Archive for the ‘Urban Ministry’ Category

Posted on April 20, 2011 - by Stephen Murray

New Redeemer City to City Website

The really great people at Redeemer City to City have just launched their new website which gives interested people a comprehensive view of what City to City does around the world. There are loads of great resources from Tim Keller, City to City staff members and other church planters. The site also has great videos which capture the essence and ethos of City to City. If you look carefully in one of the videos (you figure which one) you might even catch a glimpse of yours truly waxing lyrical (for a second or two) about church planting and Cape Town.

City to City is an amazing ministry which is at the forefront of urban church planting and city renewal ministries. Anyone thinking about urban church planting should have this City to City’s site at the very top of their list of resource sites.

Posted on October 20, 2010 - by Stephen Murray

Lausanne III: The Priority of Cities

I could have listened to Tim Keller speak all night. In one sense I almost feel it would have been justified to allow him the time. Here’s my logic (bearing in mind it’s no secret that I’m a huge advocate of Keller’s ministry and approach): The issue of ministry in cities seems to, in many ways, incorporate (simply due to the breadth of the issue) many of the other issues covered at the congress. Urban ministry is the challenge of our age and the sad fact that people are moving into cities faster than churches means that we’re on the back foot already.

Nothing less than a robust, gospel-centered church planting agenda is going to address this growing phenomenon. There is an intrinsic link between reaching cities and church planting. If our strategy for urban ministry is an arrow-head then the tip is church planting. It’s already well documented that nothing rejuvenates existing churches, para-church organizations and networks more effectively than the consistent and extensive planting of new churches.

Can we plant urban churches that, in Keller’s words, are ‘committed to evangelism and yet also famous for their concern for social justice’? Can we? I don’t see many yet. Pray for more and get it on the agenda.

Posted on August 12, 2010 - by Stephen Murray

Honest Evangelism for a Suspicious City

I stumbled upon Sivin Kit’s blog post, ‘An Affirmation on Christian Witness‘ which deals with the Malaysian Christian Federation’s  affirming of what is really just honest evangelism – evangelism with integrity.

Perhaps there are no places more in need of honest evangelism than our highly suspicious urban centers. Besides the simple fact that a carrot and stick approach to evangelism is morally and ethically questionable it’s probably also the quickest way to sink the reputation of a new urban ministry or church within their community. Here are 2 things to avoid and 2 things to consider doing if you are part of an urban ministry or church:

2 Things to Avoid:

1. Don’t organize and run events where the primary purpose of the event, in your own conception, is to publicly proclaim the gospel but the public (advertised) purpose of event is something else. A colleague of mine recently told me of how a Jazz evening he organised, that included a 10 minute gospel presentation at the end, painted a horrible blemish on their church’s reputation in the community. People in our urban centers will never give you an ear if you’re not straight with them.

2. Don’t get involved in a mercy ministry if your primary intention is to grow your church numerically. Don’t hear me wrong – I want people to roll up their sleeves and get stuck into mercy ministry – but do it for the right reasons. Go back, read your Bible, see God’s concern for the poor and marginalized and go out and serve. Does God want the poor and marginalized to repent and believe in the gospel? Of course he does – but you can’t just interact with them on that premise alone, which is what you’re functionally doing if your church only ever gets involved in mercy ministry for evangelistic purposes. I remember reading Tim Chester (I think – might have been Steve Timmis – sorry if I mixed it up) saying that evangelism is the most loving thing we, as Christians, can do – but its not the only loving thing we can do. The way some ministries and churches engage in mercy ministry, social justice and cultural renewal makes it clear that they believe evangelism is the only loving thing we can do. That’s not biblical and it will result in evangelism that lacks integrity.

2 Things to Do:

1. Be clear about the intention of your meetings and events. If the aim of the evening is to introduce people to the claims of Jesus then say so. People are putting their ideologies out there all day, everyday. We shouldn’t be shy or embarrassed to be clear about what we’re on about.

2. Bless your city. I’ve spoken about this already but I really believe that if we honestly and genuinely love and care for our city (no strings attached) it will put a whole lot of integrity behind us when we do share the core of our faith. I’m fairly convinced that’s what 1 Peter 2:9-3:16 is all about. Honest living allows for honest evangelism.

Posted on June 29, 2010 - by Stephen Murray

Bless Your City

How do you bless your city on a personal level. Many might have read Tim Keller’s advance paper for Cape Town 2010 and been really convicted by the approach to urban ministry he sets out, but you’re left wondering how you live consistently with those principles on an individual level. Here are some thoughts, and things I’ve tried out in my city, Cape Town:

1. Be Regular

I made a point at some stage to make sure I frequented the same establishments with some sort of regularity building relationships with the staff and the regular customers. So have coffee at the same coffee shop often, use the same restaurants often, shop for groceries in the same place. In Cape Town there is so much choice in terms of restaurants, coffee shops and supermarkets that it would be (and is) really easy to not be a regular and to simply dip into hundreds of different establishments never building any lasting relationships where you can be a blessing. To make any sort of difference you need to choose to be regular.

2. Use Public Transport

Okay so not all cities have the same type of transport setup so you’ll have to figure this one out for your own city. In saying that, there are many cities that have more of a car culture than a public transport culture. Often in car culture cities poorer folk are encountered on public transport whilst the wealthy use their cars. Cape Town, with the exception of the down town area, is definitely a car culture city amongst the middle-class and the wealthy(although things are slowly changing in this area – for the better I think). Shortly after my wife and I moved into the central city I made a commitment to travelling the way the majority of our city travels. I’m happy to say that my car sees very little daylight nowadays. We have a  minibus taxi system that I utilize most days for going to work. The benefit? I rub shoulders with the city, hear their stories, again build relationships and contribute to the livelihood of the industry. It beats sitting in traffic.

3. Buy Local

If you’re in a global city you’ve probably got limitless options in terms of buying goods. Depending upon the local industry of your country many of those goods are probably imports. Now this is an area I need to get better at but on occasion I’ve tended to look out for the smaller industries in my city and try and bless them by giving them my business. Again you’ll find that this will open up relationship and will also allow you to add to the economic development of your city.

4. Serve in Local Social Development Projects

Chances are your city has a number of social development projects on the go. Find out what they are, role up your sleeves and get involved. We’re at an early stage of developing relationships with feeding and rehabilitation schemes for the destitute in our city as well as networking with people who work against human trafficking. This is probably the most obvious way to serve and bless the city.

5. Celebrate the Festivals (and invite your friends)

This one’s a little selfish but it is missional and can add, in a small way, to a better ethos. It’s been a whole lot of fun celebrating the Soccer World Cup with the city over the past few months. As I write this people are making their way to the stadium to watch Spain vs. Portugal. I’ll be downtown at kick-off with a bunch of people celebrating this once off sporting festival. I’ll be going to a regular spot, using public transport and buying local and in the process I’ll meet many people, some will know Jesus others won’t. My prayer is to be something of a blessing to those people and to the city in the process.

Posted on June 25, 2010 - by Stephen Murray

Multifaceted Mission for a Multifaceted City

One of the great challenges of urban ministry is the versatile and dynamic nature of a global city. On the one hand global cities are becoming more and more like each other in sharing a very broadly defined global culture, but on the other hand as these global cities grow they each become more diverse and multifaceted, in and of themselves, than they were before. As people move from rural areas to cities they each bring a little bit of their background to the melting pot of the city and add it into the mix. So as the city grows the number of different cultures in one geographical location grows, as do all the various components that make up any one given culture. Here’s a list, off the top of my head, of some of the biggest challenges this creates for urban ministry:

1. Economic Inequality
Building authentic gospel-centered community in the city is difficult when people are so comfortable in their own ghetto-like communities. Often these communities are built on economics and so when all of a sudden the gospel gets people in the room from different economic communities it starts to get interesting. A thorough biblical theology of wealth and possessions is necessary for urban ministry.

2. Racial/Ethnic Division
If it’s not economics that makes for interesting community then try racial and ethnic division. It takes a long, careful process to walk through all the mistrust, misunderstanding and other issues that occur when people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds come together. A robust, gospel-centered theology of race and ethnicity is a prerequisite for urban ministry.

3. Multiple Languages
Given that much of Christian ministry is centered upon the proclamation of the gospel this creates a unique challenge in that many sitting in urban congregations today will have the language in which the sermon is preached as their second or third language and not the language they speak at home. This will have far reaching implications for preaching and the development of curriculum.

4. Diverse Tastes in Music and Arts
Whilst I’m very much pro heterogeneous church models that aim to reflect the throne room of Revelation where all nations are gathered together worshipping God I’m also well aware that congregations, or services, will essentially develop their own styles and cultures. Conducting a corporate worship gathering that values heterogeneous ministry whilst at the same time finding a well contextualized ‘style’ for that meeting will be a great challenge.

5. Different Idols
People with different worldviews all converging in one place will mean a number of diverse and different idols being manifest which need correction. In some ways it was easier ministering in a wealthy western suburb where people’s idols revolved around the material, hedonism and family. The city daily brings me into contact with idols I’d never even thought of before. This makes communicating Christ, as the supreme object of worship, rather tricky at times. And if we’re not careful in our study and interaction with our people we can easily end up expending large amounts of energy confronting gods that have little or no hold over our congregations.

Urban ministry really requires multifaceted mission to deal with the multifaceted city.

Posted on June 9, 2010 - by Stephen Murray

Cape Town the Global City

Here’s something you probably didn’t know: According to the Global World Cities Ranking, Cape Town is the 16th (level with 5 other cities) most prominent city in the world where English is the Lingua Franca (English is not necessarily the most widely spoken language in each of these cases but it is the language on which each of these cities run. So for example more people speak Afrikaans as a first language in Cape Town than English). Here’s the top 33:

1st New York, London
3rd Sydney,
4th Toronto, Chicago,
6th Dublin, Los Angeles, Auckland
9th Melbourne, Johannesburg, Atlanta,
12th Dallas, Boston
14th Miami, Houston,
16th Montreal, Brisbane, Denver, Vancouver, Cape Town, Minneapolis, Seattle,
23rd Perth, Philadelphia, Portland, Lagos
27th Detroit, Manchester, Wellington, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Calgary, Columbus

It’s nice knowing you live in a city that stands out on the global stage. It also convinces me more that Cape Town is a thoroughly important place for the task of church planting.

As a side note…I wonder what the World Cup will do to these rankings – if anything.

Posted on April 28, 2010 - by Stephen Murray

Seeing your City with God’s Eyes

I spend most weekday mornings in the inner city of Cape Town. It’s probably my single most favourite place in South Africa, maybe the world. Where else can you experience the buzz and excitement of a vibrant city and at the same time be at the foot of a majestic mountain? I spend a lot of time in coffee shops enjoying the mix of people, the sounds, the tastes and the general feel that seems to emanate from this diverse city. There’s so much to love here.

This morning we had perfect weather in the city, sun was shining, no wind, not too hot, not too cool – just perfect. I went for a walk down St George’s Mall (think outdoor paved street – not suburban shopping mall). Somewhere along the walk I had an epiphany (as you do on days with extraordinarily good weather): I don’t see the city the way God sees it. Let me explain…

Here’s my view (the crass version): The city exists for me, it exists to fulfill my desires – and they’re numerous. My desire to feel like I’m at the centre of an important city at an important time (basically the desire to feel important). My desire to feel hipster – this city is full of them/us? My desire to feel in community – there are people everywhere. My desire simply for fun – it’s a seriously cool place to hang out. The city exists for me.

God’s view of the city: The city exists for God’s glory and his purposes. Now a quick walk down the streets and you might be mistaken for thinking that the city exists for the exact opposite. So there’s huge economic inequality, racial tension, broken sexuality, anything but what you’d expect to bring glory to God.

I think the pre-fall trajectory of scripture suggests to me that God’s intention is that this city and all the creativity that comes from the hands of men should be for the glory of God and the furtherance of his purposes. In terms of God’s plans for the world I don’t think that trajectory changes after the fall – the difference now is that we mess everything up by our open rebellion against God. For me then to see things through God’s eyes is to put on pre-fall goggles and see what he wants for this city and not what I want from it.

Seeing the city through God’s eyes means seeing the economic inequality and wanting to be involved in addressing it. Seeing the city through God’s eyes means seeing the racial tension and wanting to be an agent of peace. Seeing the city through God’s eyes means  seeing the broken sexuality and wanting to be a healer. It means seeing all the good things in the city and rejoicing in God’s common grace so obviously evident here. It means seeing what should be instead of seeing only what I selfishly want.

I want to see this city through God’s eyes – I want my desires to be changed.