Examine six basic principles for starting an urban church in New Brunswick, NJ.

Jesus is the model for our church planting efforts in New Brunswick as He “became flesh and made his dwelling among us (Jn. 1:14).  When we talk about incarnational ministry we decide to put God’s efforts first and that is why we live like those we are going to reach.  

To reach the poor we cannot live in a mansion or dress like a million dollar man, but instead we sacrifice some of those things in order that God’s work may be done in us.  The incarnate church planter seeks to meet the needs of the city through learning its culture and being among the people.  Chris Mauldin, working with the Wonder City Church of Christ in West Memphis, AR is a perfect example of someone who is living incarnationally with those he is seeking to reach.  More Christians ought to have the same desire to live for God in and among God’s people.

        Paul Hiebert and Eloise Meneses write,

The goal of incarnational ministry is not that people understand the gospel.  It is that they respond to God’s invitation and are transformed by his power.  They become new creatures through Christ and members of a new community, the church.

In our church planting efforts in New Brunswick, we are moving as a team into the city to live among the people.  We are getting jobs in the community and we are sending our children to community schools.  We want to be involved with not only being leaders in the community, but also building leaders in the community.  We want to start ministries that will involve members of the community that we meet.  We become part of the community family and they become part of God’s family.

        The third principle for doing an urban church plant in New Brunswick is to plant a multiethnic church that breaks down the walls of pride and prejudice.  If a church is situated in a multi-ethnic community and takes seriously its role in bringing the gospel message to that community then that church will be well on its way to being a multiethnic church says Ortiz.  In talking about a multiethnic church I am envisioning a church that brings together a diverse group of believers who are reconciled across racial, cultural, and class lines, experiencing community together, modeling the unity of God’s kingdom.  Robert Lupton describes his trying to create this kind of community and he seemed always to be failing.  It was not until he stopped trying to create diversity that diversity finally came. 

Being a multiethnic church is important especially in the city, because differing cultures and classes of society meet in the city.  However, as Lupton experienced we cannot merely create this diversity, but it happens over time.  

In the urban area people of all races, ethnicities and social classes work together to form community.  Therefore, the church must not continue to divide, but to unite even as Jesus was uniting Jew and Gentile and also rich and poor.  

Mark Shelley talks about the restoration movement and those apart of that movement being Churches of Christ [non-instrumental], the Christian Churches/Churches of Christ, and Disciples of Christ.  He writes that the restoration movement two hundred years ago was on the cutting edge of American religion reaching people groups on the frontier.  However, people moving into the cities have stopped the growth of the restoration movement because we have not moved into the cities and we are not planting multiethnic churches.  Therefore, we must act as a cultural mediator on three fronts: “on behalf of the ethnic person toward the agencies and “powers that be” with which that person must deal; on behalf of those institutions that are trying to serve the ethnic person; and between the suburban Christian and the urban setting, person, and church. 

In New Brunswick we want to break down barriers by creating ministry and events that incorporate all ethnicities.  We want to celebrate special Spanish holidays and differences in culture.  Our plan is to take a year to learn the culture.  We want to learn about the history of the people living in the city.  

It is important to know what injustices have been done in the past and work towards correcting those injustices, which we will do.  The CWW (Church Without Walls) foundation is a fellowship of Christians who meet with North American Muslims to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with them.   This foundation of Christians has been breaking down barriers in the diversity between Christian and Muslim groups.  CWW was formed in an effort to invite Muslims and Christians to discuss issues of theology, history, culture, and godly living in a secular society.  In the past the differences between these two religious groups has kept Muslims from learning the gospel of Jesus Christ.  CWW has set as its mission to communicate the gospel to Muslims in North America.  Zaka correctly points out that we must create an atmosphere for multicultural learning to take place.  

Roembke describes an important aspect in creating a multiethnic church.  She says that we need multiethnic teams, although she calls them multicultural.  In our work in New Brunswick, our team is not moving as a multiethnic team, but we do understand the importance of learning cultures.  We all come from white, middleclass American families and will all graduate college.  I believe this to be a hindrance to our work in New Brunswick, but I suggest that our group is open-minded and is searching for workers that are of diverse ethnicities.  When we start ministering to the people in New Brunswick it is impossible to have someone on our team of every ethnic group and therefore we believe that we can bring about diversity even though we are starting out with very similar backgrounds.

Another principle for church planting in New Brunswick is giving.  If we are to live among the people incarnationally, build leaders, build the church and form a community then we will be working twenty-four hours a day.  We will be showing our true colors when we get upset and when we get aggravated.  New Brunswick urban church planting will therefore take up our time, money, resources, families, and our life.  

John M. Perkins talks about his experience in relocating to the city.  He explains the most common reasons for choosing a house in America, “location, location, location.”  He clarifies that this disturbs him when Christians make decisions based on the American dream of good career, family, money, and happiness.  Instead of asking, Why choose this job, this location, this family, this amount of money.  

Although Perkins sees the importance of protecting our families (from dangers in the city), he wonders if we have forgotten that loving our neighbors is as great of a command as loving God.  Our neighbors are described as those who are ill-clothed, the hungry, the homeless stranger, the wounded, and the broken.  If we relocate to places where these people are not, then we continue to oppress rather than love our neighbor.   Perkins says, “Convenience, security, and status are confronted by self-sacrifice, downward mobility, and obedience.”

Questioning why we should give, Josh Patrick points out that “The church has allowed its theology to be shaped by the economic preferences of our materialistic society rather than by scripture.”  He refers to the fact that God has given us grace to be able to give.  Patrick says,

To give is to be Godlike.  Giving is an act of grace and a sign of God’s presence in one’s life.  God extends grace to His people so that they might extend grace to others.

This principle permeates urban church planting in New Brunswick.  We believe as a team that if we give to others in the community, they will begin to see Christ through our lives.  The majority of our group will work in the community, serve in the community and give to the community.  One of the ways that others will come to know Christ is through our generosity and compassion for the needy and the poor.  Our homes will be places where we can invite people to share meals, find safety, and at times spend the night.  Our giving will consist of our lives because we plan to do long term ministry to those who do not know Christ in New Brunswick.  We will teach the gospel as well as fundamental skills of life.  Instead of moving out of the community, we will be trying to build the community for God.

The fifth principle in doing an urban church plant in New Jersey is to research the city.  One of the first steps in planting a new church is to learn about the people and the community where the church is to be planted.  Changes are always taking place in society and therefore research must be done.  We must spend time learning about he changes in the city.  Long-range planning and effective ministries depend upon knowing about these changes.  Shipp says that in the past,

religious groups, and churches of Christ in particular, have avoided the city, considering it hopelessly evil and difficult to penetrate, and therefore, beyond the pale of our spiritual responsibility. 

In his article on “Research: A Key to Successful Urban Evangelism,” he notes that “urban research is an essential tool for successful church growth in the city, if used along with sound church-planting strategies and evangelistic methods.”  Shipp gives ten basic areas of study to familiarize with the city:

1. Read about the history and present situation of the city.
2. Study a complete map of the city, preferably one showing also its suburban and/or satellite communities.  
3. Make tours of the city, to absorb more completely the information obtained from the map.
4. Consult the introductory pages of local telephone books, which give an insight into the history, features, special events, services and variety of businesses available.
5. Obtain from hotels, city halls, chambers of commerce, travel agencies and airlines information dealing with the city.
6. Visit public offices, educational facilities, hospitals, museums, wealthy districts, slums, industrial areas and other locations that contribute to the flavor of the city.
7. Consult newspaper offices, as well as libraries and city archives, for clippings, books and microfilms on the past, present and future of the city.
8. Visit the local census bureau.
9. Solicit the assistance of officials and businessmen who may be interested in sharing the story of their city.
10. Collect photographs, albums and books on the city.

Before moving to New Brunswick, we have started this process of learning.  We will continue the process by taking six months to learn the culture through our jobs and through visiting area businesses, etc.  We have taken multiple trips and surveyed the city and suburbs to get a feel for the history and people that live in the city.  Visiting apartment complexes in and out of the city has been helpful.  Purchasing a demographic study on the city of New Brunswick gave us information about age, race, population, salaries, education, etc.  In doing research for our ministry we are keeping in mind Sogaard’s four key research questions for Christian communication,

1. Who is my listener/reader/viewer?
2. Where is my listener/reader/viewer?
3. What are the needs of my listener/reader/viewer?
4. How can I meet the needs of my listener/reader/viewer? 

David Hesselgrave also notes the importance of research in the planning stages of Church planting.  He writes, “Analyze the task in the light of research and experience (identify helpful and useless approaches).” 

My sixth principle for urban church planting in New Brunswick, NJ is that the whole plan must be God-centered.  We must study God’s mission for the church and continue to seek out His vision.  Similar to the first principle of prayer, if we are not seeking God in all that we do in New Brunswick or in urban church planting our vision will fail.  It will fail because we have missed the message of God.  If we are seeking God’s mission and will, then he will provide opportunities to reach the lost, poor, and oppressed around us.  

Creativity is an important aspect in doing the Lord’s work.  It is important that we not only look to outside resources to pay for all the work done in urban centers, but instead work with the materials of our urban cities.  Heim and Roehikepartian write,

Because of the dwindling resources for urban ministry and the exploding needs around the world.  We’re going to have to become creative Christian scroungers, learning to do much more with much less.  Thus.  We’ve got to find ways to take the throwaway resources of our society-the empty buildings, the vacant lots-and transform them into the urban ministries of tomorrow’s world. 

In seeking God’s mission for the church, church planters must start asking questions based on faith and scripture.  For instance, “What would it look like if the reign of God were established in the neighborhood where you are working?” 

One way to keep our ministry in New Brunswick on track is to create a mission statement so that we will not forget the vision that God has placed on our hearts.  This will also help the church because all of the new Christians can be involved with the mission God has for the city of New Brunswick.

Ernst Stutterheim suggests that merely making a vision statement is not enough.  A church also needs goals.  His idea for setting these goals is to go as a congregation on a retreat that has as its focus to study and see where God is leading the church.

In New Brunswick, our team will spend time every year looking at how God has changed the church and the city.  We will study new methods through books and special speakers that will come every three months.  We know that we need the encouragement of outsiders to continue in our journey to do urban church planting in NJ.  Retreats each year will be planned for prayer and planning.

In light of these six principles, I believe that an urban church plant in New Brunswick will not fail because God is on our side.  He will be answering our prayers and will be working through our transformed lives while we live incarnationally.  A multi-ethnic family of believers will help break down barriers of injustice and prejudices.  The congregation will grow because of the level of giving through our time, possessions, and abilities.  This will aid us in reaching people through the programs we develop because of our research.  While, keeping in prospective that God is our center will give us strength to be disciples to a lost world.

Appendix

My six basic principles for doing an urban church Plant in New Brunswick, New Jersey:

1. To live lives of prayer and incorporate specific activities that encourages and produces prayer warriors.
2. To live Incarnational lives among those who we are trying to reach in the city.
3. To produce a multi-ethnic congregation that breaks down walls of prejudice and injustice.
4. To give of our time, money, resources, and our life.
5. To research the cities population, ethnicity, worldviews, religious views, income, power, etc.
6. To be God-centered by studying God’s mission for the Church and seeking out His vision!

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