Review: "Our New Global Culture: Ministry in Urban Centers"

I would like to make a recommendation for a great resource to anyone studying urbanism or urban missiology- a paper entitled "Our New Global Culture: Ministry in Urban Centers." (Click to download it free). I actually received this resource as a tip from a colleague with some rich experience in urban evangelism and missions. Brian White is now serving in Moscow, Russia, but he grew up in the suburbs of Detroit. While he attended Moody Theological Seminary in Chicago, his passion for urban ministry grew. He had the opportunity to minister in the “Ghetto” of Cabrini Green, the yuppie/gay/goth neighborhood of Belmont and among refugees in the Albany Park neighborhood, working with an SBC church plant. He also lived in Chicago for five and a half years and now prefers to live in an urban environment because "this is where the people are; this is where much of our culture is shaped, from fashion to music to movies to finance and business." Brian believes that "if more believers moved to the city for intentional ministry, cities could change for the good of the nation." Amen, Brian! Check out Brian's blog at http://www.blogosloveniya.blogspot.com

In a paper that originally was published as an article in The Movement newsletter and parts of which appeared in a handout at the Redeemer Global Network Conference in 2005, Timothy Keller presents a theological and strategic approach for understanding effective ministry in urban centers or what he calls global cities. He differentiates urban centers from inner cities as well as draws a distinction between global cities and other megacities per se. He accomplishes this feat through lists of demographic commonalities, effective ministry elements, and methods for engaging the urban culture.

After a brief introduction wherein Keller defines the typical resident of the city center as corporate professionals, business leaders, and students, he lists ten elements that make up the archetypal worldview in urban centers. Keller believes there is a limitation to the current sociological categories of modernity and postmodernity, so he cites N.T. Wright and Paul Vitz in their respective works to identify an emerging group as critical realists or transmodernists. Although America has a wide array of worldviews, Keller localizes them into the traditional worldview of the South and Midwest; the modern worldview of the Northeast and west coast; the postmodern of the Northeast , western, and urban centers; and the post-postmodern or transmodern among non-Anglo children of immigrants. He concludes each section of geographic generalities with proposed challenges: traditional religious people can be challenged by the gospel of grace; modern religionists can be challenged by the gospel of the kingdom; and postmodernists can be challenged with the gospel of the cross and the exclusive claims of Christianity. Keller sees this target urban population as being highly educated, highly skilled, and overachieving. Sexually active, they believe their sexuality is a personal choice. They are consumerists who have few social or geographic roots. They are pragmatic thinkers instead of linear rationalists. They are suspicious of authorities and official institutions. They are multiethnic and international. And they express a political concern for the poor and the oppressed.

In a logical progression, Keller moves from an urban demographic definition to three elements that characterize effective ministry by churches in global cities. Keller sees an effective urban church as being capable of presenting a contextualized gospel message wherein religion, idolatry, pluralism, and despair are addressed. He sees this church as facilitating incarnational worship experiences based on Christocentric preaching, active worship experiences, and aesthetics that enhance the worship event. He also believes that these churches have a missional mindset that includes both Christians and non-Christians in all of its activities. This is done through excellence in message delivery, the use of common vernacular in the presentation, and inclusive pronouns throughout the message.

Keller makes his last list of five ministry fronts for global cities- his methods for reaching the urban centers. He believes the church can engage secular people by carefully building a theology of secularity. He sees the church as a countercultural Christian community which must have a theology of culture. He says that global cities can only be reached through a holistic ministry for the whole city, so the church must develop its theology of ministry. Since equipping God’s people for cultural renewal involves both faith and praxis, Keller also encourages a multi-tiered approach to theological education. In other words, theologians, educators, and church laity must be included. Finally, Keller believes that global cities can be only truly engaged through planting new churches that have the right theological DNA of a healthy urban center church.

In the last section of the article, Keller outlines his own missiological method for engaging the urban center. To have the proper theological DNA, urban center churches must be saturated with the true gospel. Keller employs three axes: 1) a holiness-love axis that is traversed with a true gospel of grace, 2) a truth-experience axis that is intersected with the gift of the Holy Spirit, and 3) an individual-corporate axis that is juxtaposed against the true gospel of the Kingdom. Because of the personal, cultural, and global aspects of urban centers, Keller admonishes Christians to practice a balanced contextualization in presenting the true gospel. He ends with an admonition for awareness that even though global city churches may share the same theological DNA, they may in fact still hold to varying models. This is due to diversity in spiritual giftedness, the geographic location of the church, and the leadership preferences exhibited among church leaders.

Keller’s article is one of the few that have appeared in recent years that approach the missiological method for urban ministry from a theological perspective. Whereas many attempt to understand the city from a strategic point of view, with many suggestions for engagement flowing out of the realm of statistics or anthropology, Keller actually bases his recommendations deeply in theology. His theological axes for developing theological DNA are noteworthy, and his specific points of theological contact with secularity and culture are reminiscent of Kevin J. Vanhoozer’s Everyday Theology: How to Read Cultural Texts and Interpret Trends. These theological elements are a strong point in his article.

Perhaps one suggestion would be to further develop the difference between urbanization and urbanism as is presented in The Urban World. Keller does approach the two from varying vantage points, but he seems to make no clear distinction between the two other than a differentiation between city center and inner city. However, even these distinctions seem to be more demographic in nature rather than truly anthropological. Apart from this one small oversight, the article is a meaty addition to the urban missiologist’s plate.