July 14, 2005
Gornik: "a fellowship amidst the hurting and harmed"
"However, Perkins's "three R's" are not best understood as a strategy for discipleship and witness or even a philosophy of community development. What Perkins is driving at is ecclesiology -- or, better, what is driving Perkins is ecclesiology. The church exists for mission, Perkins stresses. With his unique story and conviction, John Perkins directed my friend Allan Tibbels and me to see that the church is God's reconciled community pursuing justice at the point of greatest suffering in the world." [p. 169 emphasis added]
This is the beginning of Mark Gornik's explanation of why he and Tibbels moved into Sandtown, one of Baltimore's toughest neighborhoods. It was the working out of their agreement with Perkins about the missional nature of the church. It was also because of their repentance.
"Allan and I took the pain, brokenness, and racial oppression of Sandtown to be our responsibility, the history of Baltimore to be our common history and therefore a call to metanoia [repentance]."
Gornik, now the director of City Seminary in New York City, has written To Live in Peace: Biblical Faith and the Changing Inner City, in which describes this story and lays out a fairly extensive groundwork for our calling as Christians to help rebuild the "communities of exclusion" typically found in the world's inner cities.
I took Miroslav Volf's suggestion in the Foreward and read chapter 5 first -- the story of New Song Community Church and New Song Urban Ministries. Their most visible (though perhaps not their most significant) achievement is the Sandtown Children's Choir that has a new album out through Gotee Records. I cry everytime I see them in concert.
This chapter is a good place to start. Elsewhere the book is thick with footnotes, as Gornik has obviously read widely -- Nicholas Wolterstorff, Walter Brueggemann, Bruce Cockburn, N.T. Wright, Tupac Shakur, Jurgen Moltmann, William Julius Wilson and hundreds more are all here. It's remarkable, but it makes for slow reading. He is simultaneously highly abstract and very practical.
A few of his major themes:
1) There is a universal call to care for the inner city poor
"A calling of the church today is to stay in the inner cities, especially the most seriously abandoned and hurting . . . As a basic way of following Christ, the church is especially to love and care for the poor and the sick, the outcast, the unwashed, and the unwanted" (p. 94).
"all Christians should find ways to dwell redemptively in the city" (p. 115)
"It means to reject -- as individuals, families, and churches -- withdrawing into privileged social and economic enclaves inside and outside the city." (p. 115)
2) Similarly, he sees the local congregation at the very center of community development, not only because churches already exist in the inner city and provide a basis for strengthening the neighborhood's social networks, but because true restoration needs the biblical text.
I appreciate this emphasis. As far as I can see, the church is one of 3 basic social structures implied in scripture (along with the state and the family). And it seems clear that the church is called to care for the poor, widows and orphans. One of the limitations of our ministry in Honduras, it seemed to me, was the lack of sustained connection with any local congregations. As much as I appreciate the work of parachurch ministries, I wish the church were taking a more active role.
3) The church is not to be for the poor but of the poor, not only in the city or for the city but with the city. He writes, "We do not mean a church that has a unique concern or special ministry to the poor . . . [but] a fellowship amidst the hurting and harmed, the excluded and suffering" (p. 73). He goes on later to argue, "A community church, therefore, will not 'have a ministry' so much as it will be a people who read Scripture together, who share in the hope of the gospel, and who share every joy, tragedy, and resource in Christ" (p. 87).
This is challenging. How many churches do you know of who forsake ministry to the poor for fellowship with the poor? I'm not sure that it's necessary to set up a requirement for churches to have a certain socioeconomic diversity, but I think he is right to point out that the typical method of getting together as middle class people and brainstorming on how to "help" the "poor".
4) Gornik is also convinced that caring for the inner city is all about developing the strength already present in inner city neighborhoods. Too often, he says, "social-capital theorists often picture inner-city neighborhoods as socially atomized, depleted of social capital resources. This is a misleading depiction . . . every neighborhood also has considerable strengths, capacities, and reserves of mutual responsibility and caring" (116). Gornik is also careful to note that Sandtown's revitalization was much more a result of the people who stayed than it was a case of anybody (himself or Tibbels I guess) moving in and "saving" the neighborhood -- an appropriate humility, I think.
I also thought it interesting that Gornik took issue with Marvin Olasky's book The Tragedy of American Compassion. "I have serious questions about Olasky's historical reconstruction," he writes. "And it seems to me that he has failed to appreciate the multiple and structural causes of inner-city struggles and has privatized public responsibility for the flourishing of its citizens." So on the one hand, Gornik holds up the church as center of community development, while on the other hand expressing grave reservations about Bush's "faith-based initiative". Interesting.
So back to the initial quote. What about the "missional nature of the church"? Maphet tells me that it is not the essential trait of the church, that we are first of all a worshiping community. But does anyone else get the feeling that we ought to be doing more?
And does the call to do more, as Gornik suggests, really imply moving ourselves to "bad" neighborhoods?
Read the Sermon on the Mount, or the book of James, and it might make you wonder. Simply put, "having realizations" does not constitute obedience. Obedience requires action. And there are specific commands (not just the decalogue, mind you) to be obeyed. I am reminded of Chris Rice's recollection of Spencer Perkins' belief: it is better to know one thing and do it, than to know 20 things and act on none of it.
My instinct tells me that mission should be more a fabric of our daily lives as believers, and that our congregations should be more socioeconomically diverse -- especially when they reside in diverse neighborhoods.
But I'd be interested in your thoughts. Many of you have experienced and/or thought about some of these questions.
Posted by tom at July 14, 2005 05:21 PM | TrackBack
Something troubling to me, though, is the way that "the church's mission" turns into helping the black and brown people. I wonder sometimes if something else is going on here, as there are tons of people telling us to get into the inner city (which is at least caricaturely black), but nobody is saying "go to the trailer parks!"
Maybe it's easier to _feel_ helpful when there is some cultural distance between the "giver" and the "receiver", which would also explain the trend of leaving one's own geographic realm to do short-term missions.
And this is troubling, because I don't think anyone thinks that the church's mission is to feel better about themselves.
Tom,
Thanks for checking out my blog. I think about these things a lot. I really like the to, for, and with distinctions/clarifications. To spin off that, it is as if we pre-position ourselves toward our work, callings, missions, and usually following dominant cultural patterns. Then we wonder why things aren't working.
Are you back in Chattanooga?
Posted by: paul at July 26, 2005 04:37 PMDrew, you win the prize for longest comment so far. Thanks.
Since reading Gornik, I picked up _A Quiet Revolution_ by John Perkins. I can't remember if I had read it carefully before during college, but I've been consistently impressed with Perkins' practical, biblical response to poverty. Of course you know the 3 R's, but he also talks about how all true evangelism begins with prayer.
I had lunch with Dan Henry and he said he was trying to get his church to start doing neighborhood prayer walks. May not be the ideal solution, but it's a start, at least, and something more than just talking.
Keep the discussion going.
Posted by: tom at July 25, 2005 01:54 PMTom...
These are difficult issues. I can say that the city is unlike anything I was prepared to experience. Classism, racism, urban economics, education, social evolution and so many other issues are totally off the map when talking about New York City. I mean, very intelligent, well-intentioned sociologists and progressive thinkers spend their entire lives researching, experimenting and writing about social change in the city.
Who are we Christians to try to parachute in with our aide if, when it comes down to it, we are really not prepared emotionally, physically, financially, to really help those in need. I have seen so many Christians leave the city because as they put it, it's not for them, and I respect that because I often feel the same.
Native New Yorkers who I know are jaded and skeptical of the "southern white evangelicals" coming into their neighborhoods with their missional agenda. So, what is the answer, I don't have the answer really, nor am I trying to say there is an easy one. I do believe much of Gornik's ideas are on point, but we need more Gorniks, more people who are willing to commit their lives to investing in places like New York City where there are so many hurting and disenfranchised people. Leaving is the easy part, staying for the long haul is quite the opposite. Who knows if I will be here a year from now. I do see so much need around me and as a Christian know how I may help (being a good neighbor, serving the orphan and the widow, the alien which is most of the city). However what does that look like? Do I pursue vocational ministry and barely have enough money to rent a decent space for my family, work a wall street job and have plenty of money but no time or energy to really invest in anyone, or do I live a simple, quiet life and love those in my neighborhood?
My mind tells me the issues facing the city are overwhelming and too daunting to even begin to realistically address so I will retreat into Christian hedonism or some isolationist denomination that is really good about caring for its members but really bad about caring for anyone else. What becomes of transformationalist theology? Is God doing something amazing in this city? Or is this just empty Redeemer movement, glossy marketing rhetoric? How do I cope with the disparity between the rich Christians of which I am a part and the actual call to sell everything one has, give it to the poor and follow Jesus?
All I have are more questions. I do feel the need to have like minded Christians around me that are bent on following Jesus in these particular ways and not afraid to ask questions with potentially very difficult answers or no answers at all.
Does Jesus really have a solution to all of our needs in this life, does he really call us to serve the poor and disenfranchised when what that may actually entail is going against the very grain of the culture, economy, the very way of thinking of our own WASP demographic? How do we even begin to reorient ourselves to this radical calling?
I only have more questions...