For the City?

Abstract ideas rarely produce meaningful results.

“A church for the city.”

For any Christian who has lived any amount of time in the city, this language will feel familiar enough. But what does it actually mean?

A simple Google search reveals dozens of churches around the greater Indianapolis area who use “for the city” language either in their name or vision. Yet, in most cases, it is unclear how these churches are explicitly for the city in their ministry vision or practice. For that matter, it is unclear how these churches are uniquely for this city, and not some abstract idea of what a city is.

While I believe most city-minded churches have the best of intentions, I suggest that city-minded ministry philosophies are often problematic in their implementation. A revised approach to city ministry philosophy may help us become more effective in our specific, local ministry contexts.

The Call to the City

Whether they know it or not, most city-minded churches (and Christians) owe their ministry to the late Dr. Tim Keller (1950-2023). Prior to Keller’s ministry with Redeemer Presbyterian in New York City, many Evangelical Christians were still influenced by the fear of cities and White flight to the suburbs. Cities were viewed by many Christians as a place of sin, evil, and decline.

However, when Keller’s family moved into New York City in 1989 to plant Redeemer Presbyterian Church, his example gave courage to others to do the same. Furthermore, with his adaptive and integrative intellect, Keller popularized a theology and ministry philosophy of the city that compelled others to follow suit. Building on the ideas of his Westminster colleague Harvie Conn (see: Urban Ministry, Harvie Conn and Manuel Ortiz), Keller championed a vision that embraced a call to the city instead of abandoning it. Given the changes of the modern world, Keller rightly emphasized how cities contain the greatest concentration of God’s image bearers in the world. If we want to reach people with the gospel, the city is a necessary place to do so.

But Keller’s vision included more than evangelistic or theological motivations; he also saw city ministry as strategic. He recognized that as second-generation children of the suburbs were moving back into the city, the social attitude toward cities was changing. Furthermore, immigrant populations are rapidly diversifying city populations. Cultural, economic, and political elites – persons of influence – still spend most of their time in city centers. If Christians want to have an effective witness in society, city ministry is the most strategic way to do so. For Keller, no ministry was more critical than city ministry (see: “The Call to the City” in Tim Keller, Center Church).

The call to the city meant contextualized ministry philosophy that could address the unique challenges of the city. Such a philosophy would actively seek to understand the culture of a specific place and people while uniquely applying Christian faith and practice to the unique challenges of that context. As Keller himself championed, this philosophy is not an out-of-the-box model that can simply be carried from one place to the next. Every local congregation must do the hard work of understanding their city and crafting ministry for their city.

And it is this work, I think, where the call to the city often breaks down.

What does that even mean?

Following Keller, I believe in the ministry call to the city. After all, our family recently moved from the suburbs of Washington D.C. to an urban neighborhood of Indianapolis because we felt called to this ministry ourselves. However, as we do this work, I have noticed that often “for the city” ministry is too nebulous of a concept in many churches to be effective. I see this in at least three ways.

First, our concept of “the city” is often far too abstract. The call to city ministry, or any ministry for that matter, is to a specific people and place. Yet, in our rush to embrace the city as a necessary and strategic place of ministry, too many churches have embraced “the city” as an idea rather than a place. “The city” has become an abstraction rather than a distinct people in a distinct place.

In a lecture provided to my colleagues at Fuller Theological Seminary, Dr. Soong-Chan Rah argues that we must move away from defining the city using broad ideological or cultural ideas. When we define the city in these ways, it is no longer a specific place and gathering of people, but an abstraction that lacks meaning and purpose. Rah states, “If the city is merely an abstraction, then the response to that abstraction is another abstraction. Urban theology becomes an abstraction battling an abstraction. The only legitimate change is further philosophical and theological abstraction and the triumph of ideas and values over any real on-the-ground changes. Urban theology becomes the battle of ideas.”

Too often our conception of “the city” is equated with secularism, modernism, or some other ideological trend. We lose sight of the city as a real place with real people, and, therefore, we become ineffective in our responsibility to have a concrete expression of the Church that brings change into an actual place and people.

Which leads to, secondly, city-minded churches are often cultural and ideological expressions rather than contextual ones. A great example of this phenomenon can be found in The Urban Church Imagined by Jessica Barron and Rhys Williams. Barron and Williams profile an “urban church for the city” that was planted in Chicago by pastors from a large suburban megachurch. These pastors had an idea of what “the city” is like, which was rooted more in their suburban imagination than it was in the lived reality of what and who Chicago really is.

When the pastors planted this church in the city, they found themselves in conflict with the real culture and lived experience of their neighbors. Rather than seeking to understand the culture and people around them, this church projected an imagination that equated “the city” with a diverse, hip, young, and attractive culture. As a result, when such qualities were identified in potential congregants, these individuals would be used by the church in the pursuit of being “authentically urban” (20). The church became a brand to promote rather than a people or place to be loved.

In other words, when “the city” is an abstraction, a church’s focus tends toward a particular kind of culture rather than local neighbors of a specific place in time. Those who do not fit the culture will feel left out, hurt, or ignored. As often as “the city” is equated with expressions of secularism or some other ideology, the city-minded church will attract a particular kind of person or culture rather than intentionally ministering to a local community. The impetus of reaching a specific place is lost, and the church becomes a general place for a general kind of person.

Third, and as a result, city-minded churches often favor the privileged rather than the marginalized. As cities contain greater densities of God’s image bearers, so too do they contain greater density of the effects of sin, and often to greater degree. Poverty, education, housing, violence, addictions, and various systemic injustices are chronic issues in cities. The call of any church that is “for the city” is to dwell and minister among the poor and marginalized (Matt. 5:16, Matt. 25:40, Acts 4:35, Gal. 2:10, etc.). The absence of such persons in our churches rebukes even our best intentions.

I am no idealist. The challenges of ministering to the marginalized in our cities and reconciling ourselves into full fellowship with them are immense. These challenges are also unique to every city and every place; no two cities, or, for that matter, no two neighborhoods, are alike. When “the city” is an abstraction, it is no wonder that the marginalized are lost.

Reimagining the City Church in Two Directions

Perhaps “the city” is too broad of a starting point for churches to think about their ministry vision. In a place that is inhabited by millions of people, how could we ever hope to build one single expression of the Church that ministers to all people and neighborhoods equally? Rather than relying on generic concepts of “the city,” churches who earnestly feel a call to minister in a specific city should do the hard work of articulating – with specificity - who they are trying to reach, why they are equipped for that work, and how they intend to carry it out.

As a starting point, I offer two directions for reimagining what it looks like to be a church that is “for the city.”

The Regional or Cultural City Church – This church is trying to reach a certain kind of person from a particular culture across a broad region of the city. For example, a church might discern that they want to intentionally reach educated professionals by leaning heavily into the arts and vocational discipleship. Similarly, a church might discern they are trying to reach active-minded persons through robust works of social justice.

By reaching a certain culture over a broad region, these churches have the possibility of growing to considerable size with deep resources at their disposal. Because they are more intentional about reaching one culture over others, these churches will often (not always) struggle to produce racial or class reconciling ministry.

For most present city churches, this model will feel the most natural as it best fits their current ministry expression. I am not so much suggesting these churches change as I am encouraging them to be honest about who they are and why. By articulating with specificity who the church will reach and how they will do it, these churches will become more effective reaching a culture within a city.

The Neighborhood or Parish City Church – This church sees a calling to a local neighborhood and the people who reside there. Rather than drawing from a large geographic area, this church will clearly define it’s the boundaries of its ministry to a small neighborhood or cluster of neighborhoods. The emphasis of this church will not be on size or attractive programs, but on the care and relationships of their members and neighbors.

By reducing their ministry scope to a limited geographic area, these churches will never accrue the size or resources of the regional/cultural church. They don’t want to. The ministry programs of the neighborhood/parish church will focus on the needs and discipleship of immediate neighbors. In their proximity to and care of their immediate neighbors, these churches are better positioned for reconciling ministries.

Both kinds of churches are needed to effectively reach an entire city with the good news of the Kingdom of God. If both cultural and parish churches could work together, their collective witness would be a beautiful testimony to who Jesus is. Unfortunately, if more churches found clarity in their calling to the city, I think we would realize that the number of cultural churches greatly outnumbers the number of parish churches. As a result, marginalized persons are ignored while reconciling ministries struggle to make any significant progress.

In my next essay, I will articulate a renewed vision and need for more parish churches to be planted by our large, resourced cultural churches.