CHURCH GROWTH
Church Growth in the Midst of Poverty
By Rev. Rich Peck
Christianity.com
- NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS)—Has the United Methodist Church
abandoned its heritage of ministering to the poor?
Leaders of the denomination's Board of Global Ministries expected
75 people to gather in Nashville for a March 22-24 conference on
"Evangelism and Church Growth in the Midst of Poverty." To their
surprise, 175 crowded into a small assembly hall of an inner-city
church for the opening session. The three-day event included speeches,
workshops, worship, Bible study, times of sharing, and trips to
various inner-city churches in the Nashville area.
If United Methodists are to share the Gospel effectively with poor
people, they must drop theoretical language and learn to address
an oral and electronic culture, said the Rev. Tex Sample, coordinator
of the Network for the Study of U.S. Lifestyles. The retired seminary
professor observed that anyone who expects to minister to the poor
must talk about "believing and feeling" in contrast to "thinking
and knowing." "It's the difference between 'knowing God' and 'knowing
about God'," he explained.
Encouraging participants to use media to reach the poor, Sample
showed a video of a Tina Turner concert that included pyrotechnics
and audience participation. "Reminds you of the lectionary reading
for the third Sunday in Kingdomtide doesn't it?" Sample joked.
Talking about where the poor are located, Sample said, "The powerful
build places, but the poor set up spaces in the midst of those places."
He said these spaces include honkytonks, the cantina and the beer
joint, "places most of us don't frequent." He also noted that the
poor claim spaces on walls in the form of graffiti, and live in
spaces on open land. In these places, the author said the poor engage
in festivals and acts of resistance against the powerful. He encouraged
the church leaders to join the resistance and to participate in
parties designed to "thumb our noses at power."
Addressing language issues, Sample said the poor use an "agonistic"
language, or a language born of a difficult life. "Most of our pious
language is based on Victorian language of the 19th century," he
said. "These people are not going to talk about flatulence, feces
and oitus. If you can't handle the language, go somewhere else to
do your ministry."
Garlinda Burton, editor of Interpreter, the denomination's program
magazine, congratulated the assembly for "at least talking about
drawing our circle wider to include those whom the world would dismiss."
She noted that too many United Methodists are proud of themselves
for "presuming to decide who's out and who's in God's inner circle."
"It is my contention," said the editor, "that our efforts at a
ministry on the margins stall because we are a people who want to
believe that everyone is just the same below the surface."
An African American, Burton lamented the fact that some well-meaning
white people sometimes say, "I don't think of you as black—I
don't see color."
"That person and I might build a Habitat house together," said
Burton, "and we can pray for one another, but it is difficult for
us to come to the kind of Christian intimacy to which God calls
us because that person is refusing to see and wrestle with his feelings
about my real being and my life as a person of color. Part—not
all—but part of who I am, part of how I understand the world,
part of how I experience Jesus and part of the reason our church
is divided racially in the first place is because I am black and
that person is white. So for either of us to 'not see color,' especially
for him, a member of the dominant racial group in our church and
world, is for us not to see each other and so it is that much harder
to find common ground."
Burton challenged the body to move from the polite "I don't see
the difference" to acknowledge racial, class and economic differences.
Recognizing the differences that relegate some to the margins of
church and society will enable us to become "God's reconciling force
in the world."
She told the group that any ministry of engagement with the poor
must include "proximity, solidarity and visibility." Proximity,
she said, means being with people, going where they live and work.
Solidarity means speaking out with them in political, social and
even theological debate. Visibility means bringing people "who look
and smell and talk like them to the table as equal partners whether
you're planning worship of figuring out how to spend grant money."
On the final morning, the Rev. Irving Cotto, pastor of Asbury United
Methodist Church, Camden, N.J., told the gathering about the National
Plan for Hispanic Ministry. The plan, which is similar to denominational
plans for other ethnic and racial groups, includes a 38-hour training
opportunity for lay missioners who lead faith communities.
Cotto said these groups that meet in homes and neighborhoods sometimes
decide to become chartered churches, but that is not their goal.
Frequently, the groups simply exist as a place for worship, prayer,
Bible study and a place to seek God's will about pressing issues.
In Cotto's community, one of the primary concerns is immigration,
for many fear losing their jobs and being deported. Cotto noted
that such a justice issue is not necessarily a comfortable one,
but "Gospel living has little to do with comfort."
2001 UMNS
Rev. Rich Peck, a free-lance writer, is a retired employee of the
United Methodist Publishing House.
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