JANUARY 2002

Our City Churches: What Shape Are They in At the Beginning of a New Year?

State of America’s City Churches – 2002

By Roger Johnson, editor – CityVoices

Tucked into late December’s analyses of all that our nation had been through in year 2001, was the annual and somewhat disappointing set of statistics centered around homicides in our nation’s biggest cities during the past twelve months. Killings had increased sharply in American cities, led by Boston with a 67 percent increase and Phoenix with a 60 percent increase. Chicago led the nation in total number of homicides with 644. New York had 617 homicides for the same period, in addition to its horrific set of September devastations.

The December 21^st report came with some simple reasoning for the increase in stats. Charles Ramsey, Washington, DC’s police chief offered two possible explanations: 1) the downturn in the economy, and 2) an increase in family killings after years of declines driven by greater attention to domestic violence.

Ramsey continued, "The economy is the best indicator of whether crime will continue to increase. It doesn’t take long before you start seeing that impact at street level. It touches everyone; it just reaches people in poorer neighborhoods first. If this becomes long term, believe me, you will see the difference."

Another factor in the increase in homicides is the rising number of prison inmates being released, the flip side of the prison building boom of the last two decades. The number of inmates released from state and federal prisons is projected to reach 635,000 this year, up from 474,300 in 1995. "Prison is basically a place to learn crime," Sgt. John Pasquarello of the Los Angeles Police Department said, "so when these guys come out, we see many of them getting back into drug operations, and this leads to fights and killings."

Chief Ramsey’s words concerning the economic downturn being the best indicator for an increase in criminal statistics, particularly homicides, is especially haunting when played out on the streets of America’s cities. The economy is no longer Wall Street’s problem. It is no longer a gentile Friday night PBS discussion program; it is no longer the schedule that makes life "go" on a 9 to 5 basis. Instead, the economy that Chief Ramsey speaks of now becomes an enemy to all American families. Few are exempt from the threat of a distraught young person who before being given the chance to prove his worth in the work world is systematically filtered out. The cops, the rich, the government, you, me, we are all his targets. And he just may get us! After all, hundreds of thousands have already been in and out of prison, studying crime and killing.

So what about the economy? Why then is it so important?

We hear that we are spinning our way our out of the recession that we thought we were mired in back before Christmas 2001. And that would sound like good news if you are an expert who produces such analyses from the top down, I would think.

Well, the picture from the back alley looking out to the street corner is probably a bit different. It’s about jobs, just as the President accurately tells us, but from another vantage point. And all vantage points must be seen in order to complete this economic picture; otherwise we in danger of operating with no picture at all.

Consider the perspective of a 20-year-old I’ve recently spoken with who after being released from a year in jail, was also "released" from the first job he knew, with little warning. Few skills, no diploma, little hope – he needs all that Jesus and the local church can provide him with right now.

Think of the immigrant workers waiting in line for work each morning. Sure one could argue that they could do better for themselves if they would only enter American society as documented citizens. But that ends up as quite a dead-end argument. I’m simply asking you to consider their plight, earning two or three day’s wages for every five or six days that they wait in line.

Consider the vantage point of the hard-core unemployed – those who once tried temping or day labor, but have now lost confidence and even a chance to be considered "employable." The unemployment stats don’t even include these people! They mere gaze into their TV screens and rarely bother to think about working again. If the government has alleviated its own guilt through an entitlement program, why should the individual feel any initiative of his or her own?

Yep, it’s all about jobs! Good jobs! Either that, or the American dream blows up in our face, right here in Dallas, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York, Chicago, Miami, Detroit, St. Louis and Washington, DC. It also explodes in otherwise good places like Charlotte, Des Moines, Columbus, St. Paul, Portland and Austin, TX.

City churches do fit in here. In fact, they’re critical components in the entire mix. One school of thought would say that with American economic life in danger of hitting a low ebb, city churches are also in danger of hitting low water marks as well. And there is much truth to that happening all around. John DiIulio, Jr., University of Pennsylvania faculty member (and former Whiter House advisor), in addressing the Partners for Sacred Spaces dinner last April, spoke of how church property decline affects the dislocation of those congregation’s social services: "When the buildings crumble, the programs crumble too – they just don’t move to the Ramada Inn."

This past December, Partners for Sacred Spaces identified Ten Sacred Places to Save across the United States.

Included among that list are such historic city churches as: Chicago’s Pilgrim Baptist Church, Detroit’s Cass Community United Methodist Church, Manhattan’s Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew, New Haven’s Omega Seventh-day Adventist Church, Kansas City’s Grace United Church and Los Angeles’ Immanuel Presbyterian Church.

In summary, A. Robert Jaeger, co-director of Partners of Sacred Places, said "Unless government, corporations and philanthropy can develop new sources of capital funding for these and other endangered sacred places, America will begin losing historic buildings as well as the vital social services they house."

City churches reach up to the mighty, down to the powerless, and all across the economic spectrum to bring people together at the foot of the cross of Jesus. At this juncture in history, that’s precisely what’s so good about the city church – it’s ability to help us transcend time, space and yes, even economics. We can all come together around Jesus, we can all come together at the foot of his cross – even when we don’t want to!

The State of America’s city church? It may not be as healthy as it could be. It may not be as triumphant as some would like to see it become. (Chicago alone is home to more than 25,000 churches. Lord knows, many of them are not healthy.) But the city church in America is important – playing as important and significant a role as it has ever played throughout its history. City churches, like the economy itself, are crucial indicators and factors for lives of many individuals, rich and poor, privileged and underprivileged, educated and illiterate. The city church is both equalizer and enricher, provoker and sustainer. She will remain, light and life for us all. Amen.

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Hot Jobs Equal Cool Cities

By at least one agency’s standards, the locations for America’s hot job markets makes for a direct correlation with what constitutes a "cool city" in present-day urban American culture. At least that’s what Next Generation Consulting, and its urban talent guru, Rebecca Ryan, is trying to tell us with its latest ranking of "Hot Jobs-Cool Communities." Take a look and see if you don’t agree (or disagree) with what’s hot and what’s cool.

Rank Cool Community Hot Jobs Entry Level Salary

1 San Francisco, CA Charles Schwab www.schwab.com $41,648

2 Minneapolis, MN Born Information Services www.born.com $40,000

3 Seattle, WA WRQ www.wrq.com $37,500

4 Boston, MA International Data Group www.idg.com $36.900

5 Denver, CO Rocky Mountain School of Exped Learning N/A

6 Portland, OR Wieden & Kennedy www.wk.com N/A

7 Washington, DC Fannie Mae www.fanniemae.com $46,500

8 Austin, TX Whole Foods Market www.wholefoodsmarket.com $35.693

9 Chicago, IL Arthur Andersen www.arthurandersen.com $41,078

10 Milwaukee, WI Harley Davidson www.harley-davidson.com $42,500

11 New York, NY Goldman Sachs www.gs.com $55,000

12 Nashville, TN Frontline Group www.front-linegroup.com N/A

13 Pittsburgh, PA Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild N/A

14 Los Angeles, CA Amgen www.amgen.com $74,164

15 Atlanta, GA Alston & Bird www.alston.com $100,000

Data available from Next Generation Consulting, (888) 922-9596 or rebecca@keepyoungtalent.com.

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The Christmas Tree and the Easter Cross

(This short selection is borrowed from Fr. Dominic Grassi’s fine little book, "Bumping Into God: Thirty-five Stories of Finding Grace in Unexpected Places." Loyola Press, 1999. Dom Grassi is Pastor of Chicago’s St. Josaphat Parish, an active servant in his community, and also finds time to serve as a CityVoices board member. His books are available through CityVoices.)

It is unfortunate that I sometimes separate the wonderful living reality of the liturgical year into stagnant components with formal names. They become Christmas and Easter, "holidays" to be celebrated. When this happens, writing homilies becomes difficult, and the results are shallow at best. I can usually survive on clever word games made passable by a quarter century’s experience.

So it was one recent Christmas. Panic was setting in at 10:30 pm. On Christmas Eve. My homily for the midnight and morning Masses was not yet in shape. So I had to settle for a funny family anecdote and a catchy phrase: " celebration of small miracles." Using that, along with the glue of bravado, I created a pleasing-enough homily for the two Mass congregations that would fill the church. I did not know I was preparing myself to encounter the mystery to encounter of God’s way and how it is so awesomely reflected in the connectedness of the seasons of faith. Christmas leads Easter; the birth of the savior ultimately leads to Jesus’ death and, more important, Jesus’ resurrection.

After the service, a woman – whom I’d never seen before and haven’t seen since – approached, saying that she had a message for me. She waited patiently while I completed my litany of "Merry Christmases" to members of the congregation as they departed into the cold winter morning. When I finally turned to her and asked what the message might be, she simply said, "You have a lot of work to do, so take care of yourself. Your have to get it all done." Then she turned and walked out of church, a belated Gabriel, leaving behind a disturbing and mysterious message.

Just one week later I was stumbling through a passionless New Year’s Eve homily, trying vainly to communicate how, in the coming year, we needed to take the risk of pouring out all the blessings God had so lovingly given us during the past year. As I preached I was more than a little distracted by an obviously disturbed young woman (twenty-your? twenty-five? It was hard to tell her age) who through the Mass talked to a ragged doll she held in her arms. Some of the parishioners also were uncomfortable with her actions. Just my luck, I though. After a while, a priest can develop a sixth sense about someone with a problem in church. No mystery here. This was just what I needed on the last night of the year. I hoped she would just go away.

After Mass I was extinguishing the Christmas candles and unplugging the Italian lights on the trees when she walked around the rapidly emptying church. Finally, she walked right up to me and asked in a gruff voice for a bathroom. Against my better judgment I pointed it out to her. And then I waited. She took her time there and still was not ready to depart.

Standing there, I gauged how stern I would have to be to get her out of the church so I could lock up. I watched her as she walked slowly to the large crucifix at the back of the church and then over to the parish Christmas tree decorated with ornaments brought in by parishioners.

Suddenly, the connection between the tree of Christmas and the cross of Easter hit me somewhere between my hardened heart and my blinded eyes. Even as one mystery revealed itself, another would take its place. Why would God become one like us? Be born into our world? Why would God choose to die on a cross? What does the Resurrection mean?

I realized that, yes, the previous week’s mysterious message to me was valid. I did indeed have work to do. But it would be no grand project. No, it would be just some small miracles. That would be my work this year. And the challenge to begin stood before me right then and there. It was all coming together in a special way at that moment. The mystery of the Resurrection began at the moment of Jesus’ birth.

The woman touched the tree. I asked her if she wanted an ornament for herself. At first she looked shocked. Then she smiled and asked shyly if indeed she could have one. After I nodded, she asked me which one. A simple wooden carving caught my eye. It was Gabriel blowing his horn, bringing his message. I handed it to her and said that it was a special one. Mystery solved, I started to feel proud of myself.

But then she thanked me, and as we walked out of the church she suddenly showed me her doll and asked me softly if I liked her baby. She gave it a kiss. Oh, my loving God! The tree and the cross together really. What was her pain? I wondered. What was her loss? What had happened in her life that all she had was a doll to hold on to? What, God, could all this mean? Why? How can we sing "Joy to the World" and face the cross of Jesus at the same time? "It’s a beautiful baby," I assured her. It was the smallest of miracles. That’s all we could share.

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The New Jerusalem

By Kathleen Norris, taken from her best-selling collection of essays, "Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith," Riverhead Books, 1998.

In the cosmology of my dreams, Manhattan is the New Jerusalem. And when I was first struggling for an adult Christian faith, my dreams often came in sequences that would lead me toward the city. Over on three-night period, for example, I tried to cross the Hudson River into Manhattan but always failed. On the third night, the friend, a minister, who had promised me a ride into the holy city instead left me stranded, struck in a parking garage in Fort Lee, New Jersey. I had no money, no identification, no means of transport, and seemingly, no escape.

Manhattan loomed, a tantalizing presence on the horizon. It had an unearthly glow, not the harsh light of fluorescent offices and corporate power, but something whose beauty I could not grasp or name. Suddenly, I found myself there, having crossed over without knowing how. The river was burnished gold, and I was part of a vast crowd in a colorful, joyous, somewhat raucous liturgical procession that stretched for blocks.

It is all a matter of looking, and of seeing. Isaiah says: "Those who have not been told shall see, those who have not heard shall ponder it" (52:15). The first time I saw the Pulaski Skyway, on the outskirts of Manhattan, I felt, as if I were passing holy ground should take off my shoes. The simplest explanation is that I was dislocated, and in shock. Having just come from the bright green world of Hawaii, I had never imagined a landscape as stark and industrial as the one that lay before me. The highway of iron disappearing into the air seemed so strange and massive as to be a god. Years later, a friend from Union City told me that the skyway had indeed been the road to heaven when he was a child. Every Sunday his family would crowd into their old car and fly through the air to his grandmother’s apartment on the lower East Side.

And here is what I saw for myself not long ago, leaving Newark Airport late one night, near midnight; the Skyway brooding like a dark angel in blood-red air, while Manhattan disappears behind the enormous buffalo hump of a hill. I recall that herds of bison used to graze here, on the Piedmont Plateau. A single tree stands silhouetted in the haze, and the Empire State Building winks above an enormous warehouse that says "Bonaventure" in illuminated letters.

I laugh, because I know what the word means: "Bonaventure, a good thing happening," another version of "bon voyage," And it also means that a saint has traveled from thirteenth-century Italy to the New Jersey Turnpike just outside Newark, ever onward into the mind of God. It is only a warehouse, but it has become a blessing; bon voyage, the white letters seem to whisper, as the weariness of travel fades away. My head clears, and my vision.

It is all in the seeing, and the saying: what came as revelation to John of Patmos, that heaven is a city, and not a solitude. And what came to Thomas Merton on first seeing the Abbey of Gethsemani: "this is the only city in America," he wrote to a friend. On my one visit there, the way a wildflower waver at me in a sudden breeze caused me to start, to turn and stare. Rooted at the edge of a steep ravine, it sounded the word "freedom" like a bell.

And here is what I saw: Manhattan before me, a city made of stars, and human beings, all of whom, the physicists now tell us, were once the stuff of stars. Light. And I thought of the words of Psalm 97, which I had read distractedly on the plane: "Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright of heart"(v. 11, KJV). Light a seed, and the city Jerusalem, grounded in peace.