Authentic strategies for urban ministry

                                                                                                           TOGETHER October-December 1994
                                                                by Robert Linthicum

Reference: Linthicum, R. (1991). Empowering the Poor. Monrovia, California: MARC.


Are there authentically urban strategies for urban ministry? Is there praxis that has been developed in the midst of city ministry and matured by years of use?
These are critical questions to ask. The model of the church that presently exists in the cities of the First World is based in that world's rural past. That model is of the parish church -a congregation set in the midst of a small locale and assuming spiritual and pastoral care over that community. That approach to mission evolved out of the church's struggle to be faithful in its ministry in rural and village settings. Likewise, the model of the church that exists today in cities of the developing world was introduced through eighteenth- and nineteenth-century missionaries who had developed their understanding of church from the rural model they had experienced in North America or Europe. Thus, what has been visited on the church in Asia, Africa and Latin America is simply a missionary adaptation of the First World rural church model.
So, are there authentically urban strategies for ministry-models of ministry invented, practiced, evaluated and matured in the city? Yes. There is an emerging body of urban strategies born in the city. These are the strategies to which we need to pay particular attention as we seek to do truly authentic urban ministry. What are these strategies?

Networking
Networking has become a popular term lately. I first heard it used only about 10 years ago. But I have been networking since 1955, when I began my first urban ministry among children and teens in a black Chicago housing project. If you have been successful doing urban ministry, the likelihood is that you, too, have been doing a great deal of networking - whether you call it that or not.
What is networking? The term comes from the world of business, and it simply means the creation or maintenance of a "net" of contacts through which one effectively carries out an enterprise. That net can be a human net or a corporate net or even an electronic net (such as in telecommunications). Whatever it is, it is effective only as the contacts in it are used to carry out a given function.
Networking, in the Christian context, is the intentional and systematic visiting of people in a community by pastor and church workers in order to enable that community or church to address more of that neighborhood's most substantive problems. Through networking the church builds bridges throughout the community, bridges by which the gospel and its implications for all of life can be carried to comers that otherwise would be inaccessible.
There are three primary reasons for networking, all of which are interrelated and strategic to one another. One networks to
a) learn from the people in that urban community what they perceive are the real issues that dominate their lives and community;
b) discover the real leaders of the community;
c) find the people in that community who have a burden either for it or for one of its primary issues.
Networkers seek first to learn what the people consider their issues. If a church is to reach out to its community, it is irrelevant what the church perceives as the issues. One must begin where people are, with their issues, and the only sure way to uncover those issues is to ask the people.
The second thing networkers seek to learn is who are the real leaders of the community. Very rarely are the elected or business leaders of a community the real leaders and that is particularly true of a slum community. They are usually only the titular leaders.

Four types of leaders
Four types of leaders in every urban community make it function: gatekeepers, caretakers, flak catchers and brokers. Every community has them. They make it run.
The gatekeepers decide who should be "let in" or "kept out." They are the power brokers. Questions like this will help reveal them: "I understand that so- and-so down the street has just moved in. What do you think of him? How did you get that opinion of him?" (The opinion likely came from the gatekeeper.) "I see you have a hole in your street. If you wanted to be sure that the hole was filled, whom would you go to in this neighborhood to make sure it got filled up?" As you talk to person after person, if the same name keeps coming up, you have found the gate- keeper of that block.
The caretakers are the warm-heart- ed people of the community, the people in front of whose homes the children gather and play. The gatekeeper and caretaker make up together the most powerful leadership force in any neighborhood. One never achieves anything if either of these individuals opposes it. The caretaker can be identified with a question like this: "If you had a crisis at 2 a.m. and none of your family was around, to whom would you turn in this community for help?" If the same name keeps surfacing in your inter- views, guess whom you have identified?
The flak catcher is the most interesting person in a community. Another name for him or her is "gossip." Gossips can be as healthy for a community as they can be unhealthy. The flak catcher is on top of what is going on and has the capacity to communicate to everybody in the neighborhood. Do you want to get the word out on any issue? Tell the flak catcher.
The broker is the politician, the power broker who can wield influence outside the community. He or she is the friend of a friend of a friend of the chief of police or the director of the sanitation bureau. This person can make a telephone call or have a strategic conversation with someone, and the issue will get resolved. Your questions to identify this person would deal with the brokerage of power.
The gatekeepers, caretakers, flak catchers and brokers provide the cement that binds a community together. The church cannot minister effectively in an urban neighborhood and ignore them.
The third thing networkers want to know is who in the community cares so much about an issue that he or she will get involved in dealing with it? No community issue can be addressed successfully unless the people address it. Those who have the "fire in the belly". will take the risk. How do you discover them? Observe the people you are interviewing. Do they really get animated and speak with conviction about an issue? If so, they are likely candidates. Ask, "What causes you to weep over this community? What just breaks your heart here?" When you discover people who weep with broken hearts, you will have found the motivators and convictional workers of that community.

There is an emerging body of urban strategies born in the city.

The most important function of networking is to enable you and your church to move into the most effective aspect of urban ministry-Community organization.

Community organization.
What is community organization? What does it have to do with the urban church? Community organization is the process by which the people of an urban community organize themselves to deal with the primary forces that are exploiting their community and making them powerless victims. Note the assumptions wrapped up in that definition. The first is that the people who are best able to deal with a problem are those most affected by it. What do I mean by that?
When I was pastor of a church in Detroit, my teenage son was getting himself into a lot of trouble. He was drinking, not getting his schoolwork done, running around with a rough
group of friends. Those first three years of his high school life were hell for my wife and me. During that time, I went to see a friend of mine to share my concern. When I began to share that heartache, he said something that seemed terribly cruel. Later I realized his wisdom.
"Bob," he said, "I can listen to what you have to say. I can sympathize with you. I can weep with you. I can even feel great pain for what you are going through. But I cannot solve your problem. Only you can solve your problem for yourself."
What is obviously true in family life is equally true for a community or neighborhood. Those most capable and motivated to solve a severe community problem are the people in that community who have that problem. No one else, not even the church, can know what is best for an urban community.


 
The "flak catcher" is usually the most interesting person in a community.


There are subtle but important differences between a church being in a community, ministering to a community and working with a community. Undoubtedly the most effective method is the latter.

The second assumption is that people who are excluded from full participation in the social, economic and political life of their city or neighborhood can be empowered to participate when they act collectively. As long as people take responsibility only individually, they will not significantly change the course of their neighborhood. If people can be empowered to work cooperatively, as a single unit, they will be able to take responsibility for the life of their community and, consequently, to participate fully in the life of their city. In light of these two assumptions, a church can respond to its city in one of three different ways.
First, it may see itself as the church in the city and community. It will not feel any particular commitment to its neighborhood. It will not particularly identify with the community. It will simply be physically present in it. Its brick and mortar happen to meet the ground there.
Often a church that sees itself as in but not of its community will have had a significant commitment to that community in earlier days. It may have been created as a parish church there. But then the neighborhood began to change. People began to move out, and the community began to deteriorate. So, increasingly, the church became a commuter congregation with members traveling into the neighborhood to attend church but living elsewhere. So the congregation lost its stake, its psychological ownership in the community. This is the church in the city.

One must begin where people are, with their issues.

Second, a church may perceive itself as a church \to the city and community. Some urban churches realize that if they do not interact with their neighborhood, they will die. So they begin to become concerned about the neighborhood and its problems. This, of course, is a more holistic approach than the first, because it recognizes that the church must be present to the people around it and concerned with both evangelism and social action. It is inadequate to be concerned with people's souls, particularly if the people are poor, unless the church is also going to be concerned about their social and economic needs.
There is great potential in this kind of approach, but there is also a fatal flaw. The Achilles heel of this approach is the perception that the church knows what is best for the neighborhood. These Christians look at their neighbor- hood and say, "Look at all these teenagers hanging around, causing trouble; what these people need is a youth program for their teenagers to get them off the streets." The church says, "Look at all these children running around the streets; they have no place to play. What the church needs to do is develop a program for those children." Or the church looks at the number of senior citizens sitting on their porches and says, "What our church needs to do is develop a ministry to senior citizens."

A church with the community
The common element in all of these ministry approaches is that the church is deciding what is best for the community. But has anybody asked the community? The teens may be causing trouble because they have no work; their solution might be to start a job- placement and training program, not a recreational program. The children may play on the streets, not because they have no other place to play, but because their parents want to keep an eye on them. The senior citizens sitting on their porches with apparently nothing to do might like sitting on their porches, visiting with each other and passing the time of day.
. The people best able to deal with a problem are those most affected by it. They can best determine whether a condition someone from another social class or culture perceives as a problem is actually a problem. Being the church to the city is inappropriate because the church does not recognize the capability of the community's people; it makes judgments about their priorities from another culture's perspective and perceives them as objects to be ministered to rather than folk capable of determining their own future. It is, essentially, a colonialist mentality.
Third, a church may be the church with the city. There is a profound difference between being a church in or to an urban neighborhood and being a church with that neighborhood. When a church takes this third approach, it incarnates itself in that community. It becomes flesh of that people's flesh, bone of that people's bone. It enters into the life of the community and becomes a partner in addressing its need. This means the church allows the people of the community to instruct it as it identifies with the people. It respects them and joins them in dealing with the issues they have identified as their own. This is the approach in which the most authentic urban ministry actually occurs.

The third response - being the church with the people - enables the church to join with the people in addressing the issues of that community, not from a vantage point of privileged insight but from the recognition that the people of the community - the people with the problem - must assume final responsibility for coping with the problem. The church should come alongside them, support and work with them in the endeavor, and share with them the particular gifts and strengths it has to contribute. Community organization is the process that enables the church to actually be the church with its neighborhood.
How does community organization work? It is a process of mobilizing the people in a troubled neighborhood to take action together to identify and defeat the social and spiritual forces destroying that neighborhood. The church is particularly well positioned to undertake that responsibility and to work alongside the people. Networking (which we already have examined) is an initial step of community organizing. The felt needs and issues of the community, its real leaders, and the people who will form the convictional backbone of the organization, are all identified through net- working. In light of the information gathered on issues, leaders and people, one can undertake the next stage of organizing: coalition building.

Coalition building
Coalition building is simply going to the people in the community who claim a particular issue as theirs and pulling them together into an action group to address the issue. To function effectively, the coalition needs at least one gatekeeper, caretaker, broker or flak catcher. Of course, members of the churches should also be involved in coalitions on issues of concern to them. Most communities need several different coalitions. One can deal with children, another with sanitation, another with education, and yet another with unemployment. In essence, the coalitions provide a means by which people can deal together with the issue or problem that concerns them.

This process, therefore, applies the two organizational principles discussed earlier. By being issue oriented, the coalition gets the people most capable of dealing with the problem - those most concerned about it - to work on it. Bringing these people together enables them to work collectively. That, in turn, empowers them to deal effectively with the issue. This is what coalitions are designed to do: to enable the people concerned with a given problem to deal with it collectively. Integral to the effectiveness of coalition building is the process of action and reflection. The community organizing team leads the people of a coalition to reflect on and analyze their problem, seeking to understand why it exists, determining together what to do about it, and then doing it. It is important for the coalition to select initial actions on which it can win. But it can take on tougher problems, particularly the systemic causes behind surface symptoms, as it matures and gains strength.

Leadership development
The activities of the coalition will tend to be of two types: projects and mediation. Projects are activities under- taken by the coalition or community to solve a problem directly by themselves. A project might be an income-generating scheme or the creation of a housing program. Mediation is an effort to get the governmental or economic powers of the city to understand what they are obligated by law to provide but are not providing. Thus, mediation might aim at getting the city to pick up the garbage or install sewers, or getting banks to provide loans in slum communities they consider a financial risk.
A cycle of reflection and action will establish itself. If you get people to think about the issues that concern them, they will analyze them on increasingly profound levels. As they act on their reflections, developing substantive projects or mediations they themselves implement, they will be thrust into deeper and deeper reflection.
Also integral to community organizing is leadership development. The organizer stays alert for leaders who emerge from the people. Some emerging leaders will have been identified previously: caretakers, gate- keepers, flak catchers and brokers. But some may be newly emerging as leaders in coalitions. One of the most important tasks in community organization is to build leadership among the people.
Potential leaders are identified within the coalition. They are equipped through the same process of reflection and action, both within and outside the coalition, as the organizer works directly with the potential leaders and trains them to carry out particular actions. If, for example, they have to appear before a magistrate to present an issue of their community, the organizer might role play the confrontation with them. They will practice how to present their case to the magistrate. That way, incipient leaders are equipped to become strong, sound, enduring leaders of their community. Through the training, development and empowerment of its leaders, the community will become increasingly empowered.
A strategic part of community organizing is to bring coalitions together into the "community's organization." There may be six, seven or eight coalitions operating in a given community around issues the people have identified. Increasingly, these coalitions need to draw together to work with each other and share each other's leadership, thus eventually creating one organization for the community.
In a slum in Detroit in which I was involved, several churches were concerned about their impoverished and powerless community. Early on, 30 of us networked the community. We called on virtually every family in the neighborhood - hundreds and hundreds of people. We spent time with each family. In our networking, we gathered information on the concerns and issues people cared most about and identified indigenous leadership.
We invited the leaders to join us. They did, and together we identified the issues the community felt were of greatest importance: senior citizens' concerns, children, youth, emergency aid, receiving from government what was legally due but not being provided, unemployment and housing. So we built coalitions around these concerns and began to work on them. We started with senior citizens. That group of people identified what they wanted to do, set up a senior citizens' program, and began to implement it.
Another coalition developed UPLIFT, a year-round youth and children's program staffed by 75 volunteers from the community and churches. This was followed by Crossroads, a ministry developed in conjunction with the Episcopal church, which provided emergency aid, food and clothing and developed an advocacy effort that rep- resented the poor before city and state government officials.

Those with the problem are 'best suited to solve it.

Finally, the people tackled the truly big issues of the community: housing and jobs. Our housing coalition developed a master plan for the community, pulled together a larger coalition of government agencies, foundations and fiduciary institutions to provide funding, and purchased and began renovating homes. Built on the sweat-equity principle, community people working on them were able to purchase homes at low cost and with virtually no down payment. A jobs training and placement program was also developed, and began training the people in new and marketable skills, and eventually placed three hundred people a year in jobs.

An evangelism of respect
In this approach to urban ministry, what role does evangelism play? How does sharing the faith enter the process of community empowerment?
The church's participation in the community's organization creates a unique opportunity to share the Christian faith with the community's emerging leaders. Consider what happens if the members of a congregation actively participate in the coalitions addressing critical community issues. Christians, members of these congregations, work side by side with the people of the community. And they do this even though they are not necessarily affected by, and so concerned with, the same problems. In this process of shared action and reflection, intense relationships of trust and respect grow. The very nature of the work of a coalition entails risk, as the political and economic systems of a city are challenged by the powerless and the Christians from the community. The very act of reflecting and acting together around issues intensely important to the people builds trust. It builds strong respect for one another, and in that context sharing one's faith becomes easy. It is reputed that during the early years of Christianity, when it was under intense persecution by the state, a Christian leader and a pagan philosopher engaged in a debate. The pagan summarized his case against Christianity with the words, "When most teachers go forth to teach, they cry, 'Come to me, you who are clean and worthy,' and they are followed by the highest caliber of people available. But your silly Master cries, 'Come to me, you who are down and beaten by life,' and so he accumulates around himself the rag, tag and bobtail of humanity. "
The response of the Christian to this pagan's mocking attack stands as a profound statement on the task of the church in the city. "Yes," he admitted, "the Christians are the rag, tag and bobtail of humanity. But Jesus does not leave them that way. Out of material you would have thrown away as use- less, he fashions men [and women], giving them back their self-respect, enabling them to stand on their feet and look God in the eye. They were cowed, cringing, broken things. But the Son has set them free!"
This is the unique work of Christ and his church in the city -to reach out to that city's rag, tag and bobtail, to join with them in winning back their self-respect so that they can stand on their feet and look even God in the eye! This is the work to which all of us as urban Christians art! privileged to be called.

Reprinted from "Discipling the City," Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Mich., 1992.

TOGETHER October-December 1994

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