Denominational initiatives on behalf of urban ministry have been with us for the past decade -- and in some cases longer. What are they accomplishing on behalf of city churches? How do their basic goals differ? What are these initiatives telling us about the need for more in the way of an intentional commitment to urban?

As the first installment in exploration of this topic, June’s CityVoices brings you two interviews with people spearheading urban ministry initiatives within quite differing denominations: the United Methodist Church and the Free Methodist Church. The UMC is large, with many urban congregations, a highly-developed organizational structure and a long history of urban involvement. The Free Methodists are by comparison much smaller, midwestern in nature and less inclined to have formal structures for urban ministry. We hope the comparison of these two denominational initiatives not only educates, but also prompts new ideas as to how you or your own denomination can do a better job.

Within early June, Dr. Mike Snow’s thesis “A Model for Transition of Ministry in Declining Congregations,” has sold as well as any of our resource products. If you haven’t yet purchased your copy, contact CityVoices at (773) 477-8163. The thesis sells for $10.

God’s grace and peace today,
Let’s stay in touch,

Roger Johnson, Editor – CityVoices

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Holy Boldness: Big, Brave Progress for United Methodists

Holy Boldness is the urban ministry initiative adopted by the General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church back in 1996. This urban mission plan continues on today, reaffirmed by its board and denomination as an avenue for growth and renewal on the part of United Methodist churches and agencies ministering in cities. Serving as Executive Director of the Office of Urban Ministries is Diane Johnson. In an interview, she describes for us much about Holy Boldness and its impact over the years.

Diane, the “Holy Boldness” initiative does go back to 1996, correct?

In 1995 there was United Methodist convocation for urban practitioners in Birmingham, Alabama. And that was the first urban convocation the General Board of Global Ministries had sponsored in 19 years. We were expecting about 200-250 people. It turned out that we had to cut it off registrations at 650 because the hotel couldn’t accommodate any more. We saw an urgent and strong desire for what we were presenting. The convocation was intended to identify the needs of urban practitioners across the country. We found they wanted an Urban Plan they could grab hold of and work with.

Practitioners arrived at goals and objectives in seven different areas -- 1) Urban theology, 2) Evangelism and congregational development, 3) Eradication of racism, 4) Leadership development, 5) Community economic development, 6) Wholeness, healing and health, 7) Strengthening of multicultural relationships -- all of which they wanted our office to concentrate upon. In 1996 that plan was taken to our General Conference and adopted as the official urban ministry plan for the United Methodist Church.

What encouraging effect have you seen Holy Boldness have during the past eight years?

The United Methodist Church has 64 annual conferences in the continental United States. A couple of our regional conferences of United Methodist Churches have adopted this same Holy Boldness plan as their own over-arching purpose. For instance, the Baltimore-Washington Conference calls itself a “Holy Boldness Conference.” They have put staff in place to address the very issues that came out of that initiative. They produced a “Holy Boldness Bible” and have Bible studies centered on the seven goals of Holy Boldness.

The other big part of it is that we have now trained about seven annual conferences, more than 500 individuals and 200 churches and organizations with our “Urban Academy,” and that number will grow to nine annual conferences this year.

Who’s been involved with the Urban Academy?

We launched the Urban Academy back in 1997 with our East Ohio and West Ohio conferences. Following that start, we held academies in Detroit and West Michigan, also in Minnesota, then in Pittsburgh and Portland, Oregon. We will soon begin an Academy in Missouri and Virginia. The Urban Academy is a two-year training process. Some conferences are however opting for the newly developed one-day training sessions on the same seven goals.

Have you found local churches benefiting from the ideas and connections that you can provide?

Absolutely! In the Minnesota Conference training, we had 32 churches represented. Each of those churches received tangible benefits, and we’re still seeing different understandings of the Academy bubbling out from 1997 to 2002. We try to communicate the fact that the local churches must be connected to their community. Training is centered on the theology of “loving thy neighbor as thyself,” and working within one’s own community. We also emphasize the importance of our local, urban congregations accompanying the poor and the marginalized. We’re suggesting that our congregations invite the poor in, and even give away their churches to the community.

It’s not rocket science, rather doing what we already know about.

Exactly! We try to highlight model ministries, and have those ministers tell their stories as part of this training. We also try to connect churches with city organizations and agencies. We invite the City Planning Commissioners Office to join us, the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as the Board of Education. These important community representatives come into our settings and gain an understanding of local church needs and resources as well. I’m concerned at how we continue to be often be “lone rangers” out in the field, not connecting and partnering with all the resources available and not discovering and working with many natural assets. As churches discover wider resources, they are no longer coming to our Urban Office for financial help.

How has Holy Boldness demonstrated a continuing need for denominations to be intentional with a long-term commitment to city missions?

Prior to the development of our plan and initiative, we tended to be reactive in our work. Having this initiative in place allows us to be proactive in what we do on behalf of urban ministries. A four-year strategic plan for our office -- on both our plan and initiative, and accomplish more.

With you as the only staff person for Urban Ministries at the General Board, what other opportunities do you have to help churches, even in this very tight economy?

I can tap into resources from other program units at the Board. For instance, if congregations are engaged in programs for Welfare Reform, for Substance Abuse and Related Violence, for Women and Children; periodic funding is available in Homelessness, Justice Ministries and Community Organizing within other related units.

How do you get local churches to “own” a major national project like Holy Boldness?

If I am not involved in a major national conference, I rarely have the opportunity to talk with local churches. I don’t have easy access to them. There are several thousand urban churches in our denomination. The way we get information to the local churches is through our jurisdictional networks. There are five jurisdictions in the United Methodist Church, and I meet with representatives from those jurisdictions once, maybe twice each year, listening to them as they tell me their critical issues and the various resources that are needed. I then advocate for, and resource and fund their needs.

Since I started meeting with our five jurisdictions, I am now assisting them in their efforts to provide a variety of training opportunities within their own regional areas. I provide training, consultations, resources and information to the jurisdictional networks, which they tack back to persons representing the conference council directors, district superintendents, the episcopacy, and all levels of the church including local pastors. That’s the most effective way we get information out to many of our United Methodist churches and community organizations.

What else is the United Methodist Church offering its local churches in terms of an urban understanding or urban strategy?

When I do consultations around the country, one of the first things I provide people with is demographics, so that they have an understanding of the racial ethnic make-up of their community. Our bishops and district superintendents must have this information and be sensitive to their changing communities, and be able to make pastoral appointments reflecting particular community make-ups. On the down side, often we don’t have bilingual pastors to lead our urban churches in changing Hispanic and Asian neighborhoods.

And then there’s a whole issue around leadership development. I have gone back to secular models for my leadership development training module and am working with some of the “Gurus” in leadership development. The training strives for pastors to work in teams and not as long rangers. I want ministers to utilize the many gifts that their parishioners bring to their ministry that together can bring about strong, vital congregations and communities.

Contact: Diane Johnson, Executive Secretary, Office of Urban Ministries, General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church, 475 Riverside Drive, Suite 1551, New York, NY 10015, (212) 870-3832, dhjohnson@gbgm-umc.org

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Free Methodist Urban Ministries: Building New Networks for Urban Mission

The Free Methodist Church is a relatively small denomination of some 900 churches and 74,000 members nationally, with its historical / theological center in Midwestern Wesleyanism. Rev. Kenny Martin is pastor of Forrestville New Vision Fellowship, a Free Methodist congregation with a metropolitan vision for outreach in the Washington, DC area. He has previously pastored in the inner city in St. Louis, and for several years presided over Free Methodist Urban Ministries – the national effort of growing and enhancing the ministry of urban congregations within the Free Methodist Church.

Rev. Martin, Free Methodist Urban Ministries has been in existence for well over a decade, correct?

Yes, some people in our denomination say it started way back in 1971 or 1972, with only about eight people who came together around a passion for urban ministry. I believe the first urban conference was in 1972. The urban workers came together then because the dynamics for inner city ministry differed from the mission of the church at-large. At that time it was difficult to network with our denomination on an understanding and call for inner city ministry. Howard Snyder and Howard Olver were a couple of our first leaders. Over 30 years, our Free Methodist Church has changed, but urban ministry is still there.

We used to be somewhat a “step-child” for the denomination, with an “us and them” relationship. One of my roles over the years has been to move away from that understanding and help build a healthy joint for effective urban ministry. We’ve transitioned into a position of greater accountability with our own bishop, who in turn presented our reports to our Board of Bishops. We now have much greater accountability, and networks for ministry have grown. That’s exciting!

When did you begin your term as Director of Free Methodist Urban Ministries?

I began as director in 1999 and just recently stepped down, serving as a pastor full-time while occupying our national urban office. We’ve now suggested to our Board of Bishops that eventually we’re going to need someone as a full-time director. It’s hard to be on the front lines of urban ministry and at the same time working on the national level – raising funds and bringing the whole urban network together. We really need someone full-time who can handle that position.

Do you imagine that will come to be within the Free Methodist Church in the next several years?

Yes, I believe it will happen. Everybody is saying that we are going to have to have someone as a full-time urban director in the near future. So now that we’re working together with our bishops, that process is underway. One of the things I’ve done is to network with other departments of our church. For instance, with our 2002 Annual Conference in Indianapolis, Urban Ministries networked with the World Ministries Center to build further relationships. It was a great opportunity for Urban Ministries to bring some excellent speakers to entire Conference.

Kenny, give me an idea of what you’ve seen as an effective result of Free Methodist Urban Ministries.

Coming from the grassroots, we’ve seen people with a passion and call for the city. When I began ministry in St. Louis, I didn’t know too much about the Free Methodists. I simply said “Lord, I’m here!” But there was a bigger picture, which was the Free Methodist Church as a whole. As I began ministry, we started building relationships with other churches on the outskirts of the city. We began building a bridge ministry of relationships with pastors and congregations around the city. We had a large focus on children’s ministry, with a number of white students coming in to our African-American community to help in that work. One of my concerns in ministry has always been racism, and we’re going to have to fight that through our youth.

Tell us about the growth of New Vision Fellowship in Forrestville, Maryland, your present ministry?

When I came here three years ago, it was called Forrestville Free Methodist Church. The pastor was white, in a predominantly African-American community. The church was beginning to decline, and that white pastor had a passion to see the church grow. He recommended that the conference superintendent find an African-American leader who could lead in new growth. Since I’ve arrived we’ve seen healthy growth and we thank God for that.

Aside from ethnic issues, we had to work on the whole mindset of the church, which was somewhere back in the 1960s. We had to change that to make it a 21st century church! And of course that was a process. But now, we’re ready to start a new church, New Vision in the City. While there are many churches doing great work in the city, we believe there are many more people that God wants us to minister to. God’s called me to an entire urban region.

You don’t have to see your congregation grow to 900 people before you can start a new church?

Not at all. When I began preaching this New Vision for going into the city, we were only about 40 or 50 people. You can’t wait till you’re 100 or 200 before you try to do some great things for God.

Are Free Methodist churches benefiting from the ideas and connections that Urban Ministries provides, or are churches simply asking, “Where is there money for my ministry?”

When you talk about urban ministry, a lot of people have never heard of us. When you come into urban and African-American communities, people ask, “What is this? I’ve never heard of the Free Methodist Church.” We’re the new kids on the block, and we have to build community relationships. As finances go, we have to do more, with less. I don’t want us to be extremely dependent upon denominational money. I want to partner with people outside my denomination, and network with others. When I was in St. Louis, we had a good collaborative effort -- the St. Louis Clergy Alliance. You have to learn how to work with churches of several different denominations.

As Free Methodists, we’re coming from a background of white leadership, and now we’re moving into communities where the black Church has always been present. We must have a teachable spirit.

Free Methodist Urban Ministries has given birth to an African-American Network. When I first came in, there were only about five pastors nationally! Now we more than 20 black pastors. That network has developed out of Urban Ministries. There wasn’t the funding to do a conference of our own. So we partnered with others, like our World Ministries Center in Indianapolis, because they have resources and also because we needed to build relationships with them. We kept our original focus, but we did build relationships. Now, our denomination as a whole is talking about going to “the neighborhoods of the world.” When I mentor a young African-American man in the city, he might have a dream to touch the world! And I want to help him with that.

Kenny, how has the work of Free Methodist Urban Ministries demonstrated a continuing need for your denomination (and all denominations) to make an intentional commitment to urban?

On a whole, denominations understand that if they don’t go into the city, they will probably miss a lot of people. They have to make some changes. Our society is saying that it wants to move back into the cities. People are tired of commuting. Wherever I go I see trends of people coming back into our cities and buying up lots of property. The church is going to have to think much differently about its entire role as this continues.

Realistically, how are you getting churches all over the country to start sharing in some ownership: that Urban Ministries is something they should get involved in?

It’s okay to see encouragement come from the bishops and the World Ministry Center. The next level that it has to come from is our superintendents who have a call and vision to go back into the city. I’ve helped establish “urban consultant teams” that will come alongside superintendents and help them develop leaders and systems for urban ministry. It’s got to be driven from the superintendent to the conferences. We’ve got to do this thing together and reach every neighborhood.

Contact: Rev. Kenny Martin, Forrestville New Vision Fellowship, 2020 Ritchie Rd., Forrestville, Maryland 20747, (301) 336-6570, newvision20201@hotmail.com

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To Sing a New Song in the City

A Book review of “To Live in Peace: Biblical Faith and the Changing Inner City,” by Mark R. Gornik, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 2002.

By Clinton E. Stockwell, Ph.D.; Executive Director, Chicago Semester.

This book by Mark R. Gornik, formally pastor of the New Song Community Church in Baltimore, Maryland, is the story of the development of the New Song Community Church, and the “Sandtown” community where it resides. Like many urban communities, Sandtown represents the “other Baltimore,” the “second city” that has not benefited from urban redevelopment or gentrification.

Gornik traces the evolution of Sandtown as a prototype of forgotten inner cities -- from segregation, to post-industrialization to the global inner city. The global inner city is the city excluded from the new global economy because of issues like the digital divide, and because the new forces of tourism or jobs in the information or service economy have not touched Sandtown. For Gornik, the only aspect of the new global economy that seems to have affected Sandtown, as in many other low-income African American urban communities, has been the growth of the penal system.

Gornik is not interested in replicating a social service urban ministry model. Rather, Sandtown represents the unique story of community revitalization due to efforts of community organizing and faith-based community economic development. The story of the New Song Community church is the story of an empowerment of a people as an antidote to structural emizeration. For Gornik, community development is not “the renewal of place apart from people, but [is] the celebration of their gifts and callings in the context of the social and material world” (p. 129). New Song was about the task of “restoring the breech and repairing the streets to dwell in” as stated in the book of Isaiah.

In this respect, peace is not an abstract biblical concept. It means to “pitch your tent” and settle down in the city. It means to relocate there with your heart and also with your talents and economic resources. The peace of the city is hard work, and happens when a community of people work together to secure not just the security of a place, but of an economically sustainable future as well.

Contact: Dr. Clinton Stockwell, Chicago Semester, 407 S. Dearborn, # 1675, Chicago, IL 60505, (312) 922-3243, clintons@chicagosemester.org

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Thanks for reading CityVoices!

By now you’re perhaps gaining some perspective on how denominations can be of greater help to their urban congregations nationwide. If you have questions, or better yet suggestions, jot them down in an email toward either CityVoices or one our interview subjects. Next month, we’ll consider the same issues with two more denominational urban representatives.

Remember, contact us to purchase your copy of Mike Snow’s thesis, “A Model for Transition of Ministry in Declining Congregations.” It’s a piece that churches in many different settings are currently finding most helpful. Also contact us for some of the most helpful books by Ray Bakke of International Urban Associates, Bob Linthicum of Partners in Urban Transformation and Curtiss DeYoung of the Gateway Project in the Twin Cities. You’ll enjoy any and all of these additions to your summer reading!

To place orders on any resource materials we offer, call CityVoices at (773) 477-8163, or email roger@cityvoices.com

Thank You!

Roger Johnson – Editor, CityVoices (Chicago)