldin the thirty miles up Route 1 to introduce him to the seminary leaders.

When the offer was extended, Eldin readily agreed to join Gordon-Conwell as assistant professor of church and society, working alongside Steve. Eldin was made coordinator for the Urban Middler Year program and he was asked to do one more thing: to begin to think about ways the seminary could establish a new and separate program for training and equipping the urban pastors already serving congregations.

“There was great interest in doing this, and I just took the ball and ran,” Eldin says. V.C. Johnson, a Gordon-Conwell graduate and ordained minister who was working at Twelfth Baptist, was also already involved in exploring this idea. V.C. and Professor Dean Borgman had been conducting some simple surveys to see whether a program for indigenous pastors and leaders would fly.

Eldin and V.C. soon began working together. Eldin recalls, “I had been named the director of the project, and I started calling V.C. the assistant director right away rather than a secretary or administrative assistant as someone suggested, because she was doing much more. I can remember the meetings I had with V.C. coming up with a name. We were thinking of a few names and then she said, ‘Let’s call it: Center for Urban Ministerial Education.’ And we called it that from day one.”

Then came a flurry of gatherings with pastors and leaders from the Hispanic, African American, and Anglo communities. “A lot of folks were very supportive,” Eldin says.

Just three months after receiving the challenge from Gordon-Conwell to think about what could be done for indigenous pastors, the Center for Urban Ministerial Education opened its doors in September 1976 at the Second African Meeting House on 11 Moreland Street in Roxbury. “We started with 30 students,” Eldin remembers. “About 16 were Latinos and 12 were African Americans, and maybe one or two were White.”

Contextualized Urban Theological Education

After a year or two, V.C. left because of her work commitments at Twelfth Baptist. “I wanted the seminary to look like the city,” Eldin reflects, “so I began to pray for an individual who has credentials, and an African American, and God sent Sam Hogan to join the team.”

Sam was finishing his second master’s degree at Harvard, a Master of Theological Studies. Today Bishop Hogan serves as a pastor and a leader in Boston with the Church of God in Christ denomination.

Other workers were added, such as Naomi Wilshire, Bruce Jackson, Efrain Agosto and Ira Frazier. Doug Hall continued developing his courses in urban ministry he had pioneered with the UMY program, and they eventually became core courses for the Masters of Divinity in Urban Ministry degree, and are still offered today.

“I really was given carte blanche,” Eldin says. “I was given freedom. I had been a Sunday School man, and I knew how to organize, mobilize, and that was key because from day one I fought for some issues.” While the school did not immediately offer advanced degrees, “one of the things I wanted was that pastors and leaders would be able to take courses and that when the time came that we would get the degree component, all the coursework they had done would be counted toward that degree,” Eldin says. Eldin fought for them, and four years later, when CUME awarded its first master's degrees, students from his first class were among the recipients.

The idea of “contextualized urban theological education” soon became the underlying philosophy of CUME. To “contextualize” means you have to keep listening to the needs of the city, Eldin says.

“You have to be faithful to the reality that is there, and then you have to discern what the Spirit is doing, even in the immigration patterns. Right from day one we started classes in English and Spanish. Two years later, we saw the growth among the Haitians coming to Boston. I asked Marilyn Mason, who worked with EGC, if she would help me convene Haitian leaders.

"And what we did then became a principle. Here is what you do. You get one or two key leaders, have them convene others for a meeting, and when they get here I say, ‘Look, we are here to prepare leadership. But you need to push us. What do you want to do? How far do you want to go? Do you want a certificate or a degree program? We can do it, but you have to push us so I can push further up.’

"And of course with critical mass and the key leadership we had among the Haitians, one of the first ones who started to work with us was Soliny Védrine.”

Pastor Védrine was busy planting a church in Boston. He also worked as a bookkeeper to support his growing family. With a law degree and a recent theological degree from Dallas Theological Seminary, Pastor Sol began to teach Haitian pastors in Creole. Pastor Sol continues to serve the Haitian Christian community today through the Emmanuel Gospel Center.

“Later we did the same thing with the Brazilians. Ruy Costa was doing Ph.D. work at BU with me. Through him we convened the Brazilians and they began to come,” Eldin says. CUME began offering classes in Portuguese. Today, Dr. Costa works as executive director of the Episcopal City Mission in Boston.

For a while, CUME even offered courses in American Sign Language taught by Rev. Lorraine Anderson, when she served as senior pastor of the International Community Church in Allston.

CUME and the Quiet Revival

Boston’s Quiet Revival is understood as an unprecedented and sustained period of Christian growth in the city of Boston beginning in 1965 and persisting over five decades. As CUME got momentum, there was, at the same time, robust church planting in Boston, particularly among these immigrant populations.

In 1965, when the revival began, there were 318 churches in the city. Fifty years later, despite the fact that many church plants are short-lived and not a few mainline churches have closed; there are now more than 575 Christian churches within city limits, according to EGC’s research.

“My perspective is that we have to be discerning and faithful to what the Lord is doing. I believe the Lord is sovereign in the world, so movements of people to different places don’t just happen because they happen,” Eldin says.

“We have to ask, ‘What is the Lord doing by bringing all these people? What does it mean?’ We want to serve the city. We started with these four languages because they represented a strong Brazilian community, a strong Haitian community, a strong Latino community, and of course the bottom line, we want to teach in the language of those who are marginalized from society at that time, these people who are very gifted. So language, immigration, all this was tied to the revival.”

The move of God that started among the Hispanic churches and then ignited among other people groups, by and large identified with Pentecostalism. “The Quiet Revival is a move of God through Pentecostal churches, be they classical Pentecostal or independent,” Eldin says.

“Many of these churches were Spirit-open churches, and even when they were Baptist or otherwise, they were very charismatic. When I started CUME, the greatest majority of students were Pentecostal. The reason I teach theology or ethics is because I am concerned that all churches, but Pentecostal churches particularly, need solid theological training.” As an insider in the Hispanic Pentecostal movement, Dr. Villafañe has written extensively about this in The Liberating Spirit: Toward an Hispanic American Pentecostal Social Ethic.

One of the reasons the Quiet Revival has endured and prospered for almost fifty years and the churches continue to be strengthened is because CUME was there from the beginning.

EGC Director Jeff Bass says, “I think CUME is the most important Christian organization in the city, because you are backfilling theology into this movement that could have gotten weird, and it has not. There are a lot of strong churches today because there are so many hundreds of CUME graduates out there that have learned theology, and have learned Living System Ministry, the principles we teach here at the Emmanuel Gospel Center as well, such as the importance of unity among the churches, or that God is at work in the city and you have to join in with what he is already doing. We are impacting people to collaborate, to understand the living systems, to ask ‘system questions,’ not to be lone rangers, and to be on the lookout for unintended negative returns.”

CUME AND EGC

“The churches, CUME, and EGC,” Eldin says, “were part of the institutional ‘feeders’ God used to help nurture the Quiet Revival. The trio of EGC, CUME, and the emerging churches nurtured an amazing renewal in Boston over the past four decades.” He calls the relationship “triple nurture,” as there was an organic ebb and flow among the three living systems, each nurturing and being nurtured, shaping and being shaped.

Starting in the late 1960s, EGC began pouring resources into the immigrant church communities. EGC

• created pastoral networks which are still in place today

• provided state of the art street evangelism equipment used by urban churches to reach their own neighborhoods

• ran a multi-language Christian bookstore that was both a supply center and a relational networking hub for urban pastors

• offered a Christian legal clinic which worked to help pastors and church members with immigration issues, churches obtain tax exempt status, and church leaders negotiate red tape in renting or buying properties.

• Supported CUME in training indigenous pastors to fan the flames of the Quiet Revival.

Today, through applied research and issue-focused programs, EGC equips urban Christian leaders to understand complex social systems, to build fruitful relationships and take responsible action within their communities, all to see the Kingdom of God grow in Greater Boston.

EGC is helping leaders engage issues related to gender-based violence, urban youth, public health, homelessness, urban education, and refugee assimilation, to name a few. By learning to align to what God is doing in Boston, Christian leaders are creating innovative and effective approaches to what some see as intractable problems.

CUME's ONgoing Mission

CUME, now Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary-Boston, is a seminary shaped by the Quiet Revival. But as both the revival and the seminary are interconnected living systems, CUME has also shaped the revival, giving it depth and breadth.

“One of the problems with revivals anywhere,” Eldin points out, “is oftentimes you have good strong evangelism that begins to grow a church, but the growth does not come with trained leadership who are educated biblically and theologically. You can have all kinds of problems. Besides heresy, you can have recidivism, people going back to their old ways. The beautiful thing about the Quiet Revival is that, just as it begins to flourish, CUME is coming aboard.”

To that end, CUME helps students achieve Paul’s charge in 2 Timothy 2:15, “Make every effort to present yourself before God as a proven worker who does not need to be ashamed, teaching the message of truth accurately” (NET).

A further contribution of GCTS-Boston beyond theological education is that it fosters cross-denominational and cross-ethnic collaboration by providing a safe, neutral place for emerging leaders to build close relationships. The students know each other by name, grow to love each other, and find it easier to work together on common goals. They know they are not alone. They learn that they are part of a growing network of men and women who are passionate about the Church in Boston. This collaboration strengthens and empowers each individual as each one stays connected with others.

Eldin says that CUME intentionally provides space for leadership to get together. The goal is that the emerging leadership will build relationships and that out of those relationships more Kingdom fruit will grow.

Most of CUME’s classes are held in the evenings as many students work during the day, either as pastors or in some other employment or both. In the middle of the evening there is a welcome coffee break when students gather informally around snacks.

Once, Eldin says, someone in the business office challenged that idea, thinking it would be better stewardship of both time and money to teach right through. “I said, ‘Don’t you touch that! When we get to heaven, we might find that might be the most important thing we did!’”

Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary-Boston (CUME) today serves 300 students per semester, representing nearly forty denominations and twenty countries. It has had strong and capable leadership following and expanding on Eldin’s vision of Contextualized Urban Theological Education; leaders such as Dr. Efrain Agosto, Dr. Alvin Padilla and Dr. Mark G. Harden. 

CUME DISTINCTIVES

• The school’s qualified faculty members work in the same ministry context as the students.

• Courses are offered evenings and weekends to accommodate working students.

• In addition to English, various courses are offered as needed in Spanish, French, Haitian-Creole and Portuguese.

• GCTS-Boston offers master’s programs in several disciplines and Th.M.- Doctor of Ministry in Practical Theology. Nearly forty percent of the students pursue the Master of Divinity in Urban Church Ministry.

GCTS-Boston students gain the foundation and skills they need to be effective coworkers with God as he lavishly pours out his redeeming love across the city of Boston.

____________

Steve Daman is the Senior Production Advisor with the Applied Research and Consulting department at EGC.

The article was developed from a conversation with Rev. Eldin Villafañe, Ph.D., Founding Director, Center for Urban Ministerial Education (CUME), Boston Campus of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (1976–1990) and Professor of Christian Social Ethics, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and was originally published online by the Emmanuel Gospel Center in Nov. 2013. Excerpts were published in Inside EGC, Nov-Dec 2013, a newsletter of Emmanuel Gospel Center. With additional editing by the author, and by Aida Besancon Spencer, Eldin Villafañe, and John Runyon, the article was reprinted by Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in the Africanus Journal, Vol. 8, No. 1, April 2016, p. 33.

Toward a More Adequate Mission-Speak

A church-planting movement requires mutual understanding and agreement that can only come from a common and adequate language.

Grove Hall Neighborhood Study

Resources for the urban pastor and community leader published by Emmanuel Gospel Center, Boston

Emmanuel Research Review reprint
Issue No. 91 — July-August 2013

Introduced by Brian Corcoran, managing editor

Neighborhood studies reveal dynamics and principles which reflect the unique shape—culturally, geographically, and socially, for example—of a given place. By highlighting neighborhood-specific histories, heroes, and innovations, we can add story to statistics, and help complement, interrelate, and animate data in ways that better inform and inspire the development of community responses to community challenges. The Emmanuel Gospel Center has produced various neighborhood studies to this end. In recent years, we have supported the Youth Violence Systems Project by conducting research on a half dozen neighborhoods that are known to have had a history of youth violence. These studies help provide a wider framework for viewing each neighborhood as they touch on many aspects of what makes that particular neighborhood unique.

The Grove Hall Neighborhood Study, Second Edition (2013) offers both story and statistics on many facets of life in this one Boston neighborhood. Following a brief history of the immediate area, the study offers data on racial trends; facts about the current population including, for example, the breakdown of ages of the residents and how they compare with other areas; and facts about the economy, housing, and education. There are also updated, annotated directories of the neighborhood’s churches, schools, and agencies including those agencies particularly concerned with violence prevention and public safety. Fourteen tables, nine new graphs designed by Jonathan Parker, four maps, over a dozen images, and an extensive bibliography help tell the story.

In this issue of the Emmanuel Research Review, we offer excerpts from the Grove Hall study with bullet points and graphics. The complete report can be viewed or downloaded HERE as a pdf file.

Understanding the Grove Hall Neighborhood

by Rudy Mitchell, Senior Researcher, Emmanuel Gospel Center

About the Grove Hall Neighborhood Study

Continuing in its commitment to foster stronger communication, agreement, and cooperation around a community-wide response to youth violence in Boston, the Emmanuel Gospel Center (EGC) has recently released an updated research study on Boston’s Grove Hall neighborhood.

The Grove Hall Neighborhood Study, Second Edition, copyright © 2013 Emmanuel Gospel Center, was written and researched by Rudy Mitchell, senior researcher at EGC, and produced by the Youth Violence Systems Project, a partnership between EGC and the Black Ministerial Alliance of Greater Boston. A first edition was released in 2009 and titled Grove Hall Neighborhood Briefing Document. As the first edition was produced prior to the 2010 U.S. Census, much of the information was based on the 2000 Census. By returning to Grove Hall now, not only is EGC able to study the latest numbers, but changes over the past decade may indicate either new concerns or evidences of progress.

This neighborhood study is one of six Boston neighborhood studies. The others in this series are: Uphams Corner (2008), Bowdoin-Geneva (2009), South End & Lower Roxbury (2009), Greater Dudley (2010), and Morton-Norfolk (2010).

These studies were produced as part of the Youth Violence Systems Project. Two important results of the Project are a new framework for understanding youth violence and an innovative computer model. Both of these were designed in and for Boston to enable a higher quality of dialogue around understanding and evaluating the effectiveness of youth violence intervention strategies among a wide range of stakeholders, from neighborhood youth to policy makers.

Report Overview

The Grove Hall Neighborhood Study, Second Edition, presents thoughtful information on many facets of life in this Roxbury neighborhood. Following a history of the immediate area, the study offers data on racial trends; facts about the current population including, for example, the breakdown of ages of the residents and how they compare with other areas; and facts about the economy, housing, and education. There are also updated, annotated directories of the neighborhood’s churches, schools, and agencies including those agencies particularly concerned with violence prevention and public safety. Fourteen tables, nine new graphs designed by Jonathan Parker, four maps, over a dozen images, and an extensive bibliography help tell the story.

Neighborhood History

The first 200 years of settlement (1650-1850) was characterized by farms, summer estates, and orchards, including, in 1832, the estate of horticulturalist Marshall P. Wilder who used the land to experiment with many varieties of fruit trees, plants and flowers. The name “Grove Hall” is derived from the name of another estate and mansion owned by Thomas Kilby Jones, a Boston merchant who developed the property around 1800. That estate dominated the Grove Hall crossroads for a century and later served the community for many years as a health center. The growth and decline of New England’s largest Jewish community centered in this neighborhood is documented as the most important facet of the neighborhood’s history between 1906 and 1966, and the Mothers for Adequate Welfare protests and subsequent riot of 1967 were pivotal events that had an enduring and significant impact on the neighborhood. Although, in recent years, the neighborhood has faced problems and violence, its history can generally be characterized by revitalization and economic development. This 13-page history is offered because it is valuable to understand the people and groups who built Grove Hall and helped shape its current identity.

Boundaries

The center of Grove Hall is commonly understood to be the intersection of Blue Hill Avenue with Washington Street and Warren Street. For the purposes of this study, Grove Hall is defined as the neighborhood which includes the area of the five U.S. Census tracts that surround that central crossroads. These five census tracts are 820, 821, 901, 902, and 903.

What follows is a list of the major topics covered in the study, with a few bullet points highlighting some of the facts uncovered.

Racial and Ethnic Trends

• During the last decade, the number of His­panics in this area increased from 3,414 to 5,171, an increase of over 50%, representing an increase from 20% to almost 30% of the entire population.

• While the area has a Black or African American majority, the overall percentage of people in this area who are Black decreased from 73% to 64% since 2000.

Linguistic Isolation

• Linguistic isolation refers to households where no one 14 and older speaks English very well, therefore facing social and economic challenges. Households in Grove Hall are more likely to be linguistically isolated than households across the nation and households across the state. Approximately 15.2% of households in Grove Hall are linguistically isolated.

Age Characteristics

• Regarding age characteristics, the study shows that Grove Hall has a significantly higher percentage of young people than the city of Boston as a whole, as well as the state and nation. The area has 5,450 youth under the age of 18 years, who represent 30.6% of the total neighborhood population, compared with 16.8% in the city, 21.7% in the state, and 24% in the nation.

• The number of youth between the ages of 12 and 18 in Grove Hall is 2,243 or 12.6% of the population, com­pared to only 7.5% in this age group for Boston overall.

Population Trends

• After a steady decline in population from 1940 when the population was 30,307 to the year 2000 when there were 16,771 residents, the 2010 census shows an increase with a 6% climb over the past ten years to 17,823.

Family Structure

• In Grove Hall, 71.9% of families with children under 18 are headed by single females and 7.2% are led by single men. Only about 21% of Grove Hall families with children under 18 have two parents present.

• Single parent fami­lies with children under 18 in Grove Hall represent the majority of all families, 79%, compared with the national percentage of 34%, the state percentage of 32%, and the city of Boston percentage of 53%.

Economy and Poverty

• The percent of people below the poverty level in Grove Hall is much higher than the city of Boston as a whole. The average of the percentages of people in poverty in each of the five census tracts is 37% compared to the city of Boston’s rate of 21%, the state’s rate of 10.5% and the national rate of 13.8%.

• For youth and children under 18, 73.1% were under the poverty level in census tract 903 and 56.1% in census tract 902. This compares with 28.8% in the city of Boston overall and 13.2% for the state.

Public Assistance

• There is a higher percentage of households receiving public assistance in Grove Hall than in the city, the state, and the nation. Since 2000, the number and percentage of households receiving public assistance has increased in four of the five census tracts. The Grove Hall census tract with the highest percentage of households receiving public assis­tance is census tract 903 with 21.7%.

Housing

• Across the U.S., 65.1% of housing units are owner-occupied and 34.9% are renter-occupied. In Boston, 33.9% of all housing is owner-occupied, roughly half the national average. However, in Grove Hall, only 18.8% of the housing units are owner-occupied (1,274), while 81.2% are renter-occupied (5,495).

 Education and Schools

• Residents of Grove Hall have a lower level of educational attainment than the population of Boston, the state, or the nation. The percentage of people in Grove Hall with a bachelor’s degree or higher is only about 1/3 the percentage of the city or the state, and about 1/2 the national percentage.

• More than one quarter of the residents of Grove Hall have not graduated from high school, whereas statewide, only 11% are not high school graduates. In census tract 901, over 32% of the population has not graduated from high school.  

• The Burke High School had only a 43.4% four-year graduation rate, one of the lowest in the city. This falls far below the overall Boston Public School four-year graduation rate of 64.4%. The Burke High School also had a very high dropout rate of 33.7% compared to 15.1% for Boston (in 2011).

To learn more about Grove Hall, read a Harvard University report here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/content/download/68818/1248082/version/1/file/hotc_finalreport.pdf.

To view or download the complete Grove Hill Neighborhood Study, from which this article is derived, click HERE.

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Bibliography

Barnicle, Mike. “A Street Forgotten.” Boston Globe, 1 April 1987, 17.

Billson, Janet Mancini. Pathways to Manhood: Young Black Males Struggle for Identity. Expanded 2nd edition. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1996. Billson studies five young boys who grew up in Roxbury in the late 60s and early 70s.

“Blue Hill Avenue: Progress, 1993-2003.” City of Boston, Dept. of Neighborhood Development. www. cityofboston.gov/dnd/pdfs/BHA_Map_3FLAT.pdf (accessed 15 June 2009).

Boston Globe, June 2-June 6, 1967. Various articles on the Blue Hill Avenue Riots.

The Boston Plan: Revitalization of a Distressed Area: Blue Hill Avenue. Boston: City of Boston, 1987.

Boston Redevelopment Authority. The Blue Hill Avenue Corridor: A Progress Report and Guidelines for the Future. Boston: B.R.A., 1979.

Boston Redevelopment Authority. City of Boston Zip Code Area Series, Roxbury/Grove Hall, 02121, 1990 Population and Housing Tables, U.S. Census. Boston: B.R.A., 1994.

Boston Redevelopment Authority. Roxbury Strategic Master Plan. Boston: B.R.A., 2004 ( January 15). While not specifically on Grove Hall, the Master Plan is important for its overall vision and impact, which will affect Grove Hall. See www.bostonredevelopmentauthority.org.

Cooper, Kenneth J. “Blue Hill Avenue: A Dream Gathers Dust; 4 Years Later, Business, Housing and Transit Plans Haven’t Happened.” Boston Globe, 22 October 1981, 1.

Cullen, Kevin, and Tom Coakley. “A Month of Fear and Bullets.” Boston Globe, 5 November 1989, 1.

Cullis, Charles. History of the Consumptives’ Home and Other Institutions Connected with a Work of Faith. Boston: A. Williams, 1869. About the Cullis Consumptives’ Home at Grove Hall.

D.A.R. Roxbury Chapter. Glimpses of Early Roxbury. Boston: Merrymount Press, 1905.

Drake, Francis Samuel. The Town of Roxbury. Boston: Municipal Print Office, 1908.

Fields, Michael. “Blacks in a Changing America; Wrights of Roxbury: A Family Making It.” Boston Globe, 28 June 1982, 1.

“Freedom House: A Legacy Preserved,” Northeastern University Library Archives, www.lib.neu.edu/archives/freedom_house/team.htm (accessed 1 June 2009).

French, Desiree. “Revitalization Gets Serious at Grove Hall: A $7.8 Million Program Formed to Aid Rox­bury Business District.” Boston Globe, 26 March 1988, 41.

Gamm, Gerald. Urban Exodus: Why the Jews Left Boston and the Catholics Stayed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999. This book has maps showing trends and changes in Jewish and African American settlement, median rent trends, and locations of institutions.

Gordon, Edward W. Boston Landmarks Survey of Dorchester: Grove Hall, 1995. www.dorchesteratheneum.org/page.php?id=622 (accessed 18 May 2009).

“Grove Hall,” Heart of the City, Harvard University (original page missing, but see: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/content/download/68818/1248082/version/1/file/hotc_finalreport.pdf for what appears to be a similar report at the Kennedy School of Government. Search document for “Grove Hall.” Includes information on conditions, context, history, social issues, planning, processes, testi­monies, organizations and specific places.

Hayden, Robert C. Faith, Culture and Leadership: A History of the Black Church in Boston. Boston: Boston Branch NAACP, 1983.

Hentoff, Nat. Boston Boy: Growing Up With Jazz and Other Rebellious Passions. Philadelphia: Paul Dry books, 2001 (originally published 1986). Henthoff was born in the Grove Hall neighborhood in 1925, and in this memoir gives a vivid account of growing up in the Jewish community of the 1930s and 1940s.

Levine, Hillel, and Lawrence Harmon. The Death of an American Jewish Community: A Tragedy of Good Intentions, pb. edition. New York: The Free Press, 1993. While Levine and Harmon’s book gives many insights and details about life, religion, and politics in the Jewish community in the area, its analysis of the causes of its decline has been challenged and shown to be inadequate by Gerald Gamm in Urban Exodus.

Pasquale, Ron. “Grove Hall’s Renaissance; New Development Caps Hub Area’s Revival as a Commercial Mecca.” Boston Globe, 10 February 2007, E-23.

Project RIGHT, Boston Ten Point Coalition, Health Resources in Action, and the Harvard Youth Violence Prevention Center. Connecting the Disconnected: A Survey of Youth and Young Adults in Grove Hall. Boston: City of Boston, 2010. A survey and report on out-of-work and out-of-school young adults ages 16-24 in Grove Hall.

“Report of the Committee to Investigate the Welfare Dispute,” 7 July 1967. A 16-page report to Mayor Collins in the form of a letter. Available at the Boston Public Library, Government Documents Dept. This relates to the 1967 Grove Hall riots.

Roxbury Crossing Historical Trust. “A Brief History of Roxbury, MA.” www.rcht.org/roxbury_history.htm (accessed 26 May 2009). See also database.

Sammarco, Anthony Mitchell. Dorchester. Images of America Series. 2 vols. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 1995, 2000. See vol. 1, chapter 2. See also Dorchester: Then and Now.

Sammarco, Anthony Mitchell. “Grove Hall’s Clean Air Once Gave Respite to Consumptives, Dorchester Community News, 24 June 1994. A brief two-page history.

Sammarco, Anthony Mitchell. Roxbury. Images of America Series. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 1997. Chapter 5.

Sarna, Jonathan D., and Ellen Smith, eds. The Jews of Boston. Boston: The Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston/Northeastern Univ. Press, 1995.

Stegner, Wallace. “Who Persecutes Boston?” The Atlantic Monthly, July 1944, 45-52.

Tager, Jack. Boston Riots: Three Centuries of Social Violence. Boston: Northeastern Univ. Press, 2000.

Taylor, Earl. Dorchester. Postcard History Series. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2005. Ch. 8.

Watson, Jamal E. “New Mall a Mecca of Hope in Roxbury’s Grove Hall, $13 Million Project Signals Long- Awaited Turnaround.” Boston Globe, 22 December 2000, A-1.

White, Theodore H. In Search of History: A Personal Adventure. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1978. White describes his early years growing up in the Grove Hall neighborhood.

Young, Whitney M., Jr. Task Force Report on a Preliminary Exploration of Social Conditions and Needs in the Roxbury-North Dorchester General Neighborhood Renewal Plan District. Boston: Action for Boston Community Development, 1961.

Hidden Treasures: Celebrating Ministries to the Nations

Hidden Treasures: Celebrating Ministries to the Nations

A Manual for Organizing and Planning An Event in Your City

Resources for the urban pastor and community leader published by Emmanuel Gospel Center, Boston

Emmanuel Research Review reprint
Issue No. 90 — June 2013

Introduced by Brian Corcoran, Managing Editor

The vitality of the church in Boston and New England is connected to vital expressions of the church around the world through hidden relational networks and ministries. Discovering and nurturing the development of these networks, ministries, and their leaders helps nurture the growth of the church broadly and locally. Although often unnoticed or undervalued, these leaders and their ministries are specially gifted and effective in reaching unreached people groups in Boston and back in their homelands. Their proximity and presence also provides the opportunity to develop and experience a more culturally diverse expression of the church that includes people from every tongue, tribe, and nation. Because of this, these leaders are a treasure in our city and in God’s Kingdom that need to be recognized and celebrated.

With this in mind, Intercultural Ministries of the Emmanuel Gospel Center equips churches and ministries to embrace their multicultural future and helps them navigate crosscultural challenges and opportunities. They network, train, and consult with churches and organizations that want to promote effective intercultural ministry. The Hidden Treasures event in August 2012 was designed to bring awareness to effective diaspora ministries in New England; build and strengthen intercultural ministry relationships that honor God and provide greater capacity for doing collaborative Kingdom work; identify potential partners, volunteers, and interns for their respective ministries; and raise funds for the participating partners/beneficiaries.

Rev. Dr. Gregg Detwiler, Director of Intercultural Ministries, and Dr. Bianca Duemling, Assistant Director, created this manual to tell the story of the event, share what was learned, and provide a practical guide to encourage, inspire, and inform churches how to do the same.

1. Jeb Shaker (l.) with Paul Biswas (r.), 2. PoSan Ung, and 3. Torli Krua. (Rod Harris photos.)

Contents:

1. Introduction

2. Context for Hidden Treasures of the Kingdom Uncovered

3. The Hidden Treasures Event – a Pilot Project

4. Building an Intercultural Ministry Team – Reflection on Hidden Treasures’ Team Development

5. Practical Steps for Organizing a Hidden Treasures Event

6. Conclusion

1: Introduction

This Hidden Treasures Manual is a tool for churches interested in working with diaspora* leaders and connecting them to the wider body of Christ in their region. It aims to help you develop and organize an event in order to raise awareness for and celebrate what God is doing among diaspora populations in your neighborhood. Such an event provides a great opportunity for you to connect and build partnerships as well as to explore mission and outreach opportunities.

The idea for this manual emerged after the event “Hidden Treasures of the Kingdom Uncovered – Celebrating Ministries to the Nations in our New England Neighborhoods” took place on August 25, 2012, in Greater Boston. Intercultural Ministries of EGC was asked by other ministry leaders to coach them in developing a similar event in their cities.

Following this introduction in Section 1, the manual’s four main parts are these: Section 2 describes the context of the event, followed by a glimpse of our experience of the actual event in Section 3. As building a functional team is critical to Hidden Treasures, in Section 4 we use our experience of Hidden Treasures to reflect on aspects of building an intercultural ministry team. And in Section 5, we offer practical steps for people whose intent is to organize a similar event. We end with a brief conclusion in Section 6.

We hope our reflection and experience inspire and assist you and other churches and ministries to initiate similar events.

*The Greek word diaspora is found throughout the New Testament and is used to describe scattered or displaced people. We use the term to describe any first-generation people who have left their original homeland either by force or by choice. As such, it is an umbrella term referring to refugees, immigrants, and internationals. The term is increasingly being used in sociological and popular literature, for example, the African diaspora, the Asian diaspora, etc.

2: Context for Hidden Treasures of the Kingdom

The face of the United States of America is changing and diversifying. Although it is diversifying religiously, the majority of immigrants are Christians.* Through immigration and globalization, God has brought wonderful diaspora leaders/ministries to our country. These leaders have effective ministries and are passionate to reach their cities and the nations for Christ. The tremendous asset of diaspora leaders is having direct access and trust to minister to their own ethnic group, some of whom belong to “unreached” people groups. Because of a shared immigration experience, it is easier for these diaspora leaders to build relationships and trust with members of other ethnic groups than Euro-American Christians would be able to.

There is much potential in these ministries; however, many are under-resourced and isolated. Due to sociological marginalization, as well as cultural and language barriers, they find it difficult to present their ministries to other potential partners (churches, organizations and individuals). These diaspora leaders and their ministries are like “Hidden Treasures” among us. As they are such a spiritual enrichment and resource to New England as well as other regions in the U.S., Intercultural Ministries of EGC seeks to uncover these treasures and connect them to the wider body of Christ. Emerging from this desire, the idea of the 2012 Hidden Treasures event was born. Its goal was to celebrate these leaders and their ministries by being an advocate and creating space for relationship building, partnership development, and fundraising.

Our goals for this event were to:

• Bring awareness to effective diaspora ministries in New England,

• Build and strengthen intercultural ministry relationships that honor God and provide greater capacity for doing collaborative Kingdom work,

• Identify potential partners, volunteers, interns for their respective ministries, and

• Raise funds for the participating partners/beneficiaries.

*R. Stephen Warner, “Coming to America – Immigrants and the faith they bring,” Christian Century, February 10, 2004, 20.

3: The Hidden Treasures Event – a Pilot Project

On August 25, 2012, 160 guests came together at North Shore Assembly of God Church to celebrate ministries to the nations in New England.

As the focus of the evening was the diaspora leaders and their ministries, we will introduce them before we describe the development of the evening.

Young Africa/Universal Human Rights International. Rev. Torli Krua is a Christian leader who came to the U.S. as a refugee from his war-torn country of Liberia. Torli has started a small African congregation the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston and serves the wider African community in many ways, including advocating for an urban community vegetable garden for the poor to grow produce as a means of basic sustenance. Moreover, he is involved in initiatives of service and advocacy of justice for African refugees. Torli also serves as a catalyst for Christian community development in his home country of Liberia.

South Asian Ministries of New England. Pastor Paul Biswas comes from a Hindu background in Bangladesh. After becoming a Christian he was involved on many levels of national leadership in the Church in Bangladesh. Since coming to the Boston area, Pastor Paul has started several Bengali and South Asian house churches in New England to reach out to South Asian Muslims and Hindus. Moreover, Pastor Paul’s vision and passion is to equip and partner with other churches in reaching out to their South Asian neighbors.

Living Fields: Cambodian Ministries International. Pastor PoSan Ung is a survivor of the Killing Fields of Cambodia. He planted a church among the Cambodian population in Lynn, MA. He also serves as the director of Cambodian Ministries International at EGC. In this role, Pastor PoSan is serving the Cambodian Christian community across New England in leadership and ministry development. Moreover, Pastor PoSan is a valuable resource to the existing Church in New England in reaching out to Buddhist peoples. Pastor PoSan is also involved in Christian leadership development in Cambodia.      

Compassion Immigration Ministry. Marlane Codair, a certified paralegal with years of experience in serving the immigrant/refugee community in Greater Boston, founded a church-based and government-certified Compassion Immigration Ministry. She serves immigrants and refugees in the Greater Boston area with competent legal counsel to assist with immigration-related issues and practical assistance such as English classes. Marlane’s work benefits not only her local church and community, but especially it serves the wider Christian community in practical ways to serve diaspora people in our region.

Next, we will describe the flow of the Hidden Treasures event itself.

We opened our doors at 5:00 p.m. The first part of the evening was an informal time of mingling where people could visit the ministry displays. Each of the featured ministries had a ministry display, representing their work and sharing their needs and collaboration opportunities. During this arrival time, guests also had the opportunity to participate in the silent auction.* The guests could bid on a variety of items, many of which (such as scarves and purses) were handmade in the home country of the diaspora leaders. Ministry T-shirts, flags, and jewelry also were available.

Around 5:30 pm we officially welcomed everyone and opened the buffet with a prayer by a representative of the host church. The buffet was amazing as people brought traditional food from their home countries.

Around 6:15 pm we started with the main program. Rev. Dr. Gregg Detwiler (director of Intercultural Ministries) gave an introduction into the theological context of diaspora ministries. He emphasized that all throughout the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, God always used the movement of people over the face of the earth as one of the major means to express and advance His Kingdom. In fact, there is a whole theology of diaspora movement from Abraham to the Old Testament exiles to the scattered saints in Acts to John the Revelator on the Isle of Patmos.

God has always used the movement of people for the purposes of His Kingdom, a reality which can be also seen today in New England. Emmanuel Gospel Center refers to the growth of churches from different ethnic backgrounds over the last four decades as the “Quiet Revival.” We call it “quiet” because a lot of people did not know it was happening but, in fact, hundreds of churches were started during this time period.**

After this brief introduction, it was time for our “Hidden Treasures” to share about their calling and ministry. We asked each diaspora leader to bring a group of people affiliated with their ministries to perform a piece of music or dance in between the presentations. After that, a person connected to the specific ministry introduced the leader, shared what he or she appreciated about the leader, and encouraged the audience to be generous in their giving. Each of the leaders shared seven minutes about their ministries.

After all the presentations were finished, Gregg Detwiler emphasized the importance of their ministries in advancing the Kingdom of God in New England and invited people to give generously. The envelopes and response cards were distributed to each table and then collected and placed in a sealed envelope (which was taken to EGC, which was handling the finances for the evening.) The program ended with some worship songs led by a worship team from the host church.

Subsequent to the program, there was a dessert buffet with time given for the guests to visit the ministry and silent auction tables again.

In summary, it was a wonderful evening of fellowship and celebration. It was great to learn about what God is already doing among the diaspora people and give him praise for that. We raised about $6,000 in total (which was divided evenly among the four featured ministry partners), and many connections across cultural lines were made. There was much ethnic and generational diversity. Moreover, around 25 different ministries and churches and 15 different denominations were represented.

*Silent auctions are auctions held without an auctioneer. The items are placed on a table with a description and a starting bid. People place their bids on sheets of paper instead. People either can bid with their names or with numbers they receive at the registration.

**For a discussion of what is meant by the Quiet Revival, see this blog.

4: Building an Intercultural Ministry Team – Reflection on Hidden Treasures’ Team Development

In this section, we will describe the composition of our 2012 Hidden Treasures Team, as well as reflect on the process of building an intercultural ministries team that is capable of doing a project like Hidden Treasures.

We use the term “intercultural” rather than “multicultural” because we feel it better conveys the values of mutuality, interrelatedness, and interdependence.

Our 2012 Hidden Treasures core team was comprised of seven members. By nature of the project, our team was inherently diverse, comprised of:

• A 60-year old Liberian male

• A 40-year old Cambodian male

• A 55-year old white female

• A 58-year old Bangladeshi male

• A 34-year old German female

• A 52-year old white male

• A 28-year old white female.

Team members were also diverse in variety of other ways, including diversity in ministry roles and in their relationship to diaspora people.

• Three are ordained pastors, serving diaspora populations; one is ordained but not pastoring; five are leading organizations/programs they founded, all serving diaspora populations; and one is a student on a culturally diverse urban campus.

• Two came to the U.S. as refugees, one as an immigrant, one as an international Christian worker.

• Four were born in countries outside of the U.S., three in the U.S.

Next, we will explore important aspects of building a healthy intercultural ministry team, including a description of how we built our team. Bruce Tuckman’s classic “developmental sequence of small groups” is a helpful framework to describe the process. Tuckman describes five stages of developing a team: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. Forming is when a new group convenes and is oriented toward achieving a particular task. Storming is the next stage and often involves intragroup conflict and resistance to group influence and task requirements. Norming occurs when in-group openness, cohesiveness and alignment develop, as well as the adoption of new standards and roles. Performing is the stage when group alignment and energy is channeled into creativity and constructive action. Adjourning is the final stage in the life cycle of a team when, due to the completion of a task or changes within the team, the team adjourns. In this final stage the main activity is self-reflection and group reflection.

Initially, Tuckman described four stages but in a subsequent 1977 article, Tuckman added a fifth termination stage, adjourning. The diagrams in this manual only reflect the first four. And while Tuckman first described these stages in a linear static manner, he subsequent began to envision these stages in a more dynamic cyclical manner. In our view, this cyclical version seems more consistent to the way things actually work in real life group development, and can be diagrammed in the following manner.

In this version of the model, the stages are not linear and relating to a point of time but cyclical and continuous. Members of the group continually seek to maintain a balance between accomplishing tasks and building interpersonal relationships in the group. We have found this balance to be a critical point to keep in mind: the process of building healthy relationships and a healthy team is equally important to the task, especially in intercultural teams.

Recognizing the all-pervasive ingredient of cultural diversity in team development may be demonstrated by adding a cultural backdrop (pink shaded area) to the model as follows:

This slight variation of the model illustrates how cultural diversity overlays the entire process of intercultural team development with cultural influences that add complexity to each of the elements of normal team development. Keeping these cultural influences in mind is critical in developing healthy intercultural teams.

To better understand how cultural differences affect team chemistry and functioning, consider a model of cultural orientation developed by Douglas and Judy Hall, called Primary and Secondary Culture Theory. Note the differences between the two cultural orientations.

Primary Culture	Secondary Culture
1. Relational need-satisfaction	1. Economic need-satisfaction
2. Extended family systems	2. Nuclear or adaptive families
3. Oral communication	3. Written communication
4. Informal learning	4. Formal learning
5. Spiritual explanations of reality	5. Scientific, objective, cognitive explanations of reality

In culturally diverse teams it is likely that each team member will be predominantly one or the other of these cultural orientations. For most of us, this will be determined by the dominant cultural orientation in which we were raised. Simplistically speaking, most first generation diaspora people identify as primary culture people while most middle- and upper-class Western-born people identify as secondary culture people. For intercultural ministry teams operating in the U.S., it is important to have team members from both of these cultural orientations, as each bring different strengths and weaknesses. (For more, see Doug Hall, Judy Hall, and Steve Daman, The Cat and the Toaster: Living System Ministry in a Technological Age, Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010, p. 21.)

As we consider the contrasts noted in the table above, it is important to reflect on how people from each of these cultural orientations function and get their work done. Primary culture people rely more on oral communication than written communication and learn more through modeling than formal classroom settings. Secondary culture people tend to be the exact opposite. In primary culture, work gets done by relying heavily on relationships while in secondary culture work gets done by hiring people to do it. Understanding these cultural differences is part of the process of gaining the cultural competence necessary to creating healthy intercultural teams.

Note: Cultural Competence is a term that first appeared in human services literature in 1982 and has increasingly been used in fields of health care and, more recently, business. Cultural competence requires that organizations have a defined set of values and principles, and demonstrate behaviors, attitudes, policies and structures that enable them to work effectively cross-culturally. This includes having the capacity to (1) value diversity, (2) conduct self-assessment, (3) manage the dynamics of difference, (4) acquire and institutionalize cultural knowledge and (5) adapt to diversity and the cultural contexts of the communities they serve. It also means incorporating the above in all aspects of policy making, administration, practice, and service delivery, and systematically involve consumers, key stakeholders and communities. Adapted from: Terry Cross, Barbara Bazron, Karl Dennis, & Mareasa Issacs, Towards A Culturally Competent System of Care, Vol. 1 (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Child Development Center, 1989).

Having understood the cultural realities described above, it is not difficult to imagine the challenges and benefits associated with having a team comprised of people from both cultural orientations. In fact, it is precisely this reality—along with the challenges and benefits—that calls for an innovation like our Hidden Treasures project. Because we live in a rapidly changing and globalized world where primary and secondary culture people are increasingly intermingling, we must learn how to do ministry together in this new reality. And this learning must happen in multiple directions. Primary culture people must learn now to navigate in a dominant secondary culture, and secondary culture people must see and learn how to relate to primary culture people. Where these two cultures meet is a tremendous leverage point for Kingdom transformation, partnership, and growth, IF we learn how to build healthy intercultural teams and partnerships.

Tuckman’s stages of group development

Let’s now turn to describing and reflecting on the process we used in creating a functional intercultural ministry team to envision and implement our Hidden Treasures project, along with considerations for others who would like to create Hidden Treasures teams in their own communities. We will use Tuckman’s stages of group development to reflect on our process.

See Tuckman, Bruce W., 1965, “Developmental Sequence in Small Groups” Psychological Bulletin, 63, 384-399. This article was reprinted in Group Facilitation: A Research and Applications Journal – Number 3, Spring 2001.

See also Bales, R. F., 1965, “The Equilibrium Problem in Small Groups” in A. P. Hare, E. F. Borgatta and R. F. Bales (eds.) Small Groups: Studies in Social Interaction, Knopf.

Forming. As noted above, our Hidden Treasures team was diverse by design, comprised of leaders from both primary and secondary cultural systems. Intercultural Ministries (IM) of Emmanuel Gospel Center was the initiator of the project and convened a group of diverse leaders to envision, plan, and implement the project. IM selected team members from a large pool of trusted diaspora leaders we have worked with in recent years. Each of the leaders selected has a proven and effective ministry, but also is under-resourced due to social and cultural separation within the wider body of Christ.

An important consideration for other ministry organizations that might wish to conduct a Hidden Treasures event is to take the time necessary to develop trusting relationships with all of the prospective Hidden Treasures partners. We have found that storytelling is an effective entry point for building this trust. Ideally, as in the case of our event in Boston, partners should be selected from known and trusted leaders.

Storytelling involves team members sharing portions of their life and ministry journey. Storytelling gives opportunity for team members to become vulnerable with one another and is a means for building a foundation for doing ministry together. Equally important to the actual storytelling is the skill of active listening from other team members. (Read more about the renewed interest in the role of storytelling within the Church by searching articles at Christianity Today magazine here.)

Storming. Storming is a normal and necessary part of team development. In team development among culturally diverse teams, storming is inevitable. Storming may result for any number of reasons: interpersonal conflicts, vision alignment, wrestling over defining roles on the team, and cultural misunderstandings. Teams must be prepared for and expect these types of storms.

On the other hand, it is important to note that these storms need not turn into a destructive hurricane! In the case of our Boston Hidden Treasures team, many of these storms were largely avoided because our team already knew one another and had a high degree of trust. Moreover, our team was comprised of leaders with a high degree of cultural competence skills and experience. The most significant storming we had was in the area of role expectations—helping team members to find roles according to their unique strengths—but even this was minimal.

Norming. Because of the aforementioned assets, the Boston Hidden Treasures team was able to come to vision alignment early in the process. The strengths of individual team members were harnessed and employed for the project. Roles were assigned with an awareness of each team member’s strengths and weaknesses, with a good blend of both primary and secondary cultural gifts. In our event, it was easy to see the strength of primary relationships among the diaspora leaders in that they were the most effective at recruiting people from their relational networks to participate.

Performing. When the norming process is done effectively, high performance in accomplishing the mission is a joyous fruit. Such was the case with the Boston Hidden Treasure event. This is not to say there were no glitches in the performance and execution of the event. There certainly were glitches, but they were minimal, mainly to do with “time” issues in the program, such as starting a bit late and underestimating the time it would take to serve food, etc. We sought to mitigate the potential time orientation conflict that is common among primary culture people (event-orientation) and secondary cultural people (clock-orientation) by asking all of our teammates—primary and secondary—to arrive to the event early and to plan each portion of the program with time limits in the forefront of our minds.

Adjourning. Adjourning is a part of every group’s life cycle, but it is important that as a group prepares to adjourn there is a season of reflection on both the past experience and future endeavors. Evaluation and reflection should not be viewed as a nice optional activity, but rather as a core value. In the case of the Boston Hidden Treasures team, we reflected on the event, our process as a team, and future considerations. Although our team adjourned, our team members continue to work with one another in myriad ways. In this manner, the Hidden Treasures process was a catalyst for building greater networks and capacity for working together. Moreover, team members are hopeful to see Hidden Treasure events multiplied in other cities and are committed to do what we can to see that occur.

The Importance of a Safe Learning Environment

One final point we would add about building an intercultural ministry team is the importance of a safe learning environment. Every healthy team – especially healthy intercultural teams – must nurture a safe learning environment to navigate the various stages of team development, to nurture strong relationships and to perform at a high level.

In order to move beyond superficial, polite relationships and to create a basis for hard questions, a safe learning environment is essential. Such a safe environment does not just happen, but needs to be created intentionally, which is not an easy undertaking. All our practical attempts need to be accompanied by prayer and the invitation of the Holy Spirit into the process.

Some of the practices and characteristics that help to create a safe learning environment are confidentiality, being a good listener, not judging one another but considering the best in one another, and being committed to one another’s growth. Moreover, it is important to not look down on those who confess their sins, temptations, or weaknesses. Focusing on our own issues rather than on others' is as important as avoiding ‘cross-talk’, which is being too quick to give unsolicited advice to others or trying to fix the other person.

On the other hand, being in a safe environment does not necessarily mean that we feel at ease and emotionally light. Therefore, it is good to know that a safe environment is not a pain-free environment, as growth is often painful. Additionally, it is not only about ‘me’ feeling safe, but also about helping ‘others’ to feel safe. It is not a place for expressing raw emotions without considering the effect this sharing will have on others. A truly safe environment welcomes different perspectives so it does not require a uniformity of opinion.

It is easy to describe what a safe environment is and what it is not, but how can we actually create a safe environment? The following diagram describes The Process of Creating & Reproducing a Safe Environment.

The original process diagram and article about ‘Developing Safe Environments for Learning and Transformation’ can be found in the Emmanuel Research Review, Issue No. 80 — July 2012, reprinted here.

The starting point for creating a safe environment is (1) willingness. It needs a community or organization that desires to create a safe environment. The next step is (2) skilled leadership to guide and nurture a safe environment. After that, (3) a group learning process has to take place to agree on and define qualities of a safe environment. A safe environment is not created once and will be there forever. It is very fragile and requires (4) skilled leadership that will model and maintain a safe environment. Moreover, a regular (5) reality check to assess the status quo is important. A community or organization can only progress if there is the willingness to be honest about where they are in the journey. This leads to the next step, (6) the continued practice through ‘action-reflection’ learning, and finally the hope is (7) reproduction, where members of the community or organization reproduce safe environments in their spheres of influence.

Building intercultural ministry teams that have the capacity to create and produce events such as Hidden Treasures is a critical need in our changing multicultural world. Healthy intercultural teams can serve as model for fostering intercultural ministry partnerships. Following the pattern described above can serve as a guide for developing such teams.

5: Practical Steps for Organizing a Hidden Treasures Event

Every event requires a lot of details to remember in order to have a smoothly run event. Before going into details, we want to emphasis that there is not one perfect way to organize such an event. A lot of flexibility is needed, especially in the context of intercultural events. There are different cultural approaches to items such as RSVPing or coordinating the food, but experience shows that everything comes together at the end, especially if there is strong relational basis.

Team. Before thinking about logistical details, the planning team needs to be formed and a host church or organization needs to be found. The planning team ideally consists of a project coordinator and assistant who lead the planning team, convene the meetings and connect the dots; the diaspora ministries leaders (no more than three per evening, ideally from three distinct people groups) who are the primary beneficiaries of the event; and a contact person from the host church who coordinates the logistics and communication with the host church. The diaspora leaders need to be selected carefully. In the case of the Hidden Treasures in Greater Boston, we chose the diaspora leaders with whom we had had had relationships for many years and knew that they were actively looking for more partnerships in the region. Besides following existing relationships, there are many creative ways to select the partners, such as selecting leaders from a specific geographical region or by a specific people they are serving or by a particular ministry such as serving the second generation or families.

As mentioned in the previous section, building a functional intercultural team is essential even though it requires more time investment. It is important that all team members own the event and have the same vision.  Any sort of competition can be counterproductive for such an event. Besides the planning team, a team of volunteers to help during the event is also needed.

Each of the planning team members needs to take on one or more of the following areas of responsibility.

Host Church. It is critical to find a good host church that not only provides space, but also is a partner that is genuinely interested in diaspora ministry and willing to affirm leaders of different ethnic background within its own congregation. Ideally, a host church should take this project on as part of the expression of its vision, thus becoming a stakeholder and not just a provider of space.

The requirements for the host church would comprise following aspects:

• To have one or two members of the congregation to serve on the planning team.

• To raise up a diverse group of volunteers from the congregation to help in the event itself.

• To donate the space for the event.

• To help administer the logistics for the event.

• To consider giving a donation toward the fundraising aspect of the event.

• To promote the event among their folks to participate.

Depending on the relationships between the planning team and the host church, as well as its capacity, it might not be realistic that all these requirements are fulfilled.

Budget. One of the goals of the Hidden Treasures event is to raise support for the diaspora leaders and their ministry. Therefore, the expense should be kept as low as possible. For that reason we decided, for example, to have a potluck dinner.

Ideally, a sponsor can be found before the event to cover the expense of the event. The budget varies depending on the setting, the amount of in-kind donations, and how many people are expected. Our expenses added up to $425 with approximately 160 attendees including children.

There are two big areas of expense.  First was the invitation, including printing flyers, reply cards, postage, envelopes and labels. The second area is the expenses related to the event itself, such as paper plates, cups, plastic ware, tablecloths, napkins, table or room decoration, tea, coffee and cold drinks. Moreover, it includes the printing of donation response cards and envelopes.

We had several volunteers who donated their professional skills, designing the invitation flyers and taking photographs.

Fundraising Aspects. As indicated above, one of the goals of the Hidden Treasures event is to raise support for the diaspora leaders and their ministries. In order to do it well, one non-profit organization or church needs to handle the finances. In some cases, such an organization will take administrative fees for the processing and bookkeeping. These costs need to be added to the expenses.

In order to raise funds, we had different strategies. First, we asked people for matching grants and sponsorships. Second, in the invitation we encouraged people to donate even if they were not able to come. Third, after the ministry presentations, we provided donation cards (to collect contact information) and asked people to contribute right then, in any amount they chose. We accepted cash, checks (made payable to the sponsoring organization) and credit cards. Each donor put his or her donation and donation card into an envelope that we provided and then sealed the envelope. Then these sealed envelopes were collected and put into a large manila envelope that was sealed and taken to the sponsoring organization for processing and receipting. And fourth, we had the silent auction. Winners were announced at the end of the evening, and each winner put his or her payment and response card into an envelope and sealed the envelope. The sealed envelopes with auction payments were put into a large manila envelope that was sealed and taken to the sponsoring organization.

After all expenses are deducted, the funds that were raised through donations to the freewill offering were divided equally among the ministries of the diaspora leaders.

For the silent auction, each ministry received the total of the winning bids for the items that ministry contributed.

Invitation/Marketing/Distribution. The major task before the event is mobilizing people to come to the event. Everyone on the planning team needs to use their contacts and relationships and intentionally invite people to the event. In order to invite people, flyers need to be designed and printed. Although it is more expensive and time intensive, it is important to send individualized invitation letters (including a response card and return envelope) to selected individuals or churches. Additionally, the event should be advertised through social media and email invitation to general mailing lists.

It is also helpful to create a website with further information about the diaspora ministries, an online donation option, as well as directions to the venue.

Evening Coordination. The evening coordination consists of three main parts: logistics, food/kitchen, and program. Ideally one person of the planning team is the champion for one of these areas and has a group of volunteers to assist.

Logistics. The logistics comprise setting up tables and chairs as well as decoration, making sure that all materials for the evening (such as donation cards, envelopes and program hand-outs) are produced and distributed, nametags are purchased, and so on.

Food/Kitchen. In case of a potluck dinner, all participants mobilize their networks and churches to contribute to the buffet. The food/kitchen team receives the food and makes sure things are kept warm or prepared adequately. Besides coordinating the food, this team needs to make sure there are enough plates, cups, silverware and napkins. They also need to prepare the cold and hot drinks and are responsible for cleaning up.

Program. Before the evening program starts, the program leader makes sure the welcome committee is instructed (although we asked people to RSVP, we chose not to have a registration list or preprinted name tags at the entrance), the sound/music equipment is set up, and all the people involved know the flow of the program and when they perform. Ideally, the program leader is also the MC throughout the program. See section two for the program flow.

Evaluation of the Event. As mentioned in section three, the final part of a team process related to a time-restricted project is adjourning well. Evaluation is a key element in such a process. A great method to evaluate a Hidden Treasures event is using the six thinking hats developed by Edward de Bono (de Bono, Edward, Six Thinking Hats, New York, Back Bay Books 2nd edition, 1999.) It basically helps to reflect on the event from different perspectives. Each hat has a different color and aspect to look at, as listed below. You certainly can expand the questions of each hat.

White Hat: “The facts, just the facts” - What were the basic facts about the event/ministry?

Yellow Hat: “Brightness & Optimism” - What were some of the most fruitful and positive things observed in the event/ministry?

Red Hat: “Express your emotions” - What “feelings” did you experience or observe?

Black Hat: “Critical thinking; Hard Experiences” - What were some of the distracting or disappointing or least fruitful aspects of this event/ministry? Were there elements that were missing that could have been helpful? Were there any things that felt particularly unproductive or even counterproductive? Where did we miss the mark?

Green Hat: “New Ideas, new possibilities” - What new concepts or new perceptions emerged in or through this event/ministry? What implications might these new understandings have on future ministry?

Blue Hat: “Next Steps” - What do you feel might be some “next steps” we need to move this process forward in a positive growing direction?

6: Conclusion

Overall, the Hidden Treasures event on August 25, 2012, was a wonderful time of fellowship and celebration with a diverse representative of the body of Christ. The evening was a tremendous blessing for the diaspora leaders as well as the participants. The greatest challenge we faced was not being able to effectively secure representative of Euro-American churches or ministries to build partnerships between majority and minority culture.

The evening clearly reminded us how rich the body of Christ in our region is, but also the challenges of being better connected with one another and how little we use the resources God has sent to New England via all the diaspora leaders. It is challenging for diaspora leaders to gain access in the Euro-American church context due to social and economic disparities as well as the mere lack of relationships. Therefore, being an advocate, bridge-builder, and agent for reconciliation between majority and minority culture is one of the main missions of Intercultural Ministries of Emmanuel Gospel Center.

We hope that you will join us in this mission!

Perspectives on Boston Church Statistics: Is Greater Boston Really Only 2% Evangelical?

Resources for the urban pastor and community leader published by Emmanuel Gospel Center, Boston

Emmanuel Research Review reprint
Issue No. 88 — April 2013

Introduced by Brian Corcoran, Managing Editor, Emmanuel Research Review

What are the sources, accuracy, limitations, and weaknesses of some commonly used church statistics, especially with regard to their application in Boston? Wanting to encourage a more appropriate use of church statistics generally and in Boston, Rudy Mitchell, Senior Researcher at EGC, considers some of the more popular sources we encounter on the internet or in the news media, such as:

• The U. S. Religious Census and the Association of Religious Data Archives

• The Barna Research Group, and

• Gallup Polls on Religion.

Rudy offers some quick and practical advice for those who are tempted to grab-and-go with the numbers, as if they were “gospel” to their next sermon, strategic planning meeting, church planting support fundraising website, or denominational report. As convenient and convincing as statistics are, beware! They also can be easily misunderstood, misapplied, and generate misinformation.

True or false?

• “...only 2.1% of the people living in greater Boston attend evangelical churches.”

• “Tragically, only 2.5% of the 5.8 million people in greater Boston attend an evangelical church.”

• “Boston is...97.5% non-evangelical.”

• “There are fewer than 12 Biblical, Gospel Centered, Soul-Winning Churches” among the “7.6 million people” in Greater Boston.

The twitter-speed circulation of misinformation about Greater Boston being only 2% evangelical contributes to an inaccurate portrayal of what God has been doing in Greater Boston for decades by failing to recognize the ministry of many existing evangelical churches. Furthermore, it misdirects the development of new ministries and leaders emerging and arriving in Boston each month.

The good news is that the local church research conducted by the Emmanuel Gospel Center in Boston over the last 40 years has identified a larger, more vital, and more ethnically diverse Church than suggested by recent and broader church research projects. With the benefit of a comprehensive database and directory of the churches in Boston, developed over decades, EGC has the opportunity to compare and contrast our street-by-street Boston results with broader, less dense, bird’s-eye-view national research. With all this info in hand, we can illustrate how Boston’s evangelical churches have been significantly underreported in national surveys and suggest that they might also be underreported in some other major U.S. cities. Go ye therefore and research your city.

Furthermore, given the longevity of our research, we have been able to identify what we call Boston’s “Quiet Revival,” which is characterized by growth in the number of churches and church attendees, increased collaborative ministry, and multiple interrelated prayer movements in Boston since 1965. Currently there are approximately 700 Christian churches in the three cities of Boston, Brookline and Cambridge in the heart of Metro Boston, and these churches include folks from many tongues, tribes, and nations.

God is and has been doing more in Boston than most national survey techniques can identify.

Perspectives on Boston Church Statistics: Is Greater Boston Really Only 2% Evangelical?

by Rudy Mitchell, Senior Researcher, Emmanuel Gospel Center
Infographics by Jonathan Parker

What about the U. S. Religious Census and the Association of Religious Data Archives (ARDA)?

The 2010 U.S. Religious Census was collected by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB) and also presented by the Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA). The 2010 U.S. Religious Census provides data by county and by metropolitan area. The method used by this census is basically to compile the numbers of churches and adherents, denomination by denomination. The Boston city data is a part of Suffolk County, which also includes the cities of Chelsea, Winthrop and Revere.

Through our research at Emmanuel Gospel Center, we have identified over 500 Christian churches within the city limits of Boston. The other three cities in Suffolk County have at least an additional 54 churches. Therefore, through first-hand research, we have counted at least 554 Christian churches in Suffolk County. The U.S. Religious Census counted only 377 Christian churches.¹ Thus their count misses at least 177 churches. Because many new churches have been planted since our last count in 2010, we estimate that the U.S. Religious Census may have missed as many as 200 to 240 churches. In urban areas, the U.S. Religious Census / ARDA statistics are especially inaccurate because few African American, Hispanic, and other immigrant churches are counted, since many do not appear in the denomination lists used by the census. Other independent churches, some of which are very large, are often missed as well.

While the U.S. Religious Census perhaps needed to make some simple classifications of churches for the national compilations, these classifications are oversimplified and often misleading, especially at the local level.   In urban areas there are many evangelical churches within denominations classified as “Mainline.”  For example, in the city of Boston, the vast majority of American Baptist Churches (classified as Mainline) are evangelical.  Other so-called “Mainline” denominations have some evangelical churches in Boston as well.  Therefore, if one compiles the number of evangelical churches and adherents only from the list of churches classified as “Evangelical” by the U.S. Religious Census, one will end up with serious errors.

In addition, while the term “evangelical” is not typically used by African American churches, a majority of those churches would be considered “evangelical” in light of their beliefs and practices. This is also true of most Protestant Spanish-speaking and Haitian churches. In Suffolk County our research has identified at least 120 Spanish-speaking churches, and the vast majority of these are evangelical. Therefore, counts of evangelical churches and adherents must include these and additional immigrant evangelical church groups, if they are to be accurate.

Likewise, in urban areas like the city of Boston, most Black Protestant churches are missed by the U.S. Religious Census. The commentary notes that this is the case. Although the census attempted to include the eight largest historically African American denominations, it fell far short of gathering accurate numbers for even these denominations. “Based on the reported membership sizes included in the address lists, less than 50% of any group’s churches or members were able to be identified… For the African Methodist Episcopal Church, they found approximately the correct number of congregations, though the membership figures are only about one-third of their official reports. For other groups, the church counts range from 11% to 50% of reported numbers, and membership figures are from 7% to 28% of the reported amounts.”² In the case of Boston, one can see just how far off these numbers are. The Boston Church Directory research identifies 144 primarily African American churches, 19 Caribbean/West Indian churches, 9 African churches, and 34 Haitian churches in the city of Boston for a total of 206 Black churches. In contrast, the U.S. Religious Census identifies only 23 Black Protestant churches in all of Suffolk County. Thus the Census identifies (as Black Protestant) less than 11% of the Black churches that exist in the city. Given the size and importance of Black churches in urban areas, the U.S. Religious Census is completely inadequate in assessing religious participation in cities. Many of these churches belong to small denominations or are independent. While some Black churches are counted as part of evangelical and mainline denominations, they are not identified as Black churches.

At a time when hundreds of new evangelical churches have been planted in Boston and the greater Boston area, a number of church planters and media sources continue to lament the “cold, dark, sad and tragic” state of the Boston spiritual climate. While there is still a need for increased growth and vitality of many current churches, and a need for new church plants, these reports often give a one-sided and overly pessimistic view of the state of the Christian church in Boston.  It is common to hear that only 2.1 or 2.5% of greater Boston residents are evangelicals. This number is passed on from source to source without question, often morphing and attaching itself to various subgroups of the population. This percentage underestimates and diminishes the work of God which is going on in greater Boston.

One can easily glean a sad harvest of bad news about Boston on the internet. For example, a web-posted Boston church planting prospectus says, “What most people do not consider is the spiritual brokenness that fractures the city. They fail to realize that the spiritual climate is incalculably colder than the lowest lows of a Boston winter…most remain blind to the spiritual darkness that pervades the city. Tragically, only 2.5% of the 5.8 million people in greater Boston attend an evangelical church. Not surprisingly, there are very few healthy evangelical churches…”  Another church planter said, “According to one very thorough study, only 2.1% of the people living in greater Boston attend evangelical churches.” One church planter recalled God’s call, “God said, “I’m going to give you somewhere.’ I had no idea he was going to give me one of the hardest cities in the United States to go plant a church in…Boston is very intimidating. It’s 97.5% non-evangelical. For those non-math people, that’s 2.5 percent evangelical Christian. I didn’t even know there was a city like that before I started studying it.” While it may be more difficult to plant a new church in urban Boston than in suburban Texas or North Carolina, hundreds of successful churches have been planted in greater Boston in the last few decades.

In the city of Boston and surrounding towns, God has raised up new churches among many different groups of people. For example, in the city of Boston alone, more than 100 Spanish language churches have been planted. Many of these are not counted in typical “thorough” studies because they are either independent or do not belong to the denominations counted in these studies. In greater Boston there are even more Spanish speaking churches than in the city itself. Likewise the research often referenced does not count most of the Brazilian churches in greater Boston. The majority of the 420 Brazilian churches in eastern New England are located in Greater Boston. As many as 180 of these churches are nondenominational or directly affiliated with their denominations in Brazil, and therefore not counted in the ARDA data.³ Scores of African American, Haitian, African, Korean, Indonesian, and Chinese churches have also been planted in this area as well. Most, if not all of these immigrant churches would be considered evangelical. While some of these are small, quite a number of the churches have hundreds of active participants. Although one church planter claimed there was only one successful Anglo church plant, a little more research would have revealed that God has been growing many new and successful churches among this group, especially reaching Boston’s young adult population.

The source for some of the above statistics on greater Boston is based on the Association of Religion Data Archives information from 2000 which was also analyzed by the Church Planting Center at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.⁴ The Center’s report and PowerPoint presentation state that greater Boston is 2.5% evangelical.⁵ Since the ARDA data fails to include most of the Black Protestant, Hispanic, Haitian, Brazilian, and Asian churches under its evangelical category, it clearly underestimates the evangelical percentage. Even the slightly improved 2010 ARDA data only identifies 7,439 Black Protestants in Greater Boston.⁶ Just one black church (Jubilee Christian Church) of the city of Boston’s more than 200 black churches has about that number of members. In Greater Boston, there are many more black churches not counted in this study. If the city of Boston has about 100 largely uncounted evangelical Spanish-speaking churches, then Greater Boston (which includes Lawrence, Mass.) has at least double that number. This study also does not account for the many evangelical churches which in urban areas are affiliated with denominations classified by ARDA as “Mainline.” For example, more than 60 American Baptist churches in Greater Boston could be classified as evangelical rather than mainline. Numbers and percentages based on the ARDA data, therefore, fail to identify hundreds of evangelical churches in Greater Boston, and some of these are among the area’s largest churches.

What about the Barna Research Group?

The Barna Research Group has produced many reports on the beliefs and practices of Americans using phone surveys.  By drawing on 42,000 interviews completed over the last five to ten years, they have compiled statistics which they have sliced up into 96 cities ("urban media markets”). The most recent of these Barna Reports are called Cities 2013.  Barna also has produced parallel reports on 48 states.

The Cities 2013 report for the Boston area might give the impression to many people that it gives data primarily on the city of Boston or the city and its immediate suburbs. It is important to realize that this report covers an area extending from Nantucket to Laconia, New Hampshire, and eastern Vermont, as well as Worcester County, Massachusetts. The adult population of this media market area (DMA) in 2010 was 4,946,945 while the city of Boston’s adult population was 513,884 or only 10.4% of the total area.⁷ The total population of Barna’s “Boston” area was 6,322,433 compared to the total Boston city population of 617,594 (9.8% of the area). When using statistics from the Barna Cities 2013 report, one must keep in mind that the city of Boston is only a small part (~10%) of the area covered.

The Boston Cities 2013 Report is based on 429 interviews according to the Barna Research Group. Since the city of Boston represents 10.4% of the area’s adult population, one can estimate that about 45 interviews were done in Boston. Given the diversity of languages, racial groups, and nationalities in the city with its population of over a half-million adults, it is hard to imagine that this sample was large enough and representative enough to give a true picture of religious faith and practice in Boston. In addition, “while some interviews were conducted in Spanish, most were conducted in English. No interviewing was done in languages other than Spanish and English.”⁸ In fact, the Barna website says, “the vast majority of the interviews were completed in English.”⁹ Since the city of Boston has over 100,000 (17.5%) Hispanics¹⁰ with more than 100 churches, it is quite likely this group is underrepresented. This is just one of over 30 language groups which have churches in Boston. In the larger Barna study area (Boston DMA), there are 522,867 Hispanics and 344,157 Asians.¹¹ The area also includes a very large Brazilian population with over 400 Brazilian churches and the fourth largest population of Haitian Americans with dozens of thriving Haitian churches. Because these language groups were significantly less likely to be included in the interviews, and because many of these groups are among the most active in Christian faith and practice, the Boston area report underestimates Christian beliefs and involvement in the area and especially if one equates its conclusions with the city of Boston.

Table of total populations of the City of Boston and the DMA media market area. (The Boston DMA area is the one used by the Barna Research group.)

What about the Gallup Polls on religion?

The Gallup organization interviews large numbers of adults every year on a variety of topics including religion. Recent reports have not only examined national trends, but have also analyzed how religious the various states and metropolitan areas are. During 2012, Gallup completed more than 348,000 telephone interviews with American adults aged 18 years and over.¹² The Gallup organization uses what it calls the Gallup Religiousness Index when it states that one state or city is more religious than another. Specifically it is comparing the percentage of adults in the various states or cities who are classified as “very religious.” Two questions are used in the Gallup Religiousness Index:

(1) “Is religion an important part of your daily life? – yes, no, don’t know, refused”
(2) “How often do you attend church, synagogue or mosque? – at least once a week, almost every week, about once a month, seldom, never, don’t know, refused.”¹³

For someone to be classified as “very religious,” he or she would need to answer, “Yes, religion is an important part of my daily life,” and “I attend church, synagogue, or mosque at least once a week or almost every week.”

Nationally, 40% of American adults were found to be “very religious” on the basis of this standard. Significantly more Protestants (51%) were “very religious” than Catholics (43%).¹⁴ Religiousness generally increases with age, and so young adults are less religious than seniors.

The Gallup surveys have found that the New England states, including Massachusetts, have lower percentages of adults who are “very religious.” In fact, (1) Vermont (19%), (2) New Hampshire (23%), (3) Maine (24%), (4) Massachusetts (27%), and (5) Rhode Island (29%) are the five least religious states according to this measure.¹⁵ Several New England metropolitan areas also ranked low on the religiousness scale (Burlington, VT; Manchester-Nashua, NH; Portland, Maine). The Boston-Cambridge-Quincy metropolitan area ranked eighth least religious, with 25% of its metro area adults classified as “very religious.”¹⁶ Although many new churches have started in Boston and there is significant spiritual vitality in the city, two factors probably contribute to the low ranking. Boston has the largest percentage of young adults aged 20 to 34 years old of any major city in the country. This age group has lower percentages of “very religious” people than the older age groups. Also, Boston has a high percentage of Catholics (46.4%), and Catholics have a significantly lower percentage of “very religious” adherents.¹⁷ This factor also plays a role in the Massachusetts state ranking, since Massachusetts is now “the most heavily Catholic state in the union” (44.9%).¹⁸ One must keep in mind that the Gallup Religiousness Index is just one way of measuring how religious a person is, and it is based on self-reporting. The question about the importance of religion in one’s daily life can have many different meanings to different people. Other research has shown that the frequency of church attendance “does not predict or drive spiritual growth” for all groups of people.¹⁹

Some Quick Advice for  Boston Church Statistic Users

From these examples, you can see that it is important to evaluate critically the religious statistics you read in the media. In some cases these statistics may be incomplete, inaccurate, or have large margins of error. In looking at the data for a city, you also need to understand the geographic area the report is studying. This could range from the named city’s official city limits, to its county, metropolitan statistical area, or even to a media area covering several surrounding states. In reading religious statistics and comparisons, you also need to carefully understand definitions and categories that the research uses. A study may categorize and count Black churches or Evangelical churches in ways that fail to count many of those churches. When a survey says one state is more religious than another, you need to understand how the study defines “religious.” Using religious research statistics without careful evaluation and study can lead to misinterpretation and spreading misinformation.

_______________

¹ To accurately compare numbers, we compare only Christian churches from both our count and the U.S. Religious Census (which also included other religious groups such as Buddhists, etc.).

² “Appendix C / African American Church Bodies,” 2010 U. S. Religion Census: Religious Congregations & Membership Study, 675, www.USReligionCensus.org (accessed 28 March 2013).

³ Cairo Marques and Josimar Salum, “The Church among Brazilians in New England,” in New England’s Book of Acts, edited by Rudy Mitchell and Brian Corcoran (Boston: Emmanuel Gospel Center, 2007), II:15. See link here.

⁴ J. D. Payne, Renee Emerson, and Matthew Pierce, “From 35,000 to 15,000 Feet: Evangelicals in the United States and Canada,” Church Planting Center, Southern Baptist Theological Center, 2010.

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ Association of Religion Data Archives, “Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA, NH Metropolitan Statistical Area: Religious Traditions 2010,” www.thearda.com (accessed 5 May 2013).

⁷ U.S. Census 2010, Summary File 1, Table DP1 (Population 18 and over). The Barna interviews were only with adults.

⁸ Pam Jacob, “Barna Research Group,” Email. 2 April 2013.

⁹ Barna Research Group, “Survey Methodology: The Research Behind Cities,” Barna: Cities. Barna Cities & States Reports (accessed 8 April 2013).

¹⁰ U.S. Census 2010, Summary File 1, Table DP1.

¹¹ U. S. Census 2010, Summary File 1, Table DP1.

¹²Frank Newport, “Mississippi Maintains Hold as Most Religious U.S. State,” Gallup, 13 Feb. 2013 www.gallup.com (accessed 24 April 2013).

¹³ Ibid.

¹⁴ Ibid.

¹⁵ Ibid.

¹⁶ Ibid.

¹⁷ Catholic Hierarchy website, Boston Archdiocese, 2006, www.catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/dbost (accessed 24 April 2013).

¹⁸ “Massachusetts Now Most Catholic State,” Pilot Catholic News, 11 May 2012, www.PilotCatholicNews.com (accessed 24 April 2012)

¹⁹ Greg L. Hawkins and Cally Parkinson, Move: What 1,000 Churches Reveal About Spiritual Growth (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2011), 18-19.

Christian Engagement with Muslims in the United States

Resources for the urban pastor and community leader published by Emmanuel Gospel Center, Boston

Emmanuel Research Review reprint
Issue No. 87 — March 2013

Introduced by Brian Corcoran, Managing Editor, Emmanuel Research Review

Rev. Dr. Gregg Detwiler, Director of Intercultural Ministries at the Emmanuel Gospel Center, serves as host of a video conversation on the topic of Christian Engagement with Muslims in the U.S., which he hopes “will encourage many to reach out to our Muslim neighbors.” The conversation took place on February 22, 2013, and the panel was comprised of:

• Dave Kimball, Minister-at-Large for Christian–Muslim Relations at EGC;

• Nathan Elmore, Program Coordinator & Consultant for Christian-Muslim Relations, Peace Catalyst International; and

• Paul Biswas, Pastor, International Community Church – Boston.

In the first half of the conversation, panelists address “Positive Christian Interactions with Muslims,” which include questions regarding motivation, personal experience, peace-making, and transparency. In the second half, panelists address “Objections and Challenges to Christian Engagement with Muslims,” where they touch on militant Islam, “normative” Islam, “Chrislamism,” interfaith dialogue, and how a local church congregation might respond to a nearby mosque.

We have provided a link and brief description of each of the ten videos, which were produced by Brandt Gillespie of PrayTV and Covenant for New England in a studio located at Congregación León de Judá in Boston. At the end of this issue, we have included a short list of resources suggested by the Intercultural Ministries team of EGC.

Positive Christian Interactions with Muslims

Part One: What is your motivation for working toward positive Christian – Muslim relations?

Dr. Gregg Detwiler, Director of Intercultural Ministries at EGC, introduces the subject of Christian-Muslim relations. He introduces his guests: Dave Kimball, Minister-at-Large for Christian-Muslim Relations at Emmanuel Gospel Center; Nathan Elmore, Program Coordinator & Consultant for Christian-Muslim Relations, Peace Catalyst International; and Paul Biswas, Pastor, International Community Church – Boston.

Gregg asks his guests what their motivation is for working toward positive Christian-Muslim relations.

Part Two: What are some positive ways you are personally relating to Muslims?

Gregg asks for some positive ways the panelists are personally relating with Muslims and the Muslim community. Nathan describes a “holy texts study” and other initiatives in his role as a minister at Virginia Commonwealth University. Dave talks about his love for Arab culture and his lifestyle of relating to Muslims on a daily basis.

Part Three: What are some other examples of positive Christian engagement with Muslims?

Paul describes ways he is personally relating to Muslims by building friendships, practicing hospitality, and hosting interfaith dialogues. Gregg tells the story of how a Muslim friend named Majdi cared for him when he was sick and challenges Christians to get to know Muslims on a deeper level. Dave shares a dream he has about seeing Christians and Muslims serving together, and Nathan describes some of the recent initiatives of Peace Catalyst International, including “Communities of Reconciliation” and the Evangelicals for Peace Conference held in Washington, D.C. (See http://www.peace-catalyst.net.)

Part Four: Do peacemaking Christians compromise the truth of the Gospel?

In this segment, Gregg presses his guests on the issue of Christian peacemaking by asking if this approach waters down a commitment to the truth of the Gospel. Nathan points out that the Great Commission and the Great Commandment cannot be separated but must go hand-in-hand. Nathan also suggests that not only must we be committed to the message of Jesus but also the “motives and manners” of Jesus. Dave admonishes us to be forthright in sharing the Gospel as part of our authentic Christian witness. Gregg points out the biblical mandate is to live out the doctrine of the incarnation in the way we relate to Muslims before we seek to have a theological conversation about the incarnation.

Part Five: Christian Transparency: What would you say to a Muslim who might be watching this video?

The panelists emphasize the importance of being transparent about our identity as followers of Jesus. Paul speaks of being upfront about who we are (followers of Jesus) and what we want to do (to bear witness to him). Dave speaks about how there are individuals on both sides that may seek to broadly demonize the other side, and we are seeking to counter this. The segment ends by asking each of the panel members to share a word with any Muslim friends who might be watching the video.

Objections & Challenges to Christian Engagement with Muslims

Part One: What about militant Islam?

Gregg frames the subject of challenges to Christian engagement with Muslims in the U.S. by referring to a continuum of response from hostility to naivety. Panel members respond to question: What about militant Islam? Nathan reminds us that militant religiosity is not the sole property of Islam, nor is it as universal among Muslims as some Christians seek to paint it. Dave warns us about the dangers of stereotyping others and the importance of not being paralyzed by fear and hostility. Paul shares his perspective about militant Islam from a South Asian perspective.

Part Two: What is normative Islam?

Gregg asks his guests to respond to the question: What is normative Islam? Dave responds to the question with a question: What is normative Christianity? Paul points out that just as many Christians misunderstand Islam, many Muslims misunderstand Christianity. Nathan reminds us that Muslims themselves should answer the question of normative Islam rather than Christians.

Part Three: Are you in danger of becoming a “Chrislamist”?

Gregg explores with panel members the possibility of compromising Christian truth in the process of promoting interfaith relationships with Muslims. Various subjects are explored, such as “the Common Word” initiative and the threat of being labeled as “Chrislamists.” Gregg concludes by pointing to Jesus as our model when he came “full of grace and truth.”

Part Four: What is the value and limitations of interfaith dialogue?

Gregg explores with panel members the question: What is the value and limitation of interfaith dialogue? Paul underscores how dialogue is the only way to overcome misunderstandings on both sides. Nathan describes how dialogue can be a form of hospitality and lead to authentic friendship. Dave emphasizes the need for discipline and commitment in the dialogue process and that interfaith dialogue (also known as “meetings for better understanding”) can open doors and create space for God to work.

Part Five: What steps could be taken by a church that is in close proximity to a mosque?

Finally, the panel explores the question of how a local church might respond to a mosque that is in close proximity. Dave counsels that a good starting point is for a church to get some good training. Nathan discusses the posture of the church by admonishing with the truism: “One cannot fear what one has chosen to love.” Gregg tells a story of dropping by a local mosque to meet the Imam and some surprising lessons learned in the process. Paul advises that churches should not view a mosque as a threat but as an opportunity for Christian witness.

Resources

The following resources have been suggested by the Intercultural Ministries department of EGC.

Bell, Stephen & Colin Chapman editors. Between Naivety and Hostility: Uncovering the best Christian responses to Islam in Britain. Crownhill, Milton Keyes: Authentic Media, 2011.

Goddard, Hugh. Christians and Muslims: From Double Standards to Mutual Understanding. London: Routledge Curzon, 2003.

McDowell, Bruce A., and Anees Zaka. Muslims and Christians at the Table: Promoting Biblical Understanding among North American Muslims. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Pub., 1999.

Metzger, Paul Louis. Connecting Christ: How to Discuss Jesus in a World of Diverse Paths. Nashville: T. Nelson, 2012.

Nichols, Laurie Fortunak., and Gary R. Corwin. Envisioning Effective Ministry: Evangelism in a Muslim Context. Wheaton, IL.: Evangelism and Missions Information Service, 2010.

Peace Catalyst International www.peace-catalyst.net

Tennent, Timothy C. Christianity at the Religious Roundtable: Evangelicalism in Conversation with Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002.

Volf, Miroslav. Allah: A Christian Response. New York: HarperOne, 2011.

The Boston Education Collaborative's Partnership with Boston Public Schools

Resources for the urban pastor and community leader published by Emmanuel Gospel Center, Boston

Emmanuel Research Review reprint
Issue No. 84 — November 2012

Introduced by Brian Corcoran, Managing Editor, Emmanuel Research Review

This issue takes a look at the history and recent collaboration between the Emmanuel Gospel Center’s Boston Education Collaborative (BEC) and the Boston Public Schools Faith-Based Partnerships. An increasing number of congregations and faith-based organizations are thinking about how they can assist public schools and various aspects of educational justice, and the BEC's story provides a model which can inform the church broadly when navigating the complexity of collaboration between private, faith-based organizations and an urban, public school system.

This issue also features an article by Lydia Johnson Reynolds on the partnership with the Boston Public Schools’ “Circle of Promise” initiative and the BEC's “Reflection and Learning Sessions” that provide tools, encouragement, networking, and support for people from churches and nonprofits working with students. We’ve also included a video interview with Ruth Wong, Director of the Boston Education Collaborative, and a link to download the BEC’s Guidebook for Boston Public Schools Faith-Based Partnerships.

The Boston Education Collaborative, a program of the Emmanuel Gospel Center, works with churches, schools, and nonprofits to empower underserved urban students with the education they need for transformation—in their lives and in their communities.

Building upon educational research and needs assessments, the BEC supports urban churches and organizations in strengthening their existing programs, starting new initiatives, evaluating the short- and long-term impact of their programs, coordinating learning groups, and organizing trainings. Churches and Christian organizations have been instrumental in having a positive impact in the lives of urban students and their families. However, these churches and organizations often face the challenges of:

• working in isolation from other Christian organizations;

• lacking the capacity to fully support their staff with professional development;

• lacking the know-how or connections to access resources;

• and funding instability and frequent staff turnover.

To be effective, these churches and Christian organizations need:

• a current understanding of urban education and the ways they can engage in the process of empowering urban students through education;

• support around resources, curriculum, and training;

• mental and physical space to evaluate and reflect on their programs;

• and opportunities to network with other churches and Christian nonprofits that also have educational programs.

Now in its 13th year (writing in 2012), the BEC has worked through various means towards its central mission of “working with churches, schools, and nonprofits to empower underserved urban students with the education they need for transformation—in their lives and in their communities.” Some of this experience has been featured in past Emmanuel Research Review issues and other publications.

In the August 2005 issue of the Emmanuel Research Review, “The Role of Churches in Mapping Out a Road to Higher Education,” Rudy Mitchell, Senior Researcher at EGC pointed out that “Churches and Christian ministries can play a significant role advising, motivating, and equipping young people to obtain a college education,” and he shared a case study by Edward R. Davis and Amy L. Sherman on church-based Higher Education Resource Centers (HERC) entitled, College Prep Ministry in Boston: León de Judá, which the BEC helped launch.

In the September-October 2010 issue of Inside EGC, in an article called “The Boston Education Collaborative: Helping Urban Churches Motivate & Support Underserved Students,” Steve Daman, senior writer at EGC, wrote about the beginning of the BEC’s “Reflection and Learning Sessions” which are built “upon research and needs assessment studies at EGC… to support urban churches and organizations in strengthening their existing education programs, starting new initiatives, and evaluating the short and long-term impact of their programs” through “coordinating learning groups, and organizing peer trainings for Christians involved in education.”

In the April 2011 issue of the Emmanuel Research Review, “The Boston Education Collaborative Church Survey Report,” by Laura Neal and Ruth Wong, provides a preliminary investigation and overview of how Boston-area churches are currently engaged in education, what areas of programming they are interested in further developing, and what resources are needed for them to become more involved in education. Even with some of the world’s most famous learning institutions in our backyard, Boston-area churches continue to assist and complement local public and private educational systems by providing a diverse spectrum of programs that reach beyond spiritual formation.

An Interview with Ruth Wong, BEC Director and Coordinator of Boston Public School Circle of Promise

In this interview, Ruth Wong talks about how she became involved in the BEC, the BPS Circle of Promise, and how their collaborative partnership is impacting students, teachers, and local schools. As an increasing number of congregations and faith-based organizations are thinking about how they can assist public schools and various aspects of educational justice, the BEC’s story provides a model which can inform the church broadly when navigating the complexity in collaboration between private, faith-based organizations and an urban, public school system. As Ruth points out, The Office of Community Engagement and Circle of Promise has an online survey for (Boston) Faith-Based Institution’s Resource Assessment: www.svy.mk/faithpartner

(See also Boston Public Schools’ blog “All About BPS”  entry for Friday, December 7, 2012, titled “Ruth has Faith” http://www.allaboutbps.blogspot.com/2012/12/ruth-has-faith.html)

Guidebook for the Boston Public Schools Faith-Based Partnerships

The Guidebook for the Boston Public Schools Faith-Based Partnerships is a brief guide and resource for schools and faith-based institutions alike. It relies on the BPS’s Office of Community Engagement and Circle of Promise (CECoP’s) cumulative learning from interviews with leaders of partnering institutions, literature reviews of cases, articles, and publications local and abroad, and practical experiences in initiating and supporting such partnerships. Contact Ruth Wong (link below) for a free downloadable copy.

The Boston Education Collaborative's Partnership with Boston Public Schools

Exciting New Partnership for the BEC and Boston Public Schools

by Lydia Johnson Reynolds

When Boston’s Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Boston Public Schools (BPS) Superintendent Carol R. Johnson launched a new initiative called the Circle of Promise in January of 2010, BPS appointed Brian Barnes, a former BPS teacher and administrator as the coordinator for the program. Brian’s main initial emphasis was to support existing partnerships and create new partnerships within the Circle's geographic area, which includes 47 schools.

In the process of reaching out to principals and leaders of many faith-based institutions in Greater Boston, Brian contacted EGC because he knew about the Boston Church Directory, a publication and online resource of EGC, which he thought would be a helpful resource in finding potential community partners. Erik Nordbye, ministry associate in field research in our Applied Research department at that time, not only helped him with the directory information but also passed along his information to Ruth Wong, director of EGC’s Boston Education Collaborative (BEC), whose mission aligns well with the Circle of Promise goals.

Ruth contacted Brian and subsequently became a part of his advisory committee, working along with him and others toward some of the key early efforts of the Circle of Promise. EGC’s network and Brian’s own network complemented one another well, and Brian and Ruth had a natural sense of shared purpose in bringing together faith-based and school partners. Ruth was particularly excited for this partnership because the BPS Office of Community Engagement and Circle of Promise (CECoP) was extending an invitation to the entire community to support schools and families.

In May of 2011, CECoP, along with faith and community partners, hosted a kickoff event (left image) attended by Superintendent Johnson and about 200 people, including more than 20 school leaders and about 50 faith-based organizations. From surveys at this event and its follow-up, CECoP began to focus on efforts to meet these two main identified needs: matching the resources of the community organizations with needs within the schools (and vice versa) and technical assistance in setting up and evaluating partnerships.

Throughout the following school year they continued to survey people engaged in existing partnerships and gathered again in March of 2012 to talk further about sustainable partnerships. Of course these partnerships look really different from school to school, but those engaged in them were able to learn from each other’s experiences. They invited one of EGC’s nearest neighbor—St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church—to share about how their partnership endured through multiple leadership changes at the Blackstone Elementary School. In addition to the March workshop, Brian and Ruth presented about the Circle of Promise at a BPS-wide conference, and the CECoP even hosted the US. Department of Education and President Obama’s Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships for a visit to see the work that has been done so far.

As Brian prepared to start a doctorate program this school year, he recommended Ruth to replace him in his BPS position due to her substantial contributions to the project. Brian also valued EGC’s substantial reputation in the community, commenting that “EGC historically has been in the business of supporting youth in this city, so the work [of the Circle of Promise] is validated even more by its involvement.”

Ruth was appointed Coordinator for the 2012-2013 school year and will continue in her role as the Director of the BEC. Ruth sees her BPS role as a critical stabilizing factor for supporting partnerships through turnover within either the schools or the community organizations, and is excited to continue engaging new partners both within the Circle and throughout Boston. “These two positions fit together in a way that allows Ruth to readily pursue both, and we're excited for the opportunity for strategic partnership with the BPS,” says Jeff Bass, EGC Executive Director.

EGC is excited for this opportunity for extensive partnership with BPS with the alignment of the BEC’s work and that of BPS’s Office of Community Engagement and Circle of Promise through Ruth’s engagement in both. It’s always interesting to see how the various phases of ministry unfold over the years! Here is another element to add to the ongoing narrative of the BEC timeline.

Since its founding, the BEC has helped make an impact on church-based programs in Greater Boston that help urban residents reach educational goals.

• 1999: helped launch church-based Higher Education Resource Centers. Three continue to serve college-bound, urban students in the South End, Dorchester, and Worcester.

• 2003: created the New City Scholars Program through a partnership with Gordon College. This successful program, which is now called the Clarendon Scholars Program, is run by Gordon, and is in its 7th year.

• 2007: helped Greater Boston Vineyard start an ongoing, two-year, college readiness program.

• 2009 and 2010: developed learning relationships with leaders from over 50 churches and ministries to understand how they are already serving their students and to assess the needs for further support.

• 2009-2011: convened and supported a growing network of Christian leaders for reflection, learning, prayer, peer support, and coordinated action. Over 40 individuals representing more than 25 churches and organizations participated in BEC learning community events and trainings.

• 2009-2011: helped the Episcopal Quincy Chinese Center with program and staff development. We helped to launch a college preparation program for immigrant Chinese high school students.

• 2011: took a leadership role to support the Boston Public Schools (BPS) Circle of Promise Initiative’s efforts to foster partnerships between schools and faith-based institutions. We helped to plan, prepare, and facilitate a May event that gathered more than 150 school principals, staff, faith leaders, and congregants to hear about different models for partnerships and for dialogue. We are continuing work with the BPS to complete follow-up work for this event and to help with partnership matches.

The Circle of Promise        

The Circle of Promise strategy is a shared initiative of Boston’s Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Boston Public Schools (BPS) Superintendent Carol R. Johnson as part of BPS’s larger five-year plan to improve academic outcomes for students within the geographic area shown in the red circle (left image). There are 47 schools within the Circle, covering all grades. Ten of the current 11 “turnaround” (designated by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education as significantly underperforming for several years) schools within the Boston school system are located within the Circle.

What’s new about the work being done within the Circle is that BPS is working to extend its community engagement work to include the largely untapped resource of faith-based institutions. Dr. Johnson recognized that faith-based institutions—including churches, mosques, synagogues, various other religious centers, and faith-based nonprofits—are a part of the fabric of Boston with a long history of supporting and nurturing the growth and education of this city’s children.

The Circle is part of the BPS’s Office of Community Engagement and Circle of Promise (CECoP), which is currently focused on two main areas: improving the school choice process and fostering partnerships between schools and community organizations. EGC’s Boston Education Collaborative has been a part of the work in both of these areas, including helping to build faith and community partnerships with schools, serving on the stakeholders’ group for the school choice process, and helping co-facilitate discussions at community meetings.

BEC Reflection and Learning Sessions provide tools, encouragement, networking, and support for people from churches and nonprofits working with students

The BEC began offering Reflection and Learning Sessions (R&Ls) in fall of 2009 as a way to support people from churches and Christian non-profits as they, in turn, support students. Since then, the BEC has hosted these informal sessions quarterly as an opportunity for the attendees to take a step back from their work lives, reflect on what’s been happening, and learn from it. R&Ls have also given attendees time for fellowship together and opportunities to network among their peers. The BEC has added an evening session, which duplicates the morning session, in order to accommodate participants who can’t attend during the day.

Each session includes some fellowship time followed by a topic for discussion or presentation. Usually about 10-12 people attend the morning sessions and three to five attend the evening ones. During the first year of the R&Ls, the discussion theme was “transformation.” This past year the discussions centered on systems thinking topics, and participants were able to do some systems mapping of elements of their work.

Here are stories of a few participants impacted by the sessions.

• Andrew Walker is a Sunday School teacher at First Lutheran Church of Boston. Andrew has participated for the last school year, requesting time off from his daytime job to attend. “[The sessions have been] very instructive and a great opportunity for conversation with other people in similar pursuits,” he says. Andrew particularly appreciated learning about EGC’s systems thinking tools and says he is “eager for more” in the coming year.

• Jovan Zuniga is the Director of the Salvation Army’s Bridging the Gap program in Boston. Jovan, whose program serves court-involved youth, has attended the R&Ls since August 2010. “I always make room for the sessions because I value the chance to step out of what I do and reflect,” he says. Jovan has used the R&Ls as an opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of his work and think together with his peers on how to go back and be more effective. “The sessions enable me to gather with others doing similar work, which is encouraging and educational. Overall, the meetings make my work better.”

• David Edwards is the Director of the Bridging the Gap program in Cambridge. David has also participated in the R&Ls since August 2010, and has really valued the support—particularly spiritual support—and networking opportunities made possible by the R&Ls. He took what he learned in the sessions on systems thinking this last year back to work, and it has strongly influenced the way he works now. He mentioned the bonus of not only reflecting together with his colleagues during the sessions but also connecting outside of the R&L sessions and being able to partner together and share resources to address specific work challenges.

Christian educators, youth workers and program staff in Greater Boston are invited to participate in the R&Ls. For more information, contact Ruth Wong at rwong[at]egc.org.

The Prophetic Task

We need to more clearly identify the prophets in current-day Boston and enlist their participation as we seek to expand Jesus-permeated, Kingdom-of-God-on-earth-permeated, church-planting movements

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/

Developing Safe Environments for Learning and Transformation

Resources for the urban pastor and community leader published by Emmanuel Gospel Center, Boston

Emmanuel Research Review reprint
Issue No. 80 — July 2012

by Rev. Dr. Gregg Detwiler, Director, Intercultural Ministries, EGC

I would like to address a question that we have been asked over and over again by Christian leaders and organizations that we have consulted and collaborated with in our work. It goes something like this: How does our organization (or church, denomination, school, etc.) develop a safe environment where our capacity to see personal and corporate transformation in and through our organization (church, denomination, school, etc.) is greatly enhanced? Or to put it another way, how can we experience transformation in our organization so that we have greater capacity to be an agent of transformation in our world?

A Model for Personal and Organizational Transformation

Over the past decade, we have with consulted many organizations on the topic of organizational change. In this process, I have often shared a model—or archetype¹ — that describes the elements necessary for personal and organizational transformation. I say “personal and organizational” transformation because it is impossible to have one without the other. In our context, we often apply these principles to intercultural work but they are transferable to any desired change.

The elements involved can be illustrated in the following Venn diagram:

Figure 1: Model for Transformation

A brief definition of each element follows:

1. Prophetic Vision is seeing God’s intention for a given situation and seeing the present reality as it really is. Our primary source for prophetic vision is the Word of God, but there are other sources that are also important: the community of faith, the leading and illumination of the Holy Spirit, and social/systems analysis. This prophetic seeing will always reveal a “gap” representing the distance between God’s high calling and where we are in relationship to that high calling. This prophetic seeing must be done with humility, recognizing that as humans we “know in part and prophesy in part.” Hence, prophetic vision is best done in community where others are permitted to share their perspective to help the learning organization fill in the picture as completely as possible and to arrive at “shared vision.”
   

2. Prophetic Voice is declaring what we believe God would have us do at this point in time and space. Like prophetic vision, prophetic voice must also be shared and affirmed by a particular Christian community/organization for it to have any traction. While prophetic vision and prophetic voice can arise from anyone within a given Christian community/organization, it must be embraced and endorsed by the “authorizing voice” of that community/organization for it to gain legitimacy and traction.
   

3. A Functional Infrastructure must be put in place to carry out the prophetic vision and voice. The core of this infrastructure is an aligned functional team and the necessary support structures to do the work.
   

4. A Safe Environment is the necessary context for any and all three of the elements above to work and, hence, is perhaps the most important of the four elements. It is also, in my experience, the element most missing in Christian ministry, and the one that most often derails personal and organizational transformation. A safe environment is necessary for a community/organization to come together to understand prophetic vision, agree on prophetic voice, and build and maintain a functional infrastructure. A safe environment involves establishing, honoring and maintaining honest and loving relationships that have the capacity to sustain and learn from the inevitable conflicts that always arise in the journey of transformation.

Reflections on How To Develop a Safe Environment

The main question of this paper deals with this fourth element: a safe environment. Time and time again in our consulting practice, we hear our clients say something like this: “We clearly see the necessity of creating a safe environment for learning and transformation but we have one question, how exactly do we develop a safe environment?” What follow is a first step in attempting to answer that question.

What a Safe Environment Is and Is Not

Before answering that question, however, let’s first describe what a safe environment is and is not.

When I am consulting with a Christian group, I often get the group to reflect on this question by taking them to what I call “the most unpracticed verse of the Bible”—James 5:16. I read to them the verse from the New International Version: Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. Or, my preferred rendering of this verse from the Message paraphrase: Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed.

I then ask them a series of questions: Do we really “do” this verse in the church? Is it our “common practice”? The answer, “No, not so much.”

Then I follow with, “Why don’t we practice it?” The reply: “Because people don’t feel safe enough to do it.”

I then ask, “What would it take to make it safe enough to actually do it, to make this our common practice? What are the qualities that describe a safe environment?” The lists of qualities are always very similar, things such as:

• Trust

• Confidentiality

• Being a good listener

• Not judging others

• Patience and longsuffering

• Considering the best in one another

• Not looking down on those who confess their sins/temptations/weakness

• Not “defining” others by "freeze-framing” their identity by the sins/temptations they confess

• Avoiding “cross-talk” (being too quick to give unsolicited advice to others)

• Focusing on our own “stuff” rather than on others' “stuff”

• Gaining trust and asking permission before attempting to speak into someone else’s life

• A commitment to one another’s growth

It is also important to explicitly state what a safe environment is NOT. Many people identify the elements above but still misconstrue what a safe environment is because they do not understand the subtler elements of what a safe environment is not.

A safe environment is NOT:

• A pain-free environment (growth is often painful)

• Only about “me” feeling safe (it is also about helping “others” feel safe)

• Uniformity of opinion (a truly safe environment welcomes different perspectives)

• A permission slip for being obstinate, unyielding, and unwilling to work for the common good

• A “free-for-all” for expressing raw emotions without considering the effect this sharing will have on others

Steps To Developing a Safe Environment

After describing what a safe environment is and is not, the next issue is how to get there. It is one thing to be able to describe a safe environment, it is another thing altogether to be able to create and nurture it. The following diagram describes the process I have observed in creating, nurturing and reproducing safe environments.

Figure 2: The Process of Creating & Reproducing a Safe Environment

Let’s now describe each of the stages of the cycle in more detail.

1. Willingness: A Community/Organization That Desires to Create a Safe Environment

The first step required to enter this journey is “willingness.” As the common quip goes, “A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still.” Not many high-level organizational leaders will say that they do not want a safe environment within their organizational culture, but many simply have never experienced a safe environment themselves to the degree that they can provide the necessary leadership to cultivate it within their organization.

So the first step, plain and simple, is to find an organization or a community or (more likely) a subset within an organization/community that is willing to pursue a greater intellectual and experiential understanding of what a safe environment really is. In some cases—in a highly dysfunctional organization, for instance—the starting point may necessitate seeking out a safe environment outside of the organization.

2. Skilled Leadership to Guide in Nurturing a Safe Environment

The importance of skilled leadership cannot be overstated. This leadership may come from within the community or from outside it. The real issue here is the quality of leadership. There are certain prerequisites that a leader must have in order to serve as a guide to others in a journey toward a safe environment.

The first and foremost indispensable quality is that the leader must have already experienced the power of a transformational safe environment herself. It is impossible to reproduce and to guide others in what we ourselves have not experienced. The best guides are those who have tasted deeply of the refreshing waters of a safe environment for themselves.

The second quality is that the leader must be whole enough.² “Whole enough” to have a healthy self-awareness, to appropriately share their journey with others, and to assist others in their journey. The term “whole enough” means that the leader is self-aware of her own brokenness and has already taken significant steps in her own healing journey. Some of the characteristics of a “whole enough” leader are as follows:

• The whole enough leader is one who knows and can articulate her own self-identity in all of her complexity—good, bad and ugly. This self-awareness is demonstrated in her ability to see that she is (as we all are) “wonderful, wounded and wicked” and that God has taken this total package and has begun a process of healing and transformation. As such, the whole enough person can freely acknowledge her brokenness while at the same time seeing her goodness as a beloved child of God made in his image.
  

• The whole enough leader is one who has learned how to appropriately share his own healing journey as a gift to others. As the whole enough one is secure in the love of God, he is able to share not only his strengths with others but also his weaknesses. As weaknesses are shared, others are called out of darkness and hiding into a place of safety, light and healing.
  

• The whole enough person has been exposed to a safe environment to a sufficient degree that she understands the structural and spiritual elements necessary for nurturing a safe environment for others. In other words, the whole enough person is familiar enough with the air of a safe environment to recognize what it feels like and is skilled enough to know how to foster such an environment for others.

3. Group Learning About the Qualities of a Safe Environment

It is not enough for a leader to merely embody a safe environment; he must also lead a group of willing souls to consider together what a safe environment is and is not, what it looks like and feels like.

The aforementioned exercise (Group Reflection on James 5:16: confessing our sins to one another) is one of the most effective means I have found for leading a group into a better shared understanding of the qualities that comprise a safe environment.

Another technique is to get members of the group to consider the safest environments they have every encountered in their lives—places where personal and corporate transformation was made possible—and to get them to describe the qualities that were present in those environments.

4. Skilled Leadership that will Model & Maintain a Safe Environment

Once the group has reflected together and has a shared vision of what a safe environment looks like, the leader must lead the way by modeling a willingness to be vulnerable in sharing his own journey. The leader must be willing to share personal testimony that is authentic, transparent and bears witness to the power of transformation within a safe community. Not only must the leader model this, he must remind the group of the qualities of a safe environment and establish some basic ground rules that can help maintain it.³

It is also important to add here that creating and maintaining a safe environment is not like taking a straight-line stroll to the top of a mountain, but is more like a circuitous path of hills and valleys. It is often hard work because it involves fallen creatures that sometimes rub one another the wrong way. In truth, a journey toward a safe environment is not for the fainthearted; it requires ample supplies of humility, long-suffering, repentance, grace, and growth. It is important for participants to understand that this is the nature of the journey and that this reality, in fact, is part of what makes it transformational.

5. Reality Check: A Community/Org that is willing to be Honest About Where They are in the Journey

As a group reflects together on what a safe environment looks and feels like, and as the leader models and seeks to nurture a safe environment, the group will naturally begin to reflect on whether their group and their larger organization/community is a safe place. This sober assessment needs to be encouraged. If a community or organization is unwilling to honestly evaluate where they are in the journey, there will be little hope to see progress within the larger community. In many cases, safe environments must first take hold in smaller subsets of a community/organization before the larger community can be affected to any significant degree.

6. Continued Practice Through “Action-Reflection” Learning

The task of creating and nurturing a safe environment is not a destination but a continuous journey of “action-reflection.” Action-Reflection learning means that there is continuous effort given to putting into practice the qualities of a safe environment and continuous commitment to reflection, learning and evaluation throughout the journey. We learn how to be a safe community by practicing.

7. Reproduction: Members of the Community/Organization Reproduce Safe Environments in their Spheres of Influence

As members of a community/organization taste of the transforming power of a safe learning environment, they will naturally be drawn to bring its influence into their spheres of influence. In fact, I have found that people who have tasted of a safe environment will have a thirst for more and will want to bring it to others within their community/organization and beyond. This point goes back to the Genesis design that God’s creatures “reproduce after their own kind.”⁴ People who have experienced a safe environment, making personal and corporate transformation possible, will naturally seek out other willing souls and begin the cyclical process described in this paper over again.

Conclusion: Make this your common practice

When the three elements described in the Transformation Model (Figure 1) are practiced within the context of a safe environment, personal and corporate transformation is made possible. Examples of this transformation abound in both the personal and corporate spheres. I have experienced this in my own life, in our own work in Intercultural Ministries, and in our consulting with other organizations. A familiar example—on the personal level—that many people in our society would recognize is Alcoholics Anonymous, but there are many others.⁵

FOOTNOTES

¹ In the discipline of Systems Thinking, a systems archetype is a structure that exhibits a distinct behavior over time and has a very recurring nature across multiple disciplines of science. The foundational text that Systems Thinkers often refer to is The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, by Peter Senge (Currency Doubleday: New York: 1990).

² I learned the term “whole enough” as a participant in a healing ministry called Living Waters. Living Waters is one of the most effective programs I am aware of in nurturing a safe healing environment, especially for those who have experienced relational and/or sexual brokenness. To learn more about Living Waters, visit http://desertstream.org.

³ These qualities and ground rules were mentioned previously in this article under the subheading “What A Safe Environment Is & Is Not.”

⁴ Genesis 1:11-12

⁵ For copies of these case studies please contact the author.

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Rev. Dr. Gregg Detwiler is the Director of Intercultural Ministries at Emmanuel Gospel Center. The mission of Intercultural Ministries is “to connect the Body of Christ across cultural lines…for the purpose of expressing and advancing the Kingdom of God… in Boston, New England, and around the world.” Gregg works with a wide cross-section of leaders from over 100 ethno-linguistic groups. His ministry largely involves applied research, training, consulting, networking, and collaboration, especially related to intercultural ministry development.

Prior to joining the staff of EGC in 2001, Gregg served for 13 years as a church planter and pastor of a multicultural church in Boston and was elected as the overseeing Presbyter for the Northeast Massachusetts Section of the Assemblies of God. He served for five years as the Pastor of Missions & Diaspora Ministry at Mount Hope Christian Center in Burlington, Massachusetts. He earned his Doctor of Ministry in Urban Ministry in 2001 from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Ministry in Complex Urban Settings. His thesis, Nurturing Diaspora Ministry and Missions in and through a Euro-American Majority Congregation, has provided much of the direction of his ministry in recent years. Raised in Kansas, Gregg graduated from Evangel University and the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary in Springfield, Missouri. Gregg and his wife, Rita, live in the Boston area and have three children.

Click to Learn more about EGC's Intercultural Ministries.

Shared Worship Space - An Urban Challenge and a Kingdom Opportunity

Resources for the urban pastor and community leader published by Emmanuel Gospel Center, Boston

Emmanuel Research Review reprint
Issue No. 74 — January 2012

Introduced by Brian Corcoran, Managing Editor, Emmanuel Research Review

One body, one building? Being neighbors is one thing, but when churches gather under the same roof, much deeper and intricate conditions emerge that remind us of the character, nature, calling and Kingdom purpose of the Church in a diverse urban environment. Dr. Bianca Duemling, Assistant Director of EGC’s Intercultural Ministries, outlines the challenges and opportunities that present themselves when multiple congregations consider sharing the buildings they use for worship.Employing a biblical, intercultural, and practical perspective, Bianca, along with local leaders and her research colleagues, “hope that this article enhances the understanding of the dynamics and challenges of sharing worship space and helps congregations to develop healthy and supportive relationships with each other to manifest the unity of the body of Christ across ethnic lines.”

Shared Worship Space - An Urban Challenge and a Kingdom Opportunity

by Bianca Duemling, with the research assistance of Cynthia Elias and Grace Han

Contents

• Factors Contributing to the Need of Shared Worship Space - an Introduction

• Biblical Perspectives on Sharing Worship Space

• Cultural Differences and Power Imbalance

• Aspects of Sharing Worship Space

• Advice from Sharing Worship Space - Experts

• Conclusion: Sharing Worship Space - a Long-Term Solution?

• Resources

Section One: Factors Contributing to the Need of Shared Worship Space - an Introduction

Sharing worship space is a reality in the urban context as space is very expensive and limited in availability. During the “white flight” in the 1960s, many congregations moved to the suburbs. Consequently, the number of majority-culture¹ churches in many North American cities declined. At the same time the “Quiet Revival”² unfolded and spiritual vitality flourished among immigrants in Boston. On every corner, new immigrant congregations emerged, often as house churches or in former storefront shops. Additionally, there is a new wave of young church planters who intentionally moved into the city to plant churches.³

As congregations grow and need more space, they look for alternatives. Some rent space in office buildings, hotels or schools⁴, but most of them reach out to congregations owning buildings to share space. Lack of space and lack of financial means makes it very difficult to find appropriate worship space in the city.

Facts about sharing space in Boston, Cambridge, and Brookline:⁵

• 32% of all congregations share worship space, in total 214 congregations

• 73.6 % of these congregations share with one other congregation

• 16.1% of these congregations share with two other congregations

• 10.3% of these congregations share with four or more congregation

• 82.8% of these congregations share with congregations of a different denomination

• 17.2% of these congregations with congregations of the same denomination

• 95% of these congregations share with congregation other than their own ethnic background.

Different Shared Worship Space Arrangements

The most common way of sharing worship space is having two or more independent congregations under one roof. One of them owns of the building and others are invited in. This article will mainly focus on their situation. However, there are other ways to share worship space. One example is the multi-congregational model. Different language groups are gathered under a joint leadership and board of elders. This includes a joint ownership of the building. Grace Fellowship in Nashua is such an example. Two of the Associate Pastors are also pastors of the Brazilian Church and the Russian/Ukrainian Church.⁶ Another rare arrangement is a joint ownership, when independent congregations build or buy a church building together.

Background and Structure of this Article

After Intercultural Ministries at EGC had been approached for advice on this matter several times, we started this research project to learn from the experience of different congregations about sharing worship space. Moreover, we found out that little has been written about sharing worship space well; even denominations have not addressed that issue or developed guidelines for their member congregations.⁷ In this article, I draw from inspiring conversations with many pastors.⁸ I thank all of them taking the time to honestly share their story and struggles with me!

The proximity of diverse congregations when sharing worship space offers a great potential to connect with each other across ethnic lines and witness the beauty of unity in diversity to the neighborhood. The reality, however, shows that sharing worship space is very challenging. It often causes much frustration for the congregations involved.

I hope that this article enhances the understanding of the dynamics and challenges of sharing worship space and helps congregations to develop healthy and supportive relationships with each other to manifest the unity of the body of Christ across ethnic lines. Making shared worship space work needs investment and commitment; there is no magic bullet to solve the challenges, and every situation differs from another.

First, I will unfold the reasons and importance for sharing worship space from a biblical perspective. Second, I will address cultural differences and how the power imbalance in our society impacts sharing worship space. After that, I will talk about how to share worship space and which different aspects need to be factored in. Also included will be advice from those I interviewed for those intending to share worship space. Moreover, in the appendix you will find some resources on sharing worship space.

Section Two: A Biblical Perspective on Sharing Worship Space

The Bible gives us many examples why sharing worship space is essential for the Body of Christ and closely connected with who Jesus wants his disciples and his Church to be. In this section I want to briefly address five biblical aspects⁹ to consider in this context which are interconnected. Some of the aspects might refer more to the situation of the owner of the church buildings, whereas others are important for both parties.

The Body of Christ – a Loving Relationship

The two most meaningful passages in this context are the image of the Body of Christ and the new commandment.

In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul describes the church as one interconnected Body of Christ. In verses 24-26, he especially mentions the nature of the relationship: “But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that parts should have equally concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.”

In line with this image is Jesus’ new commandment to love one another (John 13:34-35). Love is always more than words. Love implies consequences as described in 1 Corinthians 13. Love also means to humbly serve one another, as stated in Galatians 5:13.

Moreover, sharing housing, food, and economic resources is characteristic of the early Church, as described in Acts 4. The reference is often made to become like them again. Sharing worship space is a great opportunity to pick up the characteristics of the early church and set them into practice. Through that the unity in diversity of the Body of Christ is manifested.

Missional Impact

Another aspect is the missional impact of unity. Jesus emphasized in John 17:21 shortly before he died: “that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” There is a close connection between being one and the aspect that the “world may believe.” In my understanding, this verse states very clearly that unity is a key to renewal and revival. Moreover, sharing worship space, especially across ethnic lines, is a witness to the community that Jesus is relevant today. He bridges the gap of segregation and brings peace and reconciliation.

Opportunity of Spiritual Growth

Sharing worship space might not increase a church’s growth numerically, but surely can enhance spiritual growth and maturity. It is very easy to talk about a Christlike life from one's own comfort zone. But sharing worship space and stepping out of the comfort zone gives the opportunity to set the Gospel in practice. It shows how seriously a congregation lives the fruits of the spirit as mentioned in Galatians 5:22-23. Hence, sharing worship space is an opportunity of manifesting a deeper kind of unity that surpasses the state of being kind to each other.

The interaction with Christians from all over the world challenges the cultural elements of our Christian practices and leads the focus on the essential Christian faith. Mutual mentoring and encouragement as well as learning from each other's strength help us to mature in Christ. It is an excellent practice to embrace our poverty.¹⁰

Additionally, understanding of the global Kingdom of God increases, as well as affection for other parts of the world, through the immigrant group sharing space. Thus, leaders and members can develop intercultural competency, which is a much needed skill in our diversifying society.

Good Stewardship

In the parable of the talents, God has entrusted men with bags of gold to use wisely for the Kingdom of God (Matthew 25:14-30). In 1 Peter 4:10 it is even more explicitly expressed that “each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” A church building, for example, can be seen as such a bag of gold that should be used wisely for the sake of people’s life and the building of the Kingdom of God.

Growing the Kingdom of God

One of the great challenges of the Body of Christ is to develop a Kingdom perspective beyond the walls of a congregation’s own activities. In assisting church planting through sharing worship space or incorporating an immigrant congregation as a part of one's own mission, we are involved in advancing the Kingdom of God.

Church planting and the growth of a congregation is something that God is doing by using us. Nurturing vitality through sharing space means aligning with God’s plan.

These Scripture passages and many more indicate that sharing worship space is not just a business deal between two independent parties, but also an undertaking within the one Body of Christ. The source of consideration should be the advancement of the Kingdom of God. If growth occurs because a congregation has opened their space for a church plant, it is as important as if the same congregation would add new believers to their flock. In either case it is for the advancement of the Kingdom of God and the Glory to God.

Congregations need to shift their mental models. If one congregation is not able to send out church planters, they can still be involved in church planting by sharing worship space. It needs to be understood that helping other congregations fulfill their calling is a valid Kingdom mission and ministry.

New mental models generate different questions. It is not to ask: “How do I (or does my congregation) get the job done?”, but: “How does the job get done?” — no matter how God uses me and my congregation.¹¹

Having emphasized the necessity and opportunity of sharing worship space, I also want to clarify that it might be not possible for every congregation.

Section Three: Cultural Differences and Power Imbalance

As I mentioned above, more than 95% of all the congregations that are sharing worship space do share with a congregation of another ethnic background. There is always a potential of conflict in every inter-congregational interaction, but its potential increases in a crosscultural setting. Cultural misunderstandings and conflicts are inevitable in the context of intercultural encounter. Everyone needs to engage in the process of intercultural learning to increase intercultural competency. It is crucial to realize and accept that in addition to our fallen human condition, our behavior is further impacted by cultural bias. Different approaches to cleanliness, time and property do not exist to intentionally try to cause problems for the other congregation, but are part of cultural differences. Therefore, there is a need to learn about patterns of foreign cultures without judging them, as well as identifying one's own cultural standards and estimating its impact on someone from a different culture. In the context of Living System Ministries at EGC we talk about primary and secondary culture as one way of better understand cultural differences. Most immigrants from the Southern hemisphere are relational or primary cultures, whereas Western cultures can be described as secondary cultures. Here are some of the contrasts:¹²

The Bible gives us many examples why sharing worship space is essential for the Body of Christ and closely connected with who Jesus wants his disciples and his Church to be. In this section I want to briefly address five biblical aspects¹³ to consider in this context which are interconnected. Some of the aspects might refer more to the situation of the owner of the church buildings, whereas others are important for both parties.

These contrasts create challenges. It is a learning process to find ways how to work best together and how to profit from each other’s strength.

I cannot go into more details about cultural differences, but two helpful resources to explore the impact of cultural differences more deeply are: Foreign to Familiar: A Guide to Understanding Hot- and Cold-Climate Cultures from Sarah A. Lanier and Many Colors: Cultural Intelligence for a Changing Church from Soong-Chan Rah.

Closely related to cultural challenges is the dynamic of majority-minority relations.¹³ Sharing worship space is embedded in the power imbalance, systemic discrimination and racism of our society, which in the context of the U.S. is rooted in the colonization of the Native Americans, the history of slavery and the lack of equal opportunities for immigrants. There is a lot of mistrust and broken relationships between the members of majority and minority culture. This historical baggage deeply influences the relationships between congregations sharing space. It is especially sensitive, as the owners of the church buildings mostly belong to the majority culture. The power imbalance might not be seen at first glance, but it subtly penetrates the atmosphere.

Section Four: Aspects of Sharing Worship Space

Sharing worship space is a very complex issue containing many challenges. Before dealing with practical details, our mental models need to be identified and some important questions are to be asked:

• What is the motive to share worship space?

• Which attitude/mental model is driving the decision?

During my research I observed that pastors who generally had good relationships, emphasized that the financial aspect should never be the driving motive. In some cases a financial contribution is necessary for sharing space to maintain the building. Even so, others admit that when counting all the costs there is no financial net gain. One way to not allow the financial aspect to dominate the process is to intentionally refrain from creating a landlord-tenant relationship, as the host congregation sets the tone of the shared worship space experience.

One way of doing that is the choice of language:

• Am I sharing or renting worship space?

• Is it a business relationship or among brothers and sisters?

Although the host pastor sets the tone, the guest congregation carries the same responsibility to make it work and not take advantage of their hospitality.

Sharing space is a learning process for everyone. The involved congregations need to be educated and develop a shared vision that the overall purpose is the Kingdom of God and not where the cups are, which is nevertheless important!

In my observation, a business mentality, where the financial aspects is the only or driving motive, often becomes counterproductive. Unresolved misunderstandings and cultural conflicts can easily turn into destructive relationships and damage the Body of Christ.

Therefore, the aim of this section is to help you consider various elements of sharing worship space. I will firstly address the importance of relationships, then the possible challenges. After that I deal with aspects of the practical arrangements and ideas of intercultural encounters and joint events.

Relationship is everything

Sharing worship space has similar aspects to living in community. In order to live well together it is good to know each other’s stories, vision and passion, hopes and challenges. Building relationships is a timely investment and is not done with one meeting to discuss practical details. However, over a long run the initial investment to start on good terms is worth its time as it helps to navigate through challenges. Therefore, transparent relationships, good communication, mutual respect and support, and responsiveness to each other needs are crucial.

One way to build relationships is regular meetings for prayer and fellowship between the pastors or point persons. The research revealed that most pastors meet only if conflicts arise. It is not a good basis for relationships to only see each other when something goes wrong.

Especially if sharing with several congregations, a quarterly inter-church council that includes all groups sharing a facility, has proven very beneficial.

Be Prepared for Challenges

Despite good relationships challenges arise from time to time. As mentioned in section three, they are closely connected to cultural differences. In this section I list some of the challenges that frequently appear, so that everyone can be prepared for them and think ahead of measures to avoid conflicts.

Different Worship Styles and Sound Levels. Traditional worship styles often differ in their instruments and sound level from more contemporary styles. Different cultural and denominational backgrounds include crying out loud to God, weeping, dancing, and clapping is an integral component of worship. This can create a challenge if both congregations are in the building at the same time or if the building is close to neighbors, who complain about the sound level.

Growing Congregations. Congregations can grow numerically at different paces. New immigrant churches have a tendency to be more vital and grow faster. Consequently, they need more space and have more frequent meeting times. This growth dynamic can be seen as a threat to the host congregation. Feelings that the other congregation is taking over can develop as members of the guest congregation are increasingly present in the facility.

Historical and Personal Baggage. Every person and every congregation brings their baggage to the table, such as bad experiences with former shared worship space arrangement, suspicion, or discrimination experiences.

Language Barriers. The lack of English abilities of one party creates challenges in clearly communicating expectations and navigating constructively through conflicts.

Communication. Miscommunication is the root of many conflicts. Although in the Western culture, emails are often seen as an appropriate way to communicate, in many oral cultures this is not always the case. Unanswered emails are not necessarily a sign of disinterest, but an unsuitable way to start a conversation. In such cases, a telephone call or a face-to-face meeting is much more efficient. Developing clear and healthy communication patterns can be a major step in building stable relationships.

Different standards related to time. There are two challenges relating the issue of time. The first one is the different cultural understanding of starting or ending on time. The second one is the perceived "tension" between the Holy Spirit and time. In many Pentecostal congregations, there is a deep expectation that the Holy Spirit moves during the service. So the question arises, whether time restriction is a valid reason to stop the moving of the Holy Spirit?

Different standards related to cleanliness. In every home or shared living situation the discussion about cleanliness occurs; it is the same within congregations. People have a different need for cleanliness to feel comfortable and have also different standards for what is considered a clean floor or clean kitchen.

Food. Food is one of the most tangible cultural expressions. In some congregations shared meals are an integral component of the worship and fellowship experience. However, people have a different comfort level regarding the smell of food in a church building.

Supervision of Children. Not every congregation has Sunday school for children during the service. Children can become disinterested from their parent’s worship service and wander off to other areas in the building. Unsupervised children can not only hurt themselves but also severely damage the building, its walls and equipment.

Building issues. A church building is a complex issue. The focus should always be on the people, but as good stewards it is understood to use physical resources careful that they last as long as possible.¹⁴ This includes being sure that everything is locked, the lights are out, and the heat/air conditioning use is not messed up. It may cost the host congregation hundreds and thousands of dollars if these issues have not been taken care of thoroughly. This needs to be understood by those using the facilities.

Unauthorized use of supplies and equipment. It happens again and again, that a congregation uses supplies or equipment of the other congregation. Not necessarily to take advantage of the other, but because they forgot something or run out of it.

Violation of the agreement. The basis of shared worship space arrangements is an agreement how and when to use the space. There is always a chance that this agreement is violated or the agreed upon financial contribution is not made.

Commitment to the neighborhood. In many cases, the host congregation feels a commitment to their neighborhood and wants to reach and serve their community. Thus, they try not to upset the community through poor parking or high sound levels. The focus of the guest congregations often is a specific target group and not the community. This may be especially true, if they have no office space, come just for the worship service from all over the city, and see sharing worship space only as a short term option.

My intention to list these challenges is not to overwhelm the reader. If the question arises why to share worship space in the first place, please read section two again!

Being aware of the challenges can prevent the shared worship space experience to become counterproductive. The obvious question is, how to avoid or to address these challenges. As I said before, there is no simple answer or magic bullet to it. Some of the challenges might be solved more easily, such as paying a cleaner together or having a translator for conversations. But most of these challenges mean a lot of work and need the right attitude and willingness to make it work. The congregations need to be educated and involved. Conflicts need to be addressed with grace and love. Honesty and transparency are key in the communication. Good relationships help to navigate through these challenges.

Practical Arrangements

So far I have addressed the reasons to share worship space and its challenges, but what practical arrangements need to be set in place?

Every situation is different, therefore shared worship arrangements differ from each other. In this section I will present different ways to deal with the practical arrangements, as suggested by the congregations we interviewed.

Agreement. Shared worship space arrangements are mainly crosscultural, thus often they are encounters between oral or written cultures that have different ways to come to an agreement. In any negotiation this has to be taken into account. As mentioned above, the attitude regarding sharing worship space is expressed through language, hence it is recommended not to use business language such as “renting” or “contract.” In most cases it is helpful to have the arrangement in a written form as a basis that can be revisited when there are misunderstandings. The “agreement” or “covenant” should be developed together and only contain the most basic information. Avoid creating a “catalog of rules,” which implies distrust, reduces mental flexibility, and is less relational. Working together towards an agreement gives a chance to clearly communicate each other’s expectations. A common practice is to renew the agreement every year and see it as an opportunity to reflect on the experiences and adapt changes if necessary.

I also strongly suggest getting to know each other before you talk about details and share the stories of the congregations and the personal journeys in ministry.

Basic Elements of an agreement:

• Contact details of pastor or point person

• Description of use (time and space)

• Shared cost

• Condition of use

• Basic building rules

• Insurance

• Supervision of Children

• Use of kitchen

• Cleaning instructions

• Termination procedure

Sharing of expenses. There are different ways of sharing expenses. Some congregations ask for a contribution for a monthly use, a hourly use or per session. In some cases, the amount of contribution differs with the size of the congregation.

Many congregations see the building as a blessing, however, the maintenance, especially of old buildings, can turn into a huge financial burden. The guest congregation needs to understand that maintenance and repair costs tens of thousands of dollars a year and it is not at all inappropriate to be asked for a contribution.

Insurance. No matter whether there is a written or oral agreement, insurance is a very important issue. Accidents always can happen and things break all the time. Without insurance coverage small things can become an unbearable financial burden. Often each congregation is asked to have their own insurance. The host church should receive a copy of the insurance policy. The insurance company “Church Mutual” (www.churchmutual.com) has been recommended. It has a special “tenant” insurance.

Organizational issues. There are three basic organizational issues: (1) time and space, (2) cleaning, and (3) storage space, which need to be addressed and clear to everyone.

Time and Space. First, each congregation has defined times and rooms they can use. A magnetic calendar in the hallway, for example, is a great way to provide transparency. Each congregation has a color and can reserve the time and space they need additional to the fixed service times. The first congregation, who reserves it, can use it. This procedure is well tested by the International Community Church.

Another possibility to communicate this clearly is to use a joint Google calendar, where people can book space depending on availability. It is important that pastors have agreed on how to reserve the facilities and that the use of space is communicated ahead of time. Nothing is more frustrating for both congregations to come to the church building and find that the space is already used. Good communication on that issue is crucial. Moreover, there should always be enough time for smooth transition, clean up and set up between two events.

Cleaning. Second, as cleanliness is a sensitive issue, it should be agreed on how the congregations have to leave the space. If the chairs need to be stacked up a specific ways it should be kept easy and be explained clearly. It is helpful to have a plan in each room. If this is a recurring source of conflict, one way to solve this issue is to hire a custodian or a cleaner together.

Storage Space. Thirdly, each congregation has different equipment and material for their gatherings, therefore it is important to provide enough clearly labeled storage space for each congregation. There are different opinions on whether this space should be lockable, as, ideally, the basis for the relationship is trust.

Other aspects to consider

Sharing other resources. Depending on the shared space situation even more resources than the facilities could be shared, such as a copy machine, Internet/WiFi, audio/visual equipment or even human resources, such as an accountant or church administrator.

Billboards/Signs. It was recommended that groups have a sign on the outside of the church building that indicates everyone who is sharing the facilities. This is not only helpful for members to find the space, but also reflects a certain community among the congregations.

Shared Worship Space arrangement on each other’s website. Another way to demonstrate a commitment to recognize and care for each other’s congregation is to display the other congregations on the website, as, for example, Ruggles Baptist Church does.¹⁵

Intercultural Encounter and Joint Events

Sharing worship space is more than a functional relationship, as it reflects the one Body of Christ. Joint events are a visible expression that Jesus Christ connects people across cultural lines.

Although it has been emphasized, especially by the church building owner, that sharing worship space is building the Kingdom of God, only a few congregations intentionally are seeking to build personal relationships with members of other congregations. The interaction is often reduced to the pastors or one joint service a year if at all.

The reasons are lack of time or the lack of enough space to hold joint events. Some pastors of the guest congregations indicated that they think any joint activity needs to be initiated by the host congregations.

The intentions to do something together are there, but there is no driving force, no one who takes it on and starts to organize it; therefore, nothing is happening. Whenever the time was invested and joint services or picnics took place, everyone remembered it as beneficial and a learning experience.

However, generally there is little understanding for the importance and opportunities to build personal relationships across congregations, especially across cultural lines.

Besides the fact that it is personally and spiritually beneficial to develop relationships across cultural lines, the opportunity of outreach is immensely overlooked. A multicultural experience which reflects the love of Christ is very attractive, especially for young, urban non-Christians, as diversity reflects their life situation.

The following suggestions for joint events were provided by the congregation we interviewed.

Guiding principles of joint worship services:

• People from each congregation are involved in preparation

• Short sermons in each languages so that everyone has to sit through a ten-minute devotion in another language

• Joint worship team with songs in different languages

• Short interview/testimonies of one person of each congregation

• Fellowship with shared meal

Other possible joint events:

• Vacation Bible School

• Soccer games

• Youth events

• Marriage seminars

• Community outreach events

• Building cleaning and repair event

• Yard sale for community outreach and to support the ministries

Section Five: Advice from Sharing Worship Space - Experts

As mentioned earlier, there is no magic bullet for sharing worship space and it requires significant time and effort. The pastors have been asked in the interviews to give some advice for people who are considering sharing space. In this section, I will share their insights. As the host and guest congregations have different perspectives and emotions regarding sharing worship space, I will address them in two sections.

Advice from host congregation to host congregation:

• Be clear on the conditions and expectations

• Count the cost before sharing your building with another congregation and then make decision

• Be willing to adapt to change that will come

• If money is your only motive, do not share worship space; it can become counterproductive

• Perceive sharing worship space as a way to serve

• Be patient and flexible

• It is sometimes easier to share among three or more churches because it reduces the potential of an "us and them" mentality developing

• While interviewing a pastor, who needs worship space discern whether you can relate interpersonally to each other.

Advice from guest congregation to guest congregation:

• Be proactive with conflicts and show your servant attitude

• Take good care of the children and the equipment

• Make sure that the members of your congregation know what you have agreed on with the owner

• Be responsible, respectful, responsive, and thankful

• Pray for the host congregation as part of your ministry; this enables the members to value the space and helps them to take good care of it

• Being supportive of each other

• Seek the Lord on where you should be and who you should be with

• Don't share worship space with a congregation who speaks the same language to prevent membership competition

Section Six: Conclusion: Sharing Worship Space – a Long-Term Solution?

Given all the reasons to share worship space such as difficult economic times, lack of human, physical, and financial resources, I wonder why more congregations do not consider sharing worship space as a long-term solution.

I have observed that churches desire their own buildings, even though they have good relationships to the host congregations. Sometimes it is the need for more space, more flexibility, or the dislike of service times in the afternoon. For only two churches we talked to, sharing worship space is a long-term option because one is committed to the specific neighborhood and the other values the shared worship arrangement, as it gives the possibility to spend its few resources on ministry and not a building.

Cultural and personal misunderstandings will occur, therefore a long-term commitment to sharing worship space is also a commitment to invest in relationships, reconcile conflicts, and not avoid difficult conversations.

It is time to think differently about sharing worship space and develop creative and innovative approaches that build the Kingdom of God, witness a loving body of Christ, serve the neighborhoods, enhance intercultural learning, and reflect the nature of the Kingdom of God as written in Revelation 7:9:

“there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language standing before the throne and before the Lamb.”

Intercultural Ministries of EGC offers consulting and training to assist congregations in navigating through cultural challenges. If you are interested in receiving more information, contact Gregg Detwiler at gdetwiler [at] egc.org .

Footnotes

¹ In this article the term “majority culture” refers to the U.S. society in general and not to the majority or minority in a given community or congregation. “Majority culture” is shaped by language, religious practice, values, and social structure of people of predominantly Euro-American descent.

² See Hall, Douglas, Judy Hall, and Steve Daman. 2010. The Cat and the Toaster: Living System Ministry in a Technological Age. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock., p. xiii-xv; and Doug Hall: “What is the Quiet Revival & Why is it Important?” in New England’s Book of Acts (2007). The growth of immigrant churches is also documented in New England’s Book of Acts.

³ This is an observation Rev. Ralph Kee made in his work as the animator of the Greater Boston Church Planting Collaborative (https://www.egc.org/church-planting/).

⁴ However, that is not possible everywhere anymore. On December 5, 2011, the Supreme Court rejects worship at public school appeal for NYC; consequently more than 60 churches in NYC need a different space to worship starting February 12, 2012 (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/05/us-usa-religion-schools-idUSTRE7B41ML20111205 - accessed 01/10/2012).

⁵ All the data is obtained from EGC’s Boston Church Directory (http://egcboston.force.com/bcd - accessed June 2011).

⁶ http://gatecitychurch.org/about/leadership-team/ (name changed, new web site, link updated 04/11/2017).

⁷ We have contacted the headquarters of the main denominations to ask about guidelines regarding shared worship space. However, no practical guidelines have been developed. Two denominations had some sort of guidelines. The Church of the Nazarene mentioned the process of developing multi-congregational churches under 100.1 in their Manual (http://nazarene.org/files/docs/Manual2009-2013.pdf, p. 63 – accessed 01/23/2012). The Presbyterian Church USA has only guidelines regarding sharing space with another religion: (www.pcusa.org/resource/sharing-building-space-group-another-religion/ - accessed 01/23/2012).

⁸ Between July and December 2011, we conducted 15 formal interviews with six pastors whose congregations own the church building, eight pastors whose congregations worship in someone else’s church building worship space and with a representative of one parachurch organization, who has churches worshiping in their facilities. Moreover, I had many informal conversations about shared worship space.

⁹ All Scripture Quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, published by Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI.

¹⁰ See Hall, The Cat & the Toaster. p. 116ff.

¹¹ Ibid. p. 180-183.

¹² Ibid. p. 19ff.

¹³ In this article, the term “majority-minority relations” refers to the U.S. society and its structure in general and not to the majority or minority in a given community or congregation.

¹⁴ This issue was addressed in November 2010 through a workshop. Subsequently, the report Re-thinking the Way We Think about Church Buildings was published by EGC in the Emmanuel Research Review, Issue 61, Dec. 2010. Contact EGC to request a copy, or search here: https://www.egc.org/blog/emmanuel-research-review.

¹⁵ http://www.rugglesbaptistchurch.org/– accessed 01/23/2012.

Resources:

• Anderson, Lorraine: Under One Steeple:  Multiple Congregations Sharing More Than Just Space. House of Prisca and Aquila Series. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2012.

• Behnken, Ken. Together in Mission: Sharing Facilities With Another Culture Group. Irvine, CA: Center for United States Missions, 2008.

• Lanier, Sarah A. Foreign to Familiar. A Guide to Understanding Hot- and Cold-Climate Cultures. Hagerstown, MD: McDougal Publishing, 2000.

• Rah, Soong-Chan. Many Colors: Cultural Intelligence for a Changing Church. Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2010.

• The Christianity Today article “Space Frontiers” features three churches that are pioneering new ways to use facilities for the gospel. It inspires one to think a little more out of the box. www.christianitytoday.com/le/2009/fall/spacefrontiers.html - accessed 01/23/2012.

Author

Dr. Bianca Duemling served as the Assistant Director of Intercultural Ministries at Emmanuel Gospel Center (Boston, MA) since 2010. Raised in Germany, Bianca earned her degree in European Community Education Studies as a licensed social worker in Koblenz, and a Master of Arts in Intercultural Work and Conflict Management in Berlin. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of Heidelberg, studying emerging immigrant churches in Germany and their relationship with mainline churches. She is a founding member of the Forum Intercultural Relations of Together for Berlin and the Foundation Himmelsfels, where she served as the project coordinator for an intercultural reconciliation project.

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