As I've been studying Urban Theology...

My background: Growing up in a small town in south Georgia, I did not understand the city. Apart from living a few years in New Orleans while my Dad completed his doctorate, most of my childhood experiences revolved around all things rural. My father is a Southern Baptist pastor, so I often accompanied him on weekly visitation and outreach; even these experiences were very rural in nature. The fact is, until I was in my late teens, I understood Southern Baptists from a rural white perspective only. Like many good, decent people from small town America, I feared the city- the crime, the corruption, the prevalence of sin for sale on every corner, the poor, the stinking, the dying. Harvie Conn & Manuel Ortiz, in their book Urban Ministry: The Kingdom, the City & the People of God discuss “a growing Christian dualism that looked for individual converts in the city but turned against the city as a perversion of nature” (p. 57). As a late teenager, I became a youth pastor in an urban environment closer to Atlanta; so my mental model of ministry was challenged. Only later after seminary, I returned to a large rural church and rediscovered the stark differences in rural vs. urban ministry. What I’ve come to understand is that the location (rural or urban) is a cultural expression of the thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors of a society. I’m discovering that being urban means I view myself, the world, and even God through a cultural lens. It means there is such a thing as an urban theology.


SBC transitions: In conjunction with my own experience is the corporate experience of the Southern Baptist Convention. In the early part of last century, about ¾ of the SBC were rural churches of the Southeast. By the latter part of the twentieth century, only about ½ of the SBC churches were rural. On top of that, ethnic minority membership in the SBC has doubled in the last decade. Clearly, the average Southern Baptist missionary arriving on the mission field today is more likely to understand urban ministry than those who arrived a couple of decades ago.


Urban theology vs. strategy: As I’ve recently scanned the shelves of books related to urban ministry, I’m astounded about how much has been written about urban strategy and how little has been written about urban theology. Even some books with the word theology in the title relate more to strategic methodology than about any theological method. There are definitive problems in the city today that are not as likely to be widespread in rural areas. Issues related to race, poverty, injustice, cultural diversity, syncretism, ecumenism, and corruption are present in both extremes, albeit perhaps in different forms. But the Christian answer to being the missionary to or the pastor of the city is unquestionably different than being a good Christian neighbor in the country. To whom much is given…

So what does this mean for our missions work today? The majority of the USA is now living in urban centers. The majority of our missions outreach throughout Europe is in urban centers. So does our missiological method in the urban center have a theological foundation? In other words, are our actual missions activities in the city based on biblical principles? Or are they, like many ministries, simply an attempt to mimic what might be working somewhere else? Until we see the urban construct as a cultural expression of an urban mindset, we won’t be able to adequately do urban missiology. This past month, I’ve done some formal interviews with Baptist leaders in urban settings; to say the least, the insights have been astounding. In the next couple of weeks, I’ll be writing more about urban missiology; if you have any ideas you’d like to explore related to urban missions, post a comment…