2016 WOVEN CONSULTATION [Photojournal]

WOVEN CONSULTATION

March 5th, 2016

By WOVEN

WOVEN CONSULTATION 2016

- A gathering of Christian women: leaders in the home, church, workplace, and community.
- A space to share stories, foster relationships, and develop strategies for overcoming obstacles.
- Dependent on prayer, permeated by fellowship, and yielding a practical response to equip churches to better support women.

SEEKING WHOLENESS

Though drawn together for assorted reasons, the women who gathered shared a common commitment to Christ and a desire for wholeness. Whether they admitted to feeling overwhelmingly busy or being satisfied with their pace of life, all knew well the struggle of maintaining balance through life’s changing seasons.

WELCOMING DIVERSITY

Beauty arose from their shared desire to grow as women of God as well as from their dynamic diversity. The Consultation welcomed 104 women from all generations, 59 occupations, 53 churches, and 45 Christian ministries throughout Greater Boston. Their racial diversity reflected the people of the city. Women who were differently abled were well served. The babies of young mothers joined in and children played nearby under watchful care.

“I like the fact that the leaders are helping to create safe spaces for women. I love the diversity!”

“Refreshing to be with women across denominational lines.”

“So nice to network with others outside my church walls.”

“I could see that people with varying abilities were welcomed and had a part to play.”

“Connecting with a diverse group of women is necessary to move forward towards all justice issues.”

HERE'S MY STORY

Five women shared stories from the front of the room that explored their pursuit of balance: What is it? What are the obstacles? What resources are there for realizing balance? How do we move ahead? As stories were told and hearts were opened, women found comfort in shared experiences, support in their journey, and inspiration to take the next step toward wholeness in Christ. 

“I want to know more from women I wouldn’t typically gather with on a regular basis to expand my horizons. This is a big world and we serve a BIG GREAT God who is the master of it all. There is a reason why we are all here together. We need to stop isolating ourselves!”

“I loved that people were willing to share their lives and struggles and there was no judgement, only others willing to hold each other up.”

REFLECTION AND PRAYER

After each story, the women entered into quiet times of personal reflection, active table discussion, and interactive text polling. Women were moved to pray for each another, admonish each other, and offer loving support. 

“Meeting other women in ministry who love the Lord was a highlight and it was helpful to draw out concerns I probably wouldn’t address otherwise.”

“Being a part of a larger community facing similar issues is very empowering.”

IMAGINING SOLUTIONS, DEVELOPING STRATEGIES

Moved to address the obstacles to balance and wholeness which they exposed and identified, the women worked together, shared resources, and collectively imagined how these obstacles could be overcome. Principles and guidelines gleaned from the wisdom and practical advice shared around each table will be passed on to churches in Greater Boston so they can better support Christian women in leadership.

EXPERIENCING GROWTH

At the day’s end, each woman left with something new, changed by what the Lord had done through this time in community. Some summarized their experience with words like “empowered” and “encouraged.” Hope came with many faces: renewed relationships, fresh strategies, and personal support in the seasons to come. The Consultation staff looks forward to supporting and equipping women leaders as they move forward in grace and see God’s work blossom and grow.

“The Woven Consultation helped to empower me in my walk with Christ even more and also in my calling. I further enjoyed the connections and relatable stories shared.”

“God really spoke to me, challenged me, provoked me and reassured me. I met new people.”

“I am going away more alive and empowered about living authentically before the Lord and others.”

The Woven Consultation is a project of the Applied Research and Consulting Department at Emmanuel Gospel Center.

The Story of the Brazilian Church in Greater Boston

The Story of the Brazilian Church in Greater Boston

by Kaye V. Cook, Ph.D. and Sharon Ketcham, Ph.D.

an updated analysis based on work done previously by Pr. Cairo Marques and Pr. Josimar Salum in New England’s Book of Acts, Emmanuel Gospel Center, 2007

Brazilians in New England

About 30% of all Brazilians living in the U.S. reside in New England (approximately 68,197 Brazilians according to the Boston Redevelopment Authority, 2012), and Portuguese is the third most spoken language after English and Spanish in New England (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). Brazilian churches in the Boston area are strikingly dynamic, and there is significant turnover in pastors as well as attendees, often because individuals go back and forth to Brazil.

What are the strengths and opportunities of the predominant Brazilian-speaking churches in Greater Boston today? Before we answer that question, we need to consider the roots of Boston’s Brazilian church community.

History and Contemporary Context

The history of Brazilian churches in Boston is very much shaped by the context of Brazil. Historically, the dominant religion in Brazil is Catholicism, which was the religion of the Portuguese settlers (Juergensmeyer & Roof, 2012). However, fewer people in Brazil today report being Catholic than in previous generations. Whereas more than 90% of Brazilians reported being Catholic as recently as 1970, 65% reported being Catholic in the 2010 census (PEW, 2013).*

The largest Pentecostal church group in Brazil is the Assemblies of God (Assembleias de Deus) with more than 23 million members (Johnson & Zurlo, 2016). Spiritualist religions, which emphasize reincarnation and communication with the spirits of the dead, are also common. More recently, Protestantism―especially Pentecostalism―has had a major impact with 22% reporting being Protestant as of 2010 (Pew, 2013). The earlier Protestant influence was a result of missionary work and church planting, but most of the major Protestant denominations now have an indigenous presence in the country (Freston, 1999) and today’s Brazilian Protestant church is strikingly indigenous.

Pentecostals in Brazil resist typology because of their rapid growth and diversity. The historical Pentecostals (primarily those growing out of missionary endeavors such as those by the Foursquare Church) emphasize the Holy Spirit, the Spirit’s manifestations in gifts, separation from the world, and a high behavioral code. NeoPentecostals such as participants in the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, a denomination which was established in 1977, continue to emphasize the Holy Spirit, especially healing and exorcism, and make connections between Christianity, success, and happiness. NeoPentecostals may also move away from a separatist worldview and strict behavioral standards and toward increased cultural integration, and some emphasize prosperity rather than a central focus on Christ and the Bible (Juergensmeyer & Roof, 2012). The movement toward greater cultural integration has opened doors for political activity (Freston, 1999). There is debate however about whether NeoPentecostalism can be reliably distinguished from Pentecostalism (Gedeon Alencar, personal communication, 3 October 2015). Some also suggest that PostPentecostalism is the preferred term for those who operate in a way that is similar to a business, emphasize cultural integration, and bypass the traditional elements of Pentecostalism such as the “central focus on Christ and the Bible,” focusing instead on a prosperity gospel (Juergensmeyer & Roof, 2012, p. 159).

Pentecostals (including NeoPentecostals) comprise 85% of the Protestants in Brazil (Juergensmeyer & Roof, 2012). Five years following the 1906-1909 Azusa Street revivals, the rapid expansion of Pentecostalism reached Brazil through Swedish Baptist missionaries (Chesnut, 1997). Due to urbanization and the growth of the mass media (Freston, 1999), there was simultaneous growth among Pentecostals in the North (Belem) and Southeast (São Paulo) regions. Much of the recent growth in Brazil is accounted for by six denominations, three of which are of Brazilian origin: Brazil for Christ, God Is Love, and the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (Freston, 1999).** The most rapid recent growth in Brazil among Pentecostals is due to growth in the Foursquare (or Quadrangular) Church, Brazil for Christ, and God Is Love (Juergensmeyer & Roof, 2012).

According to the IBGE Census, in 2010 there were almost 4 million Baptists in Brazil represented by the Brazilian Baptist Convention (affiliated with the U.S. Southern Baptist Convention) and the National Baptist Convention (Renewalist Baptists). In addition, Reformed churches were common such as the Presbyterian Church of Brazil, the Independent Presbyterian Church, and the Renewed Presbyterian Church. Adventists, Lutherans, and Wesleyans were also represented.

Baptists

According to Marques and Salum (2007), Pastor Joel Ferreira was the first Brazilian Minister to start a Portuguese-speaking church in New England. No interviewee knew of an earlier presence. Pastor Ferreira was a member of the National Baptist Church in Brazil and planted a Renewed Baptist Church in Fall River in the early 1980s that grew to about 500 members (Marques & Salum, 2007), also called the LusoAmerican Pentecostal Church. Pastor Joel returned to Brazil in 1991 and later returned to the U.S. where he recently died. Today there are several (perhaps 6-9) churches in Massachusetts that were born from this pioneer church.

Several renewal Baptist church groups exist in New England, including the Shalom Baptist International Community in Somerville led by Pr. Jay Moura and the Igreja Communidade Deus Vivo led by Pr. Aloisio Silva.

American Baptist Churches began a new church-planting movement in Boston in 1991 and planted primarily renewal churches (Marques & Salum, 2007). This movement gained force from 2001 to 2004 when about 20 new Brazilian Portuguese churches were planted in Massachusetts and Rhode Island under the New Church Planting Coordination led by Rev. Lilliana DaValle and Pr. Josimar Salum. This forward movement stalled due to issues of church doctrine. Another group of churches that were established with Baptist connections are the Vida Nova churches including Igreja Batista Vida Nova in Medford (Pr. Jose Faria Costa Jr) and Igreja Batista Vida Nova (Pr. Alexandre Silva).

The Southern Baptists also planted many churches since 1995. There are about 30 of these churches in New England, including the Portuguese Baptist Church in Inman Square, Cambridge (Pr. Silvio Santos), the Celebration Church in Saugus (which was in Malden and Charleston under the direction of church planter Pr. Joe Souza), and the First Brazilian Baptist Church of Greater Boston (also known as the Lovely Church) with Pr. Antonio Marques Ferreira.

Assemblies of God

The first Assembly of God churches in Boston were established by Ouriel de Jesus. He was invited by Pr. Alvacir Marcondes to Somerville in 1985, and under his supervision the Assemblies of God denomination in the U.S. experienced tremendous growth. After September of 2001, Pastor de Jesus said he received a message from God to lead a great revival and began holding revival meetings all over the country and world. Currently, he is the pastor of the World Revival Church in Everett, which now has over 70 congregations throughout the U.S. and in 17 other countries with a membership exceeding 15,000.

Despite Pr. Ouriel’s success at leading revivals and church growth movements, his ministry has been accompanied by a great deal of controversy. As a result, in 2002, the church was expelled from the Assemblies of God denomination in both the U.S. and Brazil. The mother church and those he planted are no longer allowed to call themselves Assemblies of God and instead have taken the name The World Revival Church, later adding “Boston Ministries” (Pinto-Maura & Johnson, 2008). These churches continue to exist under Ouriel’s leadership.

There are 36 Brazilian Assemblies of God churches in Massachusetts, including Igreja Vida Assemblies of God (Pr. Salmon Silva) and Mission Assembly of God (Pr. Joel Assis).

Presbyterians

Several Presbyterian churches are in the Boston area. Christ the King church in Cambridge was established in the early 1980s by Pr. Osni Ferreira, who had a multicultural vision. Several additional Brazilian Presbyterian churches have been planted by this church, including New Life Presbyterian (Framingham), Bethel (Marlboro), and Christ the King (East Boston).

Church of Christ

In 1984, the Church of Christ established the Hisportic Christian Mission (HCM) in East Providence, Rhode Island, led by Rev. Wayne Long with the vision to reach Portuguese-speaking people in New England (Hisportic stands for Portuguese as Hispanic stands for Spanish). In 1990/1991 Rev. Aristones Freitas and Josimar Salum planted the first Brazilian Church in Worcester, Mass. Today there are about 46 churches that have been established through the HCM, of which 26 are in Mass., an additional 10 are in other New England states, and three are in Brazil.

Independent churches. The Foursquare Gospel Church arrived in 1991 and now has several churches throughout New England. These include the Communidade Brazileiro of Framingham, PenteBaptist (Pr. Dimitri Grant) and Malden Portuguese Foursquare Church (Pr. Cairo Marques).

Strengths and Opportunities for the Brazilian Churches in Boston and New England

Strengths

The strengths of the Brazilian churches are many. Some churches have numerous young people, many pastors are committed to preaching the Gospel, and large numbers of lay people who fill these churches take seriously their responsibility to know the Bible and to serve Christ. Brazilians as a group are well-accepted in the community. We heard stories which indicate that this is not always true for individuals, particularly with regard to immigration, but we also saw newspaper articles extolling the benefits that Brazilian churches have brought to the community! Brazilian churches can and often do reach out to contribute to their larger communities.

Nevertheless, there are many challenges, including the language barrier, how immigrants can participate in the larger culture and retain their Brazilian culture, immigration issues, and high levels of turnover among church attendees, in part because of immigration. In a series of interviews conducted in 2015, virtually everyone mentioned the challenge of finding affordable meeting space. Many churches do not have their own buildings, and, if they do, they struggle to maintain them. Renting space is increasingly expensive, and there are often problems parking near urban churches. Difficulties surrounding meeting together, an essential aspect of being a church, results in significant stress in the community.

These churches have other struggles as well. Converting new people to Christ is often hard. There is a need to raise up new pastors, because many pastors have been in the U.S. for several decades. It can be difficult to recruit young people to such a challenging ministry and one focused specifically on the Brazilian community.

Some challenges come from outside the churches and others from within. Networking among Brazilian pastors is challenging even though there are some groups that meet regularly, including BMNET (Brazilian Ministers Network), Brazilian Prayer Network of Boston, and Pastors Fraternal Union in Fall River. When asked during an interview to name the single thing that would be most helpful to them, pastors frequently said that they would like better contact with other Brazilian pastors. Nevertheless, multiple factors can limit opportunities for networking:

• Journeyman pastors work a full-time job in addition to pastoring and lack time for networking.
• Instability in church membership as members return to Brazil contributes to pastor overload and burnout.
• Pastors may compete among themselves for church members.
• The needs of first, second, and third generation immigrants are difficult to navigate. For example, churches struggle with whether to have services in English or maintain evening services as in Brazil versus the American way of holding morning services.

Opportunities

The opportunities for growth and change are many. Among them are these:

1. The Brazilian population in Massachusetts is estimated by the 2005 census to be approximately 84,000 individuals, many of whom are not in church. There is great potential for church growth within (and outside) the Brazilian population.

2. Brazilian churches can get more involved with the local and global realities, e.g., by supporting other church efforts such as limiting human trafficking.

3. They can perhaps better educate their members about the problems with the prosperity gospel, and the financial abuses that are too often perpetrated against church members (including the Ponzi scheme called Telex Free in which some pastors participated).

4. They need to strategize for the future, as more and more of their members speak English and either ask for changes in Brazilian churches, or leave for English-speaking churches.

The Brazilian churches have much to teach the larger community. Church planting appears to be a primary focus for Brazilian Christians and virtually every church visited had either already engaged in church planting or hoped to at some point. Many churches also feel called to send out missionaries. Even though we were unable to get an estimate of the number of missionaries commissioned, anecdotal evidence suggests that there are surprisingly many missionaries from these churches. And finally, at least one of these churches feels called to minister not just in their local community but around the world. In a church community that was itself not financially flush, the church has supported orphanages in Brazil and dug a much needed well in a needy community without a church, while also supporting ministries in Africa. This level of commitment is remarkable and challenging to mainstream American churches.

In conclusion, the size, energy, number of young people, and commitment to church growth in Brazilian churches should inspire the Global Church. The needs are great, and the opportunities are many for serving those engaged in these impressive churches and for ministering together in the larger community.

Endnotes

*Johnson and Zurlo (2016) report approximately 76% Catholics and 28% Protestant. These numbers refer to the percentage of all Brazilians and demonstrate that some Brazilians claim dual affiliation or membership in more than one community of believers. By their estimate, the number of dually affiliated believers is 13% of Brazilians, many of whom claim to be both Protestant and Catholic. Their estimate is based on an effort to provide a more precise estimate than the 2010 census, in part by collecting information from additional sources than the census and in part by allowing individuals to report belonging to more than one religion.

**The remaining three churches are the Assemblies of God, the Four-Square Church, and the Christian Congregation (Freston, 1999).

References

Boston Redevelopment Authority. (2012). New Bostonians 2012. BRA Research Division Analysis.

Chesnut, R. A. (1997). Born Again in Brazil: The Pentecostal Boom in Brazil: The Pentecostal Book and the Pathogens of Poverty. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Freston, Pl. (Jan-Mar, 1999). “Neo-Pentecostalism in Brazil: Problems of Definition and the Struggle for Hegemony.” Archives de sciences sociales des religions. 44E, No 105, p. 145-162.

IBGE (Institute Brazileiro de Geografia e Estatistica) (2010). Census. http://censo2010.ibge.gov.br/en/ censo-2010 Accessed 6.27.2015.

Johnson, T. M., & Zurlo, G. A. (Eds.) (2016) World Christian Database. Leiden/Boston: Brill. Accessed at worldchristiandatabase.org/wcd on 1 January 2016.

Juergensmeyer, M., & Roof, W. C. (Eds.) (2012). Encyclopedia of Global Religion. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Marques, C., & Salum, J. (2007). The Church among Brazilians in New England. In R. Mitchell & B. Corcoran (Eds.), New England’s Book of Acts. Boston: Emmanuel Gospel Center.

Pew Research Center (2013). Brazil’s Changing Religious Landscape. http://www.pewforum.org/2013/07/18/brazils-changing-religious-landscape/ Accessed 6.28.2015.

Pinto-Maura, R., & Johnson, R. (2008). Abused God. Maitland FL: Xulon Press.

U.S. Census (2009). ActivitiesUpdate_June09. Accessed on 8.2.2015 from http:// www.henrietta.org/index.php/doccenter/2010-us-census-documents/6-june-2009-census-2010-activities-update/file

This essay updates the story of the Brazilian Church in Greater Boston as told in New England’s Book of Acts (2007), originally published by the Emmanuel Gospel Center in preparation for the October 2007 Intercultural Leadership Consultation. The earlier version was written by Cairo Marques and Josimar Salum, and work on the current document began by talking with them as well as 45 other Brazilian pastors and lay people in the Greater Boston community. Their observations are integrated into the comments above. —Kaye Cook and Sharon Ketcham, February 24, 2016.

__________

See the original 2007 article on the origins of the Brazilian church movement in New England in New England’s Book of Acts.

Boston Youth Workers' Training Wish List

Boston Youth Workers' Training Wish List

Data Source: Boston Urban Leadership Initiative Survey, 2017. 50 Respondents, percentages of "Yes" or "Might Be" responses to "Please tell us what kinds of training you'd find helpful."

Data Source: Boston Urban Leadership Initiative Survey, 2017. 50 Respondents

Data Source: Boston Urban Leadership Initiative Survey, 2017. 50 Respondents

Data Source: Boston Urban Leadership Initiative Survey, 2017. 49 Respondents.

Data Source: Boston Urban Leadership Initiative Survey, 2017. 50 Respondents

OTHER TOPICS REQUESTED

1. BROADER Community Collaboration

• Networking
• Building connections with what churches and other ministries are already doing
• Church without walls - urban community ministry
• Connecting with other youth workers and learn from each others' successes and challenges
• Relating to neighborhood/community groups that spend time with young people
• Strategies for collaborating with fellow youth workers and organizations
• Mentors, Big Brothers who connect with youth
• Connecting families and youth together
• Collaborating with government and/or community organizations

2. Youth Worker Peer Fellowship

• Building connections with what churches and other ministries are already doing
• Connecting with other youth workers and learning from each other’s successes and challenges
• Strategies for collaborating with fellow youth workers and organizations
• Prayer for youth and youth ministers

3. Trauma Response & Youth in Crisis

• training in traumatized youth and their families
• grief
• homeless youth
• school dropouts
• navigating through tween and teenage years

4. Youth Engagement

• High school student behavior management strategies, tools, and best practices.
• Teaching to a variety of learners in one classroom; how to keep them all engaged; classroom management.
• Keeping youth motivated.

5. Special Topics

• Creating healthy boundaries with social media and technology and learning to discern the value and intent of information posted online. 
• Training in ADHD and autism.
• Understanding the LGBT community.
• Apologetics and how current day religions (Black Hebrew Israelites, Mormonism, Islam) attack the Gospel and how to help youth stand firm.
• How finances can help or hinder serving and helping underserved youth.
• How to manage and organize your time and your workload to have a stress-free and smooth work life!

The Unsolved Leadership Challenge

The Unsolved Leadership Challenge

AIM OF THIS STUDY

In this study of new church development in Greater Boston, we identified at least 95 new congregations which have started in the last seven years. Forty-six were within the city limits of Boston. We completed 41 in-depth interviews with church planters who represented several different denominations, ethnic groups, and networks. The research yielded general information about the church planters and the new churches, with a special focus on women in leadership. The hope is that this study can become a source of “mainstreaming” gender parity discourse within the church, as part of an overall discussion of the practical needs of church planters in the areas of leadership and ministry development

A Report on the 2014 Woven Consultation Day for Christian Women Leaders

Why a Consultation Day

Christian churches believe that all people, regardless of race, ethnicity or gender, are created in the image of God. Yet, often the Church falls short of honoring that image. Anecdotal and statistical evidence shows that women face disproportionate levels of violence, discrimination and challenge at least as much in churches as out.

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.

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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! 

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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