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| "Vision for City Ministry" | ||
| November
23, 2004
CityVoices Reader, This month’s edition of CityVoices focuses on vision: building, maintaining and re-newing our vision for urban ministry. While vision and visionary leadership can easily become abstract topics, we’ll try to make this month’s discussion as substantive and effective as possible. In introductory points from the Center for Visionary Leadership’s website (www.visionarylead.org) we hear that visionary leaders: - work with imagination, insight, and boldness Does this sound like a beginning description for visionary leadership in the urban church? I believe so. Within this month’s articles, CityVoices offers a sampling of vision statements, and then details the essential need for vision: why it always seems to be with us. We then hear from SCUPE’s urban theologian, Bill Wylie-Kellermann, as well as director of the Association for Metro / Urban Ministry, Mark Walden, on vision. We’ll sum up with “what truly makes for a visionary leader.” Read, enjoy and store away a few bits of understanding that may help fuel much of your own vision for city ministry. Roger Johnson – CityVoices / SCUPE ******************** What’s in a Vision Statement? Vision and mission statements are often confused. Read a few good vision statements and you’ll get the idea quickly. Let vision inspire, cast an image, or a realizable dream. Mission will follow. World Vision: "Our vision for every child, life in all its fullness; our prayer for every heart, the will to make it so." Children’s Defense Fund: “Seeking to ensure that children have a successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities.” Microsoft: “To enable people and businesses throughout the world to realize their full potential.” Walt Disney Company: “To produce unparalleled entertainment experiences based on quality creative content and exceptional storytelling.” The Rainbow / PUSH Coalition “As a mighty coalition of conscience; workers, women and people of color have the power to make the American Dream a Reality!” Sojourners “Proclaiming and practicing the biblical call to integrate spiritual renewal and social justice.” ******************** Great Vision Still Needed for the Urban Church Vision is (at once) an exhilarating and confounding subject to talk about. Most of us recognize vision when we see it out in front of us. Yet many of us still know little about creating it within ourselves, our churches, our missions or community development agencies. I think most of us would agree: vision begins within each one of us. That’s not to say that fresh vision for ministry depends solely upon the creative juices of any one individual. Coordinated teams: sharing a vision and working together bring power and refinement to visionary dreams. But the ability (or will) to envision a new reality must be present within individuals in order for anything to happen. Many of us delight in seeing the visionary leadership that has spawned Christian community development programs in places like Chicago’s Lawndale community and the South Bronx in New York. We admire and try to replicate the vision for urban evangelism that has reached many people in Houston, Tampa and Miami. We try to figure out where the vision really is in connecting churches and ministry agencies in Los Angeles, Columbus and Washington, DC. But when we each look to our own “interior lives,” we often find ourselves coming up short on the essentials for a truly Christian urban vision. What might those essentials be? A basic set of vision requirements may not be too complex: 1) Passion for the city, your own church, or a particular urban ministry Visionary leaders don’t merely command or instruct people in following a particular program. Programs soon become dull, and the commandeering oppressive. But vision is that which lifts us all, both leaders and followers. It inspires, and allows us to continue even through the boredom of dull instruction, emotional and physical difficulties, and outright opposition. Urban churches are always in need of vision and visionaries, especially those who seem to upset the status quo – for that is in large part what vision is all about. Vision will always be feared, opposed and “legislated against” by the prevailing politicians of any day. To some degree, that is how we can judge true vision – by its opposition. Is there any question that this century’s city church needs visionaries, and their visionary ideas? A faith in the ever-emerging “technologies” of urban health care, community organizing, urban church growth and fund-raising may be good, but certainly not enough. Visionary leadership paints a picture, sets a route, dreams what has never been dreamt before, all in order that the city church can truly serve its God and serve its people. Contact: Roger Johnson, CityVoices / SCUPE, 200 N. Michigan Ave., Ste. 502, Chicago, IL 60601, (312) 726-1200, roger@cityvoices.com ******************** Glimpsing Biblical Vision: An Interview with Bill Wylie-Kellermann (Rev. Bill Wylie-Kellermann is an urban theologian, directing SCUPE’s Graduate Theological Urban Studies program. He is a Methodist minister and a member of the national steering committee for Word & World, with headquarters in Greensboro, North Carolina. Bill lives and ministers out of Detroit, where he is affiliated with Central Methodist Church.) Bill, how do you find a bigger urban vision in your own work, even when you may be restricted by schedules, student needs, seminary requirements, even your own convictions? What fuels your work? Several sources come to mind, Scripture being one of them. In Jesus’ calling of his disciples, he invited them to have both eyes to see and ears to hear. I’m thinking about the connection between seeing a new world (or a new ministry), and hearing that articulated in the Word. You get these “funny things” biblically, where it’s “write the vision” or in Revelation, it’s “turning to see the voice.” This interplay in Scripture between vision and voice is so crucial, where the images of Scripture provide a “glimpse,” and certainly an urban vision as well. At SCUPE, I feel lucky to be constantly in the mix with folks who are visionaries. That’s in large part because they are engaged (in ministry and struggle). There is such a mix within my own life of the academy, the congregation, and the streets as well. Isolating yourself within any one of those probably narrows your vision rather than nourishing it. In terms of my own experience and capacity to work with students and schedules, it’s really the enlivening of communal conversation and actual engagement in ministry that keeps vision alive. You can get in a rut of doing, and sort of lose sight of where you’re going. But for me, it’s the engagement that keeps it lively. When you think of vision disappearing, where do you look to re-build and sustain vision? The biggest conflict is with our culture, which works so much by images. We’re constantly being assaulted by a kind of “blitz” of perpetual visions. They’re not the biblical vision. They’re consuming, and imperial and violent. The biggest danger is being captured, sucked in and dispirited by what’s now become a global culture of death in which we’re operating. People are now ruled by having their gaze transfixed by this big, all-consuming cultural picture. In addition to Scripture, maintaining your vision has to do with where you stand. God is able to grant you vision based on a location, and that’s usually the margin, the edge, or otherwise from below. That’s where God breaks in with alternative visions: things that are not yet, things that provoke us to imagine another world that is possible. We see a different future. Bill, do you feel that those are sustainable, given all the “market visions” that are thrust at us? You get it in intense glimpses; you follow it and live it. You count on others in ministry, sort of communally, to help you in the sustaining of it. It’s like prayer in this respect, a lot of times when you can’t see it, you lean on the person next to you who can. Sometimes visions for ministry run at cross-purposes. How do you sort out vision at those times? There’s always the temptation of certainty (in our own vision). I think we should always be on the ground of taking a step, investing and betting our best understanding of what God has granted us to discern. Yet, we always know that the final vision is God’s. We trust ourselves to that. Contact: Rev. Bill Wylie-Kellermann, SCUPE (GTUS Program), 4691 Larkins, Detroit, MI 48210, (313) 841-7554, bill@scupe.com ******************** Putting A Vision Together (Mark Walden, director of SCUPE’s Association for Metro / Urban Ministry, is passionate about vision for urban church ministry. He and his wife, Julie, are part of Chicago’s Ellis Avenue Church.) My wife and I have two different visions of the ideal vacation. I like to visit my friends in the scattered places they’ve moved to, which means road trips – long road trips packed with numerous stops to see people. Julie’s vision is very different: one destination, no other people, and no long drive – God created the airplane to get us to our vacation destinations. A year or two ago, we finally figured out how to combine our ideas of vacation into one whole vision: I drive to our destination, visiting all the friends I can along the way. I pick up Julie at the airport, we do our vacation, I take her back to the airport, and then I visit more friends as I drive back home. We both get what we want - and, as a bonus I appreciate, we pay for only one plane ticket and no rental car. Julie and I gave the sermon at our church a few weeks ago, and the lectionary texts happened to include Habakkuk 2:2 - "write the vision." It was the week before new pastors began at our church, and they’d told the congregation awaiting them that they didn’t intend to bring a new vision for the church. Rather, they believe that the vision comes from God moving among the people of the church, and isn’t imposed by new outside leaders. The lectionary texts from that week (Habakkuk 1:1-4 and 2:1-4, Psalm 32:1-7 and 119:137-144, Isaiah 1:10-18, Luke 19:1-10, and 2 Thessalonians 1:1-12) actually provide a pretty comprehensive vision for a church’s ministry: praise, obedience to God, working for justice, caring for those in need, outreach, repentance, and demonstrating love for one another. But we also wanted to find out what the congregation had as a vision for the church’s direction and ministry. So we distributed small pieces of paper and pens to the congregation, and invited them to write down elements of a vision for the church. We’d set up a posterboard at the front of the church, and invited people to tape to the board their pieces of the vision, with the option of saying something about them as they did so. The various postings – “action in the world based on deep spirituality, prayer, meditation,” “diversity in all areas: education, ethnicity, social, and economic,” “music, music, music,” “biblical knowledge in an organized fashion for all,” and many more – were shared with the new pastors to help in guiding the congregation forward. As with our family vacation, so with the church: no one person holds the full vision for what can be done. And as in our family vacation, it takes time, work, and insight to put the pieces of the vision together into the whole picture of what can be possible. But that work draws on those separate pieces that have been entrusted to various different people, and lets us put together the picture that most fully reflects God’s vision for us – from my little family, to Christ’s church around the world. Contact: Mark Walden, SCUPE, 200 N. Michigan Ave., Ste. 502, Chicago, IL 60601-5909, (312) 726-1200, mark@scupe.com ******************** What Makes a Truly Visionary Leader? (Excerpted from “What Does it Take to be a Truly Visionary Leader,” by Jamie S. Walters, founder, publisher and editor-in-chief for Ivy Sea Online. Complete text may be found at http://www.ivysea.com/pages/BVSB.html.) The word "vision" is used so frequently that it can seem challenging to fully appreciate the concept and those who have (or nurture) it. … The term has gone from inspired concept to deadened sound bite. In a world where "vision" has been used so often (and too often inappropriately), what does it mean to be truly visionary? Real vision and true visionaries can lift us out of the muck and mire and into the higher realms of human potential and possibility. … Whether intentionally or not, the visionary thumbs his or her nose at what's accepted by the “hoi polloi,” and doesn't settle for the norm if the norm is mediocre, or worse, dehumanizing or destructive. They don't allow themselves to be hypnotized by the lemming mindset or the mass hallucination about what's popular or "normal". Instead, they are interested in pulling people up; they invigorate and stir a greater possibility. To be visionary, regardless of the era in which we live, is to envision another possibility – or even that there is hope and possibility at all. Then the visionary, in some way, spreads the seeds of that vision – those possibilities – so that they might take root in others and find their way into our common reality. She might write or speak out, create a new type of product or company, express a vision artistically, or find another avenue of expression – these are all just means for spreading vision seeds. The true visionary walks the fine and often challenging line between the inspired world – intuition, reflection, the divine-inspired – and the material world of action, effects, systems, powerful special interests, ego, status quo, and tangible results. …He must connect with a source of inspiration and courage that emboldens him to let a specific vision "speak out through him" even though others might disagree, since an illuminating vision often casts light on current imperfections, arousing the ire of the protectors of the status quo. … And yet the visionary perseveres, usually through a wide variety of challenges, uncertainties, personal shortcomings, and setbacks, taking her place among fellow visionaries who sow vision seeds of individual and collective potential. ******************** Must Read! “Spirit in the Cities: Searching for Soul in the Urban Landscape,” Kathryn Tanner (ed.), Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 2004 A tale of five cities (literally), “Spirit in the Cities” is made up of the re-collections, and theologizing, of five quite competent intellectuals. If you’re looking for practical ministry helps, look elsewhere. But if you’re seeking ways in which to think and reflect upon the urban / ethnic environment, “Spirit in the Cities” is actually quite good. Contributing essayists include: Sheila Briggs on Los Angeles, M. Shawn Copeland on Detroit, Linda Mercadante on Newark, Mark Lewis Taylor on Philadelphia, and Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz on Havana (or as she insistently refers to her home city, La Habana). Among the two best essays is Briggs’ “Taking the Train: A Theological Journey through Contemporary Los Angeles County.” Here we find the seldom-heard musings and commentary of a University of Southern California professor who commutes to her work from far across LA County by MetroLink rail and MTA bus. Taking mass transit is no longer so unusual in Los Angeles, but the way Sheila Briggs unpacks Southern California’s city, town and urban development is. You’ll enjoy the ride on which she takes you. Linda Mercadante’s work is equally good, “Tasting the Bitter with the Sweet: The Spiritual Geography of Newark, New Jersey.” Mercadante’s brings a great amount of detail to the task, having grown up in Newark’s North Ward and seen family and friends move away due to the violence that enveloped Newark in the 1960s. Mercadante offers a sensitive and spiritual perspective on all that has happened to the North Ward, without pretending that she has a “prophetic message” to change it all. She takes us through the churches, schools and parks that were built to grace an old Newark, and in turn grace her own life even today. She takes place seriously, but without too much sentiment for what will simply never be again. Other chapters of “Spirit in the Cities” offer much information (labor and racial struggles), but turn bitter and angry. “Spirit in the Cities” does better as a search for, and challenge to, re-discovery of America’s urban spirit – a spirit that always remains. ******************** Thanks for Reading CityVoices! In December CityVoices presents an array of theological (and practical) gifts that can help make city ministry. The gifts will vary from biblical and devotional, to educational and technical. Look for good news as well as some challenging news. Look for a collection of very tangible items that are bound to help you as you move into a new year of ministry. Contact CityVoices (312) 726-1200 for the best in urban ministry resources: “Starting a Nonprofit at Your Church” by
Joy Skjegstad ($14) Please browse our Bookstore section (http://www.gospelcom.net/cv/pages/cvshop.html) for a complete listing of CityVoices resources. Thank You! |
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