Articles for tag: Urban Ministry

August 11, 2018

Christian Standard

Next-Door Urban Ministry

By Lancelot Schaubert “I understand that Haiti is hurting: It’s the whipping boy of the world.” My friend winced, and I immediately knew I’d used a poor metaphor. “It’s that,” he said, “but it’s all of these people”—he pointed to fellow Christians leaving a church—“going to Haiti on extravagant mission trips and doing nothing for the Haitian next-door.” We were standing on a street in Manhattan while eating pastrami sandwiches and kettle chips. He offered me the final piece of a puzzle that has slowly formed over the last few years of our bizarre ministry in New York City. It

April 11, 2018

Christian Standard

3 Ways ‘Blade Runner’ Predicted the Future of Church and Why We Should Pay Attention

By Mel McGowan A highlight for me during 2017 was the opportunity to revisit the world of my favorite movie of all time—Blade Runner—with the release of an updated installment called Blade Runner 2049. More people likely would have seen the original Blade Runner in 1982 but for its misfortune of coming out the same summer as E.T. But for me, the original was life-changing. It is the movie God used to drive me to study film and architecture and, ultimately, to instill in me a lifelong passion for creating the future. Sci-fi author William Gibson said, “Blade Runner changed

February 7, 2018

Christian Standard

Denzil Holness Spreads a Message of Racial Reconciliation

By Jacqueline J. Holness Had Denzil D. Holness been hired as a pastor in Coward, South Carolina, or Peculiar, Missouri, or any other out-of-the-way American town or city, he may not have been led to take on racial reconciliation in the Christian church. However, since Holness was hired as the first black pastor at Central Christian Church in Atlanta, Georgia, “The City Too Busy to Hate,” it would seem tackling racial reconciliation was God’s plan for him all along.   Committed to Christian Church Principles Holness became CCC’s pastor in September 1979 and in December 2017, he retired from ministry

September 9, 2017

Christian Standard

Inner-City Catalyst: An Interview with Samson Dunn

By Rick Lowry Samson Dunn serves as lead pastor with Catalyst Church in Phoenix, Arizona, a culturally diverse church committed exclusively to reaching the inner city. Over the past 10 years, Catalyst has grown from a small urban work to two campuses that touch thousands of people weekly. Samson”s personal journey and the church”s journey have followed a nontraditional path. Their story will expand the vision of any church leader who takes the gospel of Christ seriously.   QUESTION: Your upbringing didn”t prepare you for ministry in the traditional way. SAMSON DUNN: I”m from southern Kentucky, Monroe County. My parents

September 8, 2017

Christian Standard

If We Want to Reach Millennials, We Must Think Like Veronica

By Haydn Shaw My writing collaborator and I put together most of my book Generational IQ while occupying a corner table at a local Smashburger restaurant. We spent so much time there that the entire staff got to know us. One afternoon, the manager, Veronica, asked how the book was coming along. She said she reads business books, so we talked about my first book, Sticking Points. When I told her Generational IQ was a look at the spiritual lives of the generations, she lit up and told us her grandmother was a devout Catholic. Her mother had been raised

September 7, 2017

Christian Standard

A Heart for Our City

By Aaron Brockett Six years ago, I wasn”t sure how I felt about multisite. I wanted to believe the best about all the hype I had heard about becoming one church meeting in multiple locations, but I didn”t want to throw my support behind it prematurely. I especially didn”t want to lead Traders Point Christian Church in this direction if we hadn”t clearly established the “why” behind it. I believe God calls every church to multiply (Acts 2), however I don”t think this means every church should become a multisite church. (The many reasons for this lie outside the focus of

September 6, 2017

Jerry Harris

Letter from the Publisher

By Jerry Harris My favorite thing about publishing Christian Standard is how much I am learning. In just a few short months, I have been exposed to stories and ministries that have challenged and inspired me greatly. But this issue has wrecked me the most. A sidebar to one of the articles describes a tree in North St. Louis. I was there on a nearly 100-degree day to speak with Lucas Rouggly and his family while we took pictures for the magazine. When we returned to the car to head home, I faced some hard reflection. For 19 years, I

September 3, 2017

Christian Standard

An Inside Look at Urban, Suburban, and Rural Communities and Churches

By Kent Fillinger To reflect the themes this month and next””urban ministry and rural ministry, respectively””I”ve written a two-part article that captures the present realities for both and adds some insights on suburban areas as well. I”ve examined our recent church survey data and other relevant research to identify notable differences and national trends for each type of ministry location. I don”t intend to proclaim one location type as better than another, but rather to share some commonalities and differences based on research findings and facts from the larger story taking place in our country. My goal is to help

September 1, 2017

Christian Standard

A New Church Planted in an Old Church

By Matt Summers This month, Crossroads Christian Church (the urban church we planted in Joliet, Illinois) celebrates its 10-year anniversary. During that time, we have grown from several dozen people into a thriving congregation of more than a thousand with a vision to reach thousands more for Christ. We have built our ministry by meeting the social and spiritual needs of our community. We have baptized 500 people into Christ, remodeled our original church building, built a larger worship center, started a Spanish-speaking congregation, and now we are relocating to a new building that will facilitate even greater growth and

August 31, 2017

Christian Standard

Free Indeed: Crossroads Christian Church, Joliet, Illinois

By Justin Horey Joliet, Illinois, is a prison town. The Joliet Correctional Center opened in 1858 and housed inmates for nearly 150 years until it was closed in 2002. The prison shaped Joliet”s culture for a century and a half, even bringing fame and notoriety; it served as the setting of the opening scene in the 1980 movie The Blues Brothers and the site of the first season of the Fox television drama Prison Break. Even though that prison has been closed for 15 years, the Statesville Correctional Center remains open just outside of town, so the prison influence continues.

August 24, 2017

Jerry Harris

David Johnson and a Harvest of Reconciliation

By Jerry Harris It was November in Charleston, South Carolina, but for our group of northerners it didn”t feel like late fall on that beautiful and warm Sunday morning. We had arrived early for meetings that would take place over the next two days, and so we took the opportunity to attend church services at Harvest Pointe Church in suburban North Charleston. It would prove to be a new experience for many of us. At that time, Harvest Pointe was a noninstrumental African-American church of Christ, a part of our brotherhood we had very little connection with until the past

August 20, 2017

Christian Standard

LOVEtheLOU: Demonstrating and Declaring the Gospel in North St. Louis

By Walt Wilcoxson North St. Louis, Missouri, is a place of contrasting realities: rich and poor, black and white, peaceful and violent, hopeful and hopeless. These distinctions are visible and well known. The term “Delmar Divide” neatly sums it up, as Delmar Boulevard divides this area”s poorer, larger African-American community to its north from the more affluent (and largely white) communities to the south. Families and young people who are among the “have-nots” of North St. Louis encounter desperation and despair every day. On this hot and humid morning just before lunchtime, Lucas Rouggly and I stood watching as a

August 19, 2017

Christian Standard

Urban Church Planting: A Conversation with Eric Metcalf

By David Dummitt When I was first invited to write an article about urban church planting, I planned to write about trends, research, data, and the like. But after thinking about it some more, I decided that rather than share my thoughts, it would be more powerful to share the insights of someone in the proverbial trenches of urban church planting. I recently sat down with Eric Metcalf, a colleague, fellow church planter, and friend. Eric and his wife, Erin, are church planters in downtown Chicago. Eric is also the residency catalyst for NewThing. Their passion for the Jesus mission,

June 5, 2017

Christian Standard

Urban Churches, Creative Solutions

By Brent Storms Where to meet presents special challenges for new congregations in expensive, congested cities. Urban churches are finding solutions that offer lessons for anyone”s church building decisions. One of the biggest challenges of starting a church in a city center or urban context is finding the right facility for Sunday gatherings. Space is limited. Landlords are skeptical. Prices are (often) outrageous. One example of the challenges: hotly contested lawsuits have bounced from court to court over whether churches should be allowed to rent New York City public schools for religious services. Some churches have been in public schools,

December 9, 2016

Christian Standard

I Could Totally/Never Do That!

By Jennifer Johnson Two mistakes are easy to make when reading B.J. Leonard“s story. The first is to think you could never do what he did””give up your dream house in the suburbs to move into the inner city with your wife and three young kids. The second is to believe you could totally do what he did because you”ve romanticized it as a sequel to The Blind Side. B.J., his wife, Mary, and his daughters aren”t reaching out to urban Decatur, IL, because it”s easy, but they”re also not doing it to experience the warm fuzzy feelings of “saving”

December 9, 2016

Christian Standard

Missions Pastor”s Family Part of the Neighborhood

By Jennifer Johnson “A number of churches were moving to the suburbs, but we made a commitment to stay,” B.J. Leonard says. First Christian Church in Decatur, IL, has seen lots of change during its 180 years in the city. However, over the last 15 years some of the area”s bigger manufacturing and industrial companies have shut down and left, the unemployment rate soared, and people began to move. The congregation had to wrestle with its future. “We sensed God was leading us to reach outside our building and try to make a difference where we are,” says Leonard, missions

November 21, 2016

Christian Standard

Studying the City: Hope International University

By Jennifer Johnson Several of the colleges and universities affiliated with our movement understand the need to reach their own cities while preparing students for an urban future. Here”s what one of them is doing. ________ HOPE INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY Fullerton, California The U.S. Census Bureau defines an urban area as “comprising one or more central places, and the adjacent densely-settled surrounding territory, that together have a minimum of 50,000 people.” So while cities like New York and Chicago certainly qualify as urban, so do urban sprawl areas like Anaheim, California. “Anaheim is home to 350,000 people,” says Kip Lines, professor

November 20, 2016

Christian Standard

Studying the City: Ozark Christian College

By Jennifer Johnson Several of the colleges and universities affiliated with our movement understand the need to reach their own cities while preparing students for an urban future. Here”s what one of them is doing. ________ OZARK CHRISTIAN COLLEGE Joplin, Missouri At first glance, Ozark seems an unlikely place to study urban ministry. “Most of our students come from small-to-medium-size towns,” says Mike Ackerman, professor of church planting and New Testament. “Some of them have never even been to a large city. But we need to care about cities because the world is moving to cities.” Previous study opportunities included

November 19, 2016

Christian Standard

Studying the City: Johnson University

By Jennifer Johnson Several of the colleges and universities affiliated with our movement understand the need to reach their own cities while preparing students for an urban future. Here”s what one of them is doing. ________ JOHNSON UNIVERSITY Knoxville, Tennessee, & Kissimmee, Florida Across the country, Johnson University has developed a variety of programs for its own students, for local high school and middle school students, and for the surrounding communities. In Knoxville, Kenny Woodhull leads the Urban Alliance, a Johnson initiative that partners with local organizations to offer educational experiences, mentoring, and leadership development. “A few years ago, a

November 13, 2016

Christian Standard

The Church Needs the Hood

By Justin Horey It took a gang member for Tommy Nixon to understand grace. In 2002, Nixon cofounded Solidarity, a ministry designed to “help churches transform their cities,” but after a decade living and working in the low-income neighborhoods of Fullerton, California, he was frustrated. Nixon”s work with Solidarity had introduced him to a number of local gang members, and he had been ministering to one in particular for 10 years””but the young man”s life wasn”t changing. Despite Nixon”s efforts to help him, the gang member wound up in jail, and even was deported. Nixon recalls turning to God in

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