Keller: Ministry in Major City Centers — Part 1

I am a big fan of Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian in NYC. I came across this excellent article of his entitled Our New Global Culture: Ministry in Major City Centers. He looks at who lives in the major global cities, like Chicago, what are the marks of a city-center culture, and how to be effective in city centers. As Park‘s vision is to renew the city, through sharing the Gospel, serving the city, expanding through church planting and multi-site with live teaching, it is helpful to use Keller’s excellent analysis to zero in on who lives among us and the ministry implications. We have learned these truths over the last 20 years and each of these shapes how we do ministry in Chicago.

1) The city-center is a culture of expertise. People who live in city centers are usually highly skilled and highly educated. Ministry implications: a) Artistic quality is very important. Amateurish art and music will not go over well, especially with the high percentage of center-city residents who are themselves artists. And the post-modern “turn” puts more emphasis on the visual, on graphics, and on embodiment. b) Commun- ication needs to be very high in quality and be highly intelligent. There is a surprising amount of anti-intellectualism within the evangelical world. (People have noticed for years that campus fellowships at Ivy League schools are often very anti-intellectual and pietistic.)

2) City-center people are living in their career. Many people work in order to come home and have a life. But city-center people essentially inhabit their careers. It is also so expensive to live in city centers that most have to work hard to make enough money to stay there. Ministry implications: You can’t just disciple people on how to be Christians in their private lives (e.g. prayer, witnessing, Bible study). Centercity people don’t have much in the way of a “private life.” If you are in finance or art or acting or medicine your vocation dominates your life and your time. Discipleship must include how to be distinctively Christian within your job, including how to handle the peculiar temptations and ethical quandaries, and how to produce work in one’s field from a distinctly Christian world-view.

3) City-center people are very sexually active and believe their sexuality is completely private—that is, their business alone. Ministry implications: There must be a lack of prudishness about sex, coupled with strong teaching on the Christian understanding of sex: that it is designed for lifetime commitment and for community-building, not personal gratification. The area of sex and gender is (currently) politically explosive, so it is crucial that teaching in this area be smart, irenic, and nuanced—in other words, carefully co-opting existing cultural narratives (about freedom, identity, and community, for example) while upholding a Biblical viewpoint. Even strong Christians in city-centers will be under great temptation to be sexually active in various ways that can undermine or destroy their spiritual effectiveness.

4) City-center people have consumer identities. Traditional culture had “thick” communities in which identity was experienced through one’s role in the family and society. Modern and post-modern culture thins out community (through mobility), and “frees” individuals to create their own identity. This leaves us vulnerable to consumerism, in which we obtain a sense of both status and distinctiveness by the things we purchase. Consumer-identities turn everything—including church—into commodities that are simply designed to meet needs. Ministry implications: The two points above— consumerism and sexuality—pose enormous challenges to the church. Center-city people will spend most of their time achieving identity in work and accruing wealth and “consuming” church programs that help them along the way, instead of identifying with the church community and changing lives of others through sharing their wealth. City-center churches will need to develop a strong emphasis on the importance of commitment to community.

5) City-center people are the most rootless people (geographically, socially, historically) in the world (don’t we know that at Park!). Modern capitalism uproots people from geography in the quest for work and money. The modern world-view has disdained the past and tended to make people also feel historically rootless. Ministry implications: Post-moderns are extremely interested in the historic roots of the church. For this reason, a renewal of liturgy coupled with eclectic music and art (for example, drawing on opera, Mozart, jazz and gospel music) does a better job at addressing the longing for historic roots than does much of “contemporary worship”. In terms of geographic rootlessness, the city-center church recognizes the critical importance of both high quality and accessible small groups, and also the development of infra-structure to support Christians living long-term in cities (for example, schools, community centers, credit unions).

6) City-center people are pragmatic rather than rational or linear in their thinking. Modernity elevated action over contemplation, while postmodernism creates enormous skepticism about reasoning and truth. Together they create a culture in which people believe “it’s true if it works for me” rather than “it works for me because it’s true.” Implications: a) We have to adapt to this. 1) We need to lift up the reality of changed lives. 2) We need to teach the Bible narratively, about the mission of God to redeem creation through Jesus, not just a set of information. 3) We need to create great community, because that is (according to Jesus in John 17) a crucial “apologetic.” 4) We need to use varieties of art to embody our message, not just give talks containing long strings of logic. b) But we also must challenge pragmatism at every turn. If people believe in Christ because it “works” for them, they have fitted Christ to their individualistic worldview rather than fitting their worldview to Christ.

7) City-center people are ironic and suspicious of authority and institutions (especially religious ones.) Overly slick and glossy presentations are suspect. Sentimentality, earnestness, and “niceness” can seem phony and manipulative. There is disdain for the obvious in art and communication. Ministry implications: Leadership must take great pains to be open, not to hide information or be “political.” Worship leading and music can’t be sentimental or manipulative. Don’t use “we-them” language. Don’t be disrespectful to doubters. Communication needs to be free of evangelical “jargon”. The use of humor is extremely important (such as gentle, humble irony). It’s important to admit how faith and religion can be used to oppress people, and thus show that the gospel is the strongest critique of “religion.” But also challenge relentless cynicism. Deconstruct deconstructionism—show that doubts can actually be self-serving alternate beliefs.

8 ) City-center culture is very multi-ethnic and international, much more so than the suburbs or even than certain inner-city areas. Ministry implications: It is crucial for center-city churches to be as deliberately multi-ethnic as possible and to promote and celebrate diversity-unity in Christ as evidence of the gospel’s power. Stress the gospel’s resources for embracing the “Other.” The more dominant cultural groups must humble themselves and “stretch” to make room for those less well-represented. Great care must be taken not to allow the church to be too beholden to one political party or political agenda, or cultural diversity will be hard to maintain. At the same time, each multi-ethnic church will be unavoidably different from the others, because the ethnic make-up of each church will be different.

9 ) City-center people are deeply concerned for justice and the poor. At least in principle! Most center-city people, because of their international connections and education, are less parochial and have a theoretical commitment to helping the poor—but their jobs and consumer identities prevent them from much concrete action on behalf of others. Ministry implications: Show that the gospel is the faith of choice for the poor of the world. They don’t embrace secularism, but Jesus! Show the resources of Christianity for having hope in the future. At the end of the Bible we don’t see individuals being taken out of the world into heaven, but heaven coming down to renew the world and cleanse it of evil, disease, injustice, death. Finally, your church cannot simply do the typical “charity” and volunteer programs. The church has to ask how it is going to really make a difference in its city for the poor. Most important of all is to have an extremely positive view of your city: Tell people the purpose of your ministry is not simply to create a great church but a great city. The church is there for the common good of the whole city (Jer 29:4ff.)