Urban Ministry | Christian Standard, September 2017 focuses on the challenges, opportunities, and gospel work of churches serving cities and urban neighborhoods. Through interviews, feature articles, and ministry profiles, this issue explores how Christian leaders approach church planting, discipleship, reconciliation, and community engagement in places marked by diversity, poverty, mobility, and spiritual need.
The issue highlights urban church planting through a conversation with Eric Metcalf and examines current demographic realities in urban, suburban, and rural settings. Several major stories show how ministries are responding to city life with both compassion and conviction. Aaron Brockett writes about Traders Point’s downtown Indianapolis campus and its effort to remove barriers to Jesus. Jerry Harris tells the powerful story of David Johnson and Harvest Pointe Church in North Charleston, where personal transformation and reconciliation stand at the center of ministry. Walt Wilcoxson profiles LOVEtheLOU in North St. Louis, emphasizing the importance of demonstrating and declaring the gospel. Justin Horey and Matt Summers describe Crossroads Christian Church in Joliet and the unusual story of a new church planted in an old church.
Additional articles address millennials, leadership, grace in ministry, the NACC, and inner-city ministry through Samson Dunn’s work at Catalyst Church in Phoenix. Together, these pieces present urban ministry as demanding, relational, and deeply hopeful.
For readers researching urban ministry, this issue offers a strong snapshot of how churches seek to proclaim Christ faithfully in complex city contexts.
