Incarnational Ministry, Part III

My Personal Experience with Relocation

About eight or nine years ago—back before I had ever heard of John Perkins, Christian community development, or even the theology of relocation, my wife and I were both working in the inner-city of Denver. Every morning, I would drive her to whichever elementary school she would be substitute teaching at for the day and then I would head over to my own job at Curtis Park Community Center which was located in Five Points--one of Denver's poorest and most dangerous urban neighborhoods.

One of the things that my wife and I quickly realized was that nearly all of the people that we worked with were like us; they lived in comfortable affluent suburban areas and commuted into the city to work with the so-called poor. There was, however, one crucial exception to that rule that challenged me to think about the significance of relocation, even before I knew that others were already promoting that as an effective strategy for urban missions. My boss at Curtis Park Community Center was the only employee—at least the only employee at the administrative level—who actually resided in the community that we were trying to serve.

Without getting into a detailed explanation, let me just say that one of the major thrusts of Curtis Park Community Center was to provide training and support for our clients—primarily single mothers on welfare—that would enable them to get off of welfare and into the workforce. Anyway, one of the things that I eventually realized is that when our clients learned that my boss was also their neighbor, he was able to much more quickly and easily establish a good rapport with them. It’s not that the rest of us weren’t able to establish good working relationships with our clients; it’s just that my boss had significantly greater credibility with them than we did because he lived in their neighborhood and was viewed as a community insider whereas the rest of us were viewed as community outsiders.

Over the past three years, my wife and I have become increasingly convicted about the need to relocate to the Farm Road district of Nassau in order that we might be able to minister more effectively to the city. So when we returned to Nassau last year following our home assignment, we moved into an apartment located right off Collins Avenue. This is approximately a five to ten minute drive away from Emmaus Baptist Church--the Haitian congregation where Estela works--as well as Atlantic College and Theological Seminary, where I currently teach. Lest anybody get the wrong idea, I should point out that I do not consider our current home to be an example of full-relocation but rather a compromise that is best viewed as a semi-relocation. For us to truly relocate—to truly follow the example of Jesus Christ himself—we would really need to live someplace in the midst of Farm Road like Hay Street, Lewis Street, or McCollough Corner where we could fully establish our presence in the Farm Road community itself.

That being said, we have found that living on Collins Avenue—rather than suburban Stapledon Gardens where we used to live—has been an important first step in a journey that is slowly opening the doors for greater ministry involvement here in the city. My wife, for example, is now providing tutoring and informal mentoring to a number of young people from D.W. Davis Junior High School. And just this month, we’ve begun hosting a series of marriage enrichment classes for a number of young couples from Emmaus Baptist Church. Both of these ministries are being conducted from our home. And we’re able to that because we live in a location that is readily accessible to folks who are living here in the city. If we were still living in Stapledon Gardens instead of Collins Avenue, it would not be such a simple matter for inner-city school kids to drop by our house on their way from school or for members of our church to stop by on their way home from work.

Coming Next: Getting Out of the Church and Into the Community


PREVIOUSLY
Part I: Introduction
Part II: The Biblical Basis for Relocation

Incarnational Ministry, Part II

Previously: Introduction

Last week, I briefly examined the life and ministry of John Perkins, showing how his particular understanding of incarnational ministry is expressed in the concept of relocation. By relocation, Perkins simply means that we must live in the same community as those whom we seek to serve. Perkins argues that it is only by living side-by-side, in solidarity with others that one can truly understand their needs and problems and, ultimately, the solutions that are needed.

While most of us might be inclined to offer excuses as to why relocation really isn't necessary, we would do well to remember that it is rooted in our biblical understanding that Jesus lived in solidarity with those whom he hoped to reach. More specifically, John 1:14 teaches us that “The word became flesh and made his dwelling amongst us” and Philippians 2:5-8 teaches us that Jesus “being in very nature God . . . made himself nothing.” In other words, Jesus Christ did not commute back and forth from heaven to conduct his ministry here on earth. Instead, he gave up the glory of heaven and chose to become a human being and live right here on earth amongst us so that we might be saved.

Now if that isn’t an amazing sacrifice in and of itself, what I think is really interesting is that Jesus really, truly “made himself nothing” in every sense of the word. If Jesus was going to relocate, he could have easily chosen to incarnate himself in Jerusalem or even Rome—the religious, political, and economic power centers of his day. But Jesus deliberately chose not to become the son of the Jewish High Priest in Jerusalem, nor even the son of a high-profile rabbi in Rome. Instead, he chose to become a mere carpenter’s son in an obscure peasant village in the backwater of Palestine so that he could live and minister amongst those who needed him the most. Likewise, persons involved in urban ministry recognize that their work is most effective when they choose to reside in the poor communities they hope to reach instead of commuting from more affluent neighborhoods.

While relocation finds its strongest support from scripture in the example of Jesus, there are other significant examples as well. We are familiar, for example, with the story of Moses in the book of Exodus. Moses could have easily spent his life living in the comfort, safety, and social prestige of Pharaoh’s palace. Instead, he chose to give all that up so that he could live amongst Hebrew slaves and work for the freedom of his own people. I’m sure that was not an easy decision to make, and no doubt it was even a harder decision to live out. When the children of Israel were out in the wilderness grumbling about how much better off they would have been had they remained in slavery in Egypt, I’m sure that Moses was thinking how much better off he’d be if he would have never left Pharaoh’s palace. Indeed, if we were in Moses’ position, I wonder how many of us would have made the decision to leave Pharaoh’s palace so that we too might become poor in order that we might minister to slaves.

Another good example of relocation is found in life and ministry of Nehemiah during the post-exilic period of Old Testament history. Before Nehemiah was born, the Kingdom of Judah had been destroyed and the city of Jerusalem was burned to the ground by the Babylonian army and the Jewish people were forcibly deported from their ancestral homeland and scattered throughout much of the ancient Near Eastern world. By the time of Nehemiah, there were a large number of Jews living in Persia and even though they were living as foreigners in exile, many of them had done quite well economically and had risen to positions of political and social prominence. We’re familiar, of course, with the biblical stories of the men and women who became quite successful while living in exile. Daniel, for example, became a high ranking administrative official under Darius. Likewise, Esther—a young Jewish woman—became the Queen of Persia and, ultimately, wielded significant political influence over decisions that affected her people.

Like Daniel and Esther, Nehemiah had also risen to a position of political prominence and economic comfort within the Persian Empire. Specifically, he was the King’s personal cupbearer. This was a good job, providing Nehemiah with a prominent position in society as well as direct access to the King of the largest known empire in the world. In other words, he had made it; he had arrived. But then one day all of that changed. He heard through the grapevine that things back in Jerusalem—the place that his ancestors had been deported from—were not going so well. Apparently, the tiny Jewish remnant that had survived the exile and returned to Jerusalem was struggling for its survival. It was then that God laid it upon Nehemiah’s heart to give up everything he had and relocate to the rubble and ashes of Jerusalem so that God might use him to rebuild the Holy City.

I don’t have time to tell the rest of the story here, but what I find significant about this story is that Nehemiah could have easily spent his life enjoying the economic comfort, security, and social prestige of the King’s palace. But instead, he gave all of that up and chose to live amongst refugees so that he could work for the betterment of his own people. But God blessed the effort and sacrifices made by Nehemiah and used him in a might way to rebuild the walls of the Jerusalem. If we were in Nehemiah’s shoes, I wonder how many of us would be willing to leave Persia so that we too might become poor in order that we might minister refugees.

Observing how the concept of relocation is demonstrated through the lives of Jesus, Moses, Nehemiah, and even modern day disciples like John Perkins gives us new meaning to the words of Jesus when he taught us that, “any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33).

Coming Next: My Personal Experience w/Relocation

Incarnational Ministry, Part I

I’d like to begin by telling a story about a man named John Perkins. Perkins is an African-American with a third-grade education, who grew up during the Jim Crow era in a sharecropping family in rural Mississippi. Following the murder of his older brother by the local sheriff, he escaped from the South by migrating to California where he married, started a family, and became a successful businessman. He also began searching for spiritual meaning in his life—a journey that eventually led him to make a commitment to Jesus Christ.

After several years of active ministry as a Christian businessman, Perkins sensed God’s calling to pursue a new ministry in his hometown back in Mississippi. So during the turbulent years of the Civil Rights Movement, John Perkins and his family left the relative safety and economic security of California to return to the poverty-stricken and racially-charged atmosphere of the rural South. When he got back home, he was received with mixed feelings. It’s not that his friends and family weren’t excited about seeing him again. But they just couldn’t understand why he would leave the good life in California to come back to a godforsaken place like Mendenhall, Mississippi. But what his friends and family didn’t realize is that Perkins had simply given up the good life of economic comfort to pursue that abundant life that Jesus promises in John 10:10.

In spite of the initial skepticism surrounding his return, Perkins was ultimately able to minister to both the spiritual and physical needs of his former friends and neighbors, eventually pioneering a model for ministry--known as Christian community development--which has been widely replicated by hundreds, if not thousands, of Christians seeking to effectively minister in urban settings. Basically, Christian community development is a holistic approach to urban mission that is not just interested in saving souls—important as that task is—but is also concerned about meeting the physical and social needs of others as well. Holistic ministry is rooted, in part, in the tradition of Martin Luther King, Jr. who once said:

Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men, and is not concerned about the slums that cripple the souls, the economic conditions that stagnate the soul and the city governments that may damn the soul is a dry dead do nothing religion in need of new blood.

The linchpin to Perkins’ method is the concept of relocation, which is based on his understanding of incarnational ministry. By incarnational ministry, I simply mean that in order to reach others, we must become like them in the same way that God chose to become human in order to minister to us. So by relocation, Perkins advocates that we must live in the same community as those whom we seek to serve. Increasingly, many Christians have recognized that their ministries are most effective when they choose to reside amongst the people they hope to reach, even if that means leaving the economic comfort and cultural security of their homes and neighborhoods to do so. It is only by living side-by-side, in solidarity with the others that one can truly understand their needs and problems and, ultimately, the solutions that are needed.

Coming Next: The Biblical Basis for Relocation