February 25, 2003

"State of the City Church"

CityVoices readers,

Greetings at this end of February. With this electronic edition, CityVoices now starts coming to you on a monthly basis. We hope to do a more timely job of covering the urban scene for each of our readers, which still remaining faithful to our original mission of connecting and resourcing city pastors and urban leaders with the best possible biblical and ministry tools available. Stay in touch from time to tell us how we are doing. Increasingly, CityVoices is becoming a healthy dialogue from which we can all benefit.

Amidst the several responses to January’s Los Angeles edition was a very helpful set of correctives to some of our "fast and loose" population figure’s on L.A. and the metro L.A. region submitted by Duane Anderson, of Resources for Biblical Church Development. His letter follows:

Dear Mr. Johnson:

A friend forwarded a copy of your article on the city of Los Angeles in City Voices. As an individual who has lived in the Los Angeles metropolitan area for more than 40 years, including 8 where I could see Los Angles city hall from my apartment, I would like to clarify some of your statistics in your paragraph on the city of Los Angeles. In addition, I have been involved in ethnic ministry throughout that time.

One of the things that is almost always misunderstood in articles like yours is that every single person that is listed as Hispanic is also listed in a race category because Hispanic is an ethnic category rather than a race category. When the census figures as published by the census bureau are read from left to right, this is how it totals.

White - 1,734, 036, African American - 415,195, Native American - 29,412, Asian American - 369,254, Hawaiian & Pacific Islander - 5,915, Other Race - 949,720, Two or more races - 191,288 Total - 3,694,820
Hispanic - 1,719,073
Grand Total - 5,413,893
Which is 1,719,073 more than the actual census total

When the census figures as published by the census bureau are read from right to left, this is how it totals

Hispanic - 1,719,073 - 46.5%, Two or more races - 191,288 5.2%, Other Race - 949,720 25.7%, Hawaiian and Pacific Islander - 5,915 .16%, Asian - 369,254 10%, Native American - 29,412 .8%, African American - 415,195 11.3%
Total - 3,679,857
Since the total Los Angeles city population is 3,694,820, that would leave a White total of only 14,963.

In actual fact approximately 1.15 million of more of those listed as Hispanics are also listed as White.
Approximately 500,000 or more Hispanics are also listed as Other Race
Approximately 100,000 or less are included in the other Race categories.
As you can see, most people have a major problem and cannot interpret the numbers if they do not understand that all Hispanics are also included in some other group. In actual fact, there are between 500,000 and 600,000 Whites that are non-Hispanic in the city of Los Angeles. As a result, the following title and percentages would be more accurate to describe the city of Los Angeles.

Los Angeles city ethnic population
Hispanic - 46.5%, Two or more Races - 5.2%, Other Race - 9 to 10%, Hawaiian and Pacific Islander - 0.16%, Asian - 10%, Native American - 0.8%, African American - 11.3%, White - 16 to 17%
The key to remember is that all of those that are listed as Hispanic are also listed in some other group by race throughout Los Angeles and the entire country.
Los Angeles city - 3,694,820 46.5% Hispanic, Los Angeles county - 9,519,338 44.6% Hispanic, Los Angeles metropolitan area - 16,373,865 40.3% Hispanic
Hispanic Population: Los Angeles city - 1,719,073 Los Angeles County - 4,242,213 Los Angeles metropolitan area - 6,598,488

Ethnic Population
Los Angeles metropolitan area - 10,388,766
This means that the entire region is 63.4% ethnic
This is 11.4% of the total ethnic population in the United States

A clear understanding of the differences that I have pointed out are of critical importance for the church both in the Los Angeles area and throughout the nation.

Since your previous article talked about the Valley Secession movement in Los Angeles, it might also be important to note that the ethnic breakdown of the Valley is very few percentage points different from Los Angeles city as a whole.

In Christ,
Duane Anderson
Resources for Biblical Church Development
http://www.aibi.org

As I say, let’s stay in touch, and continue to make CityVoices much more than a monologue experience!

Give another fast look at the CityVoices website (www.cityvoices.com) and punch up the banner for:

1. SCUPE’s Congress on Urban Ministry, March 11-14th, here in Chicago. If you haven’t been to one of these bi-annual events before, don’t miss out on this chance. It’s one of the best urban resource events conducted on a continuing basis! Highlighting this year’s Congress are Tony Campolo, Johnny Ray Youngblood, Katie Day and Emmanuel Cleaver. Lots of great workshops to learn from, many new connections to make! Be there!
2. CityVoices is now carrying "The Word in Life Study Bible" on CD-ROM as part of the "Ultimate Bible Reference Library" – an Internet of Bible study tools and reference materials, all for $16
3. CityVoices is also selling all of Curtiss DeYoung’s books: "Coming Together," "Reconciliation," and "Beyond Rhetoric."($12 each)
4. Also available from CityVoices is "Mision Integral" (the Spanish version of Ray Bakke’s "Biblical Word for an Urban World") ($10 each)
   to place orders, call CityVoices at (773) 477-8163, or email roger@cityvoices.com

Grace and peace,

I’ll look to hear from you soon!

Roger Johnson, Editor – CityVoices

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State of America’s City Churches – 2003

Like America itself at this outset of 2003, city churches find themselves divided on their stance when it comes to carrying out Christ’s mission of reaching and assisting the least, last and lost in urban America. We’re agreed that long-standing racial, economic and social problems still do exist in our cities, and for that matter, all through American society. We’re now agreed upon our common calling to get busy in taking the gospel to those places where problems are most disastrous, and start making the truth effective in righting wrongs.

But then our divisions start showing up quite quickly.

No longer are we "one in the Spirit." Perhaps we’ve always followed many spirits. Perhaps we’ve never wanted to follow the same spirit! Can we any longer afford that style, that pettiness in our nation’s cities? Obviously not.

We’re divided in terms of basic outlook: some fervent church people see America’s most devastated places as laboratories for missional trial and experimentation, while other equally dedicated Christians see the same communities as real places in which people live, and will continue to live viably in future years. Some continue to view inner city churches as "not quite real" churches: missions with one type of idiosyncrasy or another. In order to graduate to real ministry, one must either move downtown, or to the suburbs.

We are also terribly divided in terms of our larger worldview these days. America’s city churches, much like our wider society, are experiencing an inability to articulate a cohesive "Christian worldview" of what is going on outside each local sanctuary (and sometimes inside each local sanctuary as well). We’re unable, unwilling and unprepared to offer candidates and servants for public office in our communities. Yet, we’re as quick as others are in our cities to shake our heads and complain about the poor quality of elected officials, public school teachers and other public servants.

Let’s be honest: we would rather divide ourselves off into private segments of society, and only deal with our own small issues, than live an honest Christian life in full public view, and obligate ourselves to deal with our entire community’s issues, from time to time.

While we may be divided in some ways, our city churches are united by a common call. Right before us we’ve grown to see inescapable needs in our society. Fewer and fewer of us will shy away from meeting these needs in one way or another. It is encouraging to see churches crossing long-established boundaries and driving miles from far-flung suburbs to assist brothers and sisters in meeting every need imaginable during spare weekend time.

We clearly see the common need of evangelism: bringing our cities to a relationship with Jesus Christ. We are far from reaching that goal. But organizations have risen up across America with urban evangelism as their goal, and they are getting very good at achieving what they’ve set out to do. Be encouraged about all that happens in the years ahead!

Sharing of material resources: We’ve got a long way to go, but some structures are now in place to make this happen. Again, we’ve sensed the common call we have as a family of faith, and the momentum to share both resources, and more importantly, the "know-how" for establishing greater wealth in inner city communities is gaining steam. A common call cannot be stopped.

Many divisions still do exist among our churches, but more than a sense of healing is coming about as we move in and through this year 2003. We have reason for hope, amidst some hard realities of hurt and division that still haunt Christian America.

Contact: Roger Johnson, Editor, CityVoices, 1242 W. Addison Street, Chicago, IL 60613,

(773) 477-8163, roger@cityvoices.com

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A Few Concepts That Might Work in Your City

• The past month has taken me to an urban missionary retreat for my own denomination (LCMS) meeting in Dallas. There, some 100 pastors and urban mission types met together in a very old, but now refurbished Sears warehouse on the city’s southside, aptly re-named "Southside on Lamar" (check out the website, www.southsideonlamar.com) The huge building, which only a few years back slated for either demolition or conversion into a minimum security urban prison, is now turned into a burgeoning artist’s colony. And with that conversion of conversion of purpose for the building, has also come a new sense of purpose for the building’s artists/inhabitants.
  
  A small group of new artists, artisans and their families are beginning to see the need for God’s Word and truth in their lives. A studio has been rented with the expressed purposed of started a church with Southside on Lamar, and slowly that will come about with this dedicated artistic community. Spearheading the faith project is Southside’s Creative Director (Ms.) Charley Robbins-Steele. For more information on the process of restoring new spiritual meaning to old industrial and commercial space that has been torn away from an urban community, contact her at (214) 421-2677, or ksteele@coserv.net.

• For your reading, try Michael Barone’s "The New Americans: How the Melting Pot Can Work Again." Regnery Publishing, it’s a bit overpriced at $28, but you can always get it at a much cheaper price. For my money, Barone is much better in print than he is yelling and screaming with political pundits around somebody’s table on a TV show. In "New Americans" he goes out on the limb to compare migrating ethnic groups of one century with migrating ethnic groups of another century or time period. In so doing, he ends up with solid comparisons between the Irish of potato famine days and American Blacks moving north during the 40s, 50s and 60s. Sounds like an unlikely comparison? You’ll be surprised, and impressed with Barone’s first-rate documentation of sources. One comes away feeling as though they’ve read the best of all sources, or still should read on!
  
  Then Barone goes on to what he maintains is the closest comparison of all, Italians and Hispanics. He follows that up with the amazing upwardly mobile stories of Jews of a hundred years ago, and present-day Asians – drawing astounding similarities. What does all this prove? Well, read for yourself and draw your own conclusions. Barone is certainly now telling you what you have to believe about America’s ethnic minorities, except that they are here and rapidly moving into the mainstream of American society, like it or not. Significant reading for any church interested in multicultural ministry and future assimilation.

• Do you believe that city churches and their ministries are experiencing the short end of the digital divide? Are you interested in helping do something to change that divide for both your congregation, and others? If you have not yet been contacted by the Beaumont Foundation’s Association of Christian Community Computer Centers (AC4), please contact them very soon at their website http://www.ac4.org/ or by phone at (617) 282-9798. During this year, 2003, the AC4 ministry will be supplying churches and non-profit organizations with new Toshiba computers by way of a court ordered settlement with the Toshiba company. Contact AC4 very soon, for further information.

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Forgiving One Another in the City (Matthew 18: 21-35)

Maybe the biblical lessons (and imperatives) concerning forgiveness do come easier when one lives and ministers in a small town or rural area. In a big city, when someone (even a brother or sister in Christ) does something to offend you, or you do something to offend them, it’s altogether too easy to simply move on through the crowd and simply go on to another social situation that works smoother, with less tension or irritability, than to face up to what is really going wrong between you and another person. For city Christians, forgiveness must be a discipline we work at. It won't come naturally.

In Matthew, chapter 18, v. 21, Peter asked Jesus, "Lord, how often am I to forgive my brother, seven times?" Jesus answer, in the next verse took Peter’s naïve question one better. "Not just seven times, Peter, but seventy-seven times!" Or, as we might say, "Stop counting, just keep forgiving your sister or brother in Christ! Counting isn’t the point, forgiving is! Then Jesus illustrated with his story of the kingdom –

A king is settling up all of his accounts and one of his servants owes about 15 years in back wages; 10,000 talents the scriptures tell us. The king’s lord has no choice but to order this servant and his family sold for "back wages!" "But wait," says the servant, "please have mercy upon me! Honestly, I will pay everything, if only you give me a chance!" Well, the lord does somehow find it within himself to have mercy upon this sluggard to forgive him his great debt (knowing he can never repay it) and give him another chance.

Happily, the servant goes on his way, and perchance meets up with a fellow servant who owes him a sum of about 100 denarii, or about 3 months wages. As a forgiven man, he feels no compulsion to forgive anyone else; rather he demands this man pay him right on the spot. He grabs him by the throat and demands the 100 denarii right there! "But wait, wait! Please have mercy on me. I will pay you if you only give me a chance," says the fellow servant. No chance is given. This man is thrown into debtor’s prison on the spot, until he can repay the entire sum.

Well, seeing all that had transpired, all the other fellow servants were greatly distressed, and reported it to the Lord. The Lord summoned the first servant to him and confronted him with the situation. "You wicked servant. I forgave you all that debt because you besought me; and should not you has had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you? In anger, the lord delivered the servant to the jailers till he should pay all his debts

So God will do the same to you if you don’t forgive your brother from your heart. (v. 35)

Parable makes forgiveness sound harder, harsher & more demanding than we’ve ever imagined. Keep in mind the point of forgiveness: to make things right. Yes, forgiveness is demanding! Jesus asks us to keep on trying and forgiving even 77 times! It’s clearly a sin to live with grudges, or to live refusing to forgive someone for some particular reason.

A few important things we need to realize about forgiveness, in order to practice it properly:

Forgiveness isn’t something we can do on our own. It only happens with God’s help. We need to realize that forgiveness is really a miracle that few people have the magic to perform easily. The late Lewis Smedes describes forgiveness as "inner surgery of the soul" and it surely requires God’s assistance! By realizing the forgiveness and reconciliation do involve God’s working with us and with another person, we realize that we are involved in a delicate and sensitive affair to be prayed over with much faith. Realize that people forgive slowly, it takes much time, and even after reconciliation has occurred. Oftentimes much confusion is left over. Forgiveness is not a wholesale affair.

Nevertheless, forgiveness and reconciliation and extremely critical. We have a great gospel to proclaim and much is at stake! Often the gospel’s truth is undermined by churchgoer’s inability to work together and get along. No one ever said we had to like each other all the time as Christians, but we do have to simply get along as Christ’s church if the gospel message we proclaim is to be effective.

As we learn to forgive, as we learn to build avenues of reconciliation, we will forge new paths for the Gospel to proclaim itself in our increasingly urban 21st century: an era that values a caring society and culture displayed right upfront. We will be building a Christian community to match our solidly biblical message in the city neighborhoods to which we have been called. Amen.

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Thanks for reading CityVoices!

Thanks for taking the time to discover more about the "State of Amerca’s City Churches – 2003." E-mail any of your comments back to roger@cityvoices.com.

Remember to take a good look at the CityVoices website: www.cityvoices.com and look at the many resources available within that site. Keep in mind:

SCUPE Congress on Urban Ministry, March 11-14th, here in Chicago. (Simply click on the Congress banner for further registration information)

CityVoices is now carrying several new resource items for sale: "The Word in Life Study Bible" on CD-ROM ($16), all of Curtiss DeYoung’s books: "Coming Together," "Reconciliation," and "Beyond Rhetoric."($12 each), "Mision Integral" (Spanish version of Ray Bakke’s "Biblical Word for an Urban World") ($10 each) to place orders, call CityVoices at (773) 477-8163, or email roger@cityvoices.com.

Thank You!

Roger Johnson – Editor, CityVoices (Chicago)