The Spirit and the Prophetic Church, Part 2, by Antipas L. Harris

From Pneuma Review Summer 2013

The Spirit and the Prophetic Church

Building Ministry Coalitions for Urban Ministry

Part 2 of 2

Editor’s Note: Read Part 1 in the Spring 2013 issue of The Pneuma Review

The Situation of Post-Katrina New Orleans

The situation of Cradock in Portsmouth is not an anomaly. This is important to note. The city of New Orleans has various relevant examples. During Katrina in 2005, churches in New Orleans were ruined, communities were destroyed, some people were severely hurt and others even lost their lives. Even today—seven years later, churches in distressed communities of New Orleans continue to struggle to rebuild and many of the communities remain discombobulated. Considering the history of the Black Church,³⁵ the Rev. C.T. Vivian, who is a veteran civil-rights activist in Atlanta and former ministry colleague with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., developed a plan. He wanted to bypass the government and organize an ecumenical consortium of churches to work together towards rebuilding the churches and revitalizing the ramshackle urban communities. Rev. Vivian thought that he would be able to pull other predominant African American churches together in the ecumenical spirit of the Black Church to play a key role in revitalizing New Orleans.³⁶

In October 2005, Rev. Vivian joined the National Council of Churches and aimed to create an organization called Churches Supporting Churches. He had hoped to raise $30 million in three years to restore thirty-six New Orleans churches, their congregations and their neighborhoods. Based on his prior experience in pulling together churches in the Civil Rights era, he was confident that in six months they would be able to start the revitalization project. To the reverend’s surprise, however, it did not happen. By early 2007 (almost two years later), Churches Supporting Churches had merely raised $200,000. Only a handful of churches have agreed to “adopt” a church and community. ³⁷ Regrettably, more than thirty-six churches in distressed communities of New Orleans continued to struggle to survive, little able to help the people nearby or to rebuild their neighborhoods.

There are thousands of well-to-do churches in America with ministers who are millionaires. Yet, the Church Supporting Churches organization in the hurricane-torn New Orleans has essentially failed in its efforts to revitalize several communities and churches. There is a national disparity of unified support in communities from churches. This problem has become a Christian travesty. The broken communities of New Orleans, like Cradock in Portsmouth, are sad examples of churches missing opportunities for collaborative and prophetic urban ministry.

The Bible, God, and the City

Many seminary and bible school graduates wrestle to connect the theological training they receive in the traditional seminary with doing ministry in the city. Much of today’s theological education system has been irresponsible in providing a necessary bridge between biblical, intellectual, and practical life in the city. This is partly due to stubborn methods for theological discourse. In Urban Ministry: An Introduction, Ronald E. Peters rightly comments that only theology that maintains a bottom-up perspective will continue to be relevant for ministry on the margins.³⁸ Thinkers such as Gustavo Gutiérrez Merino, Juan Luis Segundo, James Cone, Gayroud Willmore, Cornell West, Roswith Gerloff, Jeremiah Wright and others have championed other approaches from bottom-up perspectives. In general, their work has sought to address the painful realities of social, political, and racial disenfranchisement associated with theology that produces inept ministry in distressed, urban-type communities.

Interestingly, traditional Western theology was bottom-up theology indeed. Yet, as Peters points out, that which was once bottom-up has forgone its original sensitivity to social vulnerability.³⁹ The now top-down Protestant theological culture purports perspectives that dislocate the focus of theological discourse from a ministry in communities to church maintenance.

Evangelical theology, moreover, struggles to appropriate its focus. One the one hand, it is community-focused in that it places a premium on evangelism. On the other hand, it fails to engage people in their everyday situations. Its top-down approach to theology emphasizes the church’s own agenda in the community to “save souls” but seems oblivious to the biblical call to liberate the oppressed and care for the degraded. God, as perceived by such theology, seems to care mostly about people who read scripture and obey. But how might a distressed and impoverished urban dweller perceive this evangelical understanding of obedience? If getting someone to escape to heaven is all that matters, ⁴⁰ then their everyday cares and chronic desperation means nothing.

However, a serious look at scripture suggests that the biblical accounts (particularly in the New Testament) of God dealing with his people seems more relational than evangelical theology purports. This relational approach to theology seems appropriately defined in Don Browning’s Fundamentals of Practical Theology. Browning argues for a practice-theory-practice model for doing theology. Such approach to theology invites situations in everyday life to the theological process, inverting the theological paradigm from a top-down approach to a bottom-up approach.

Pentecostal theology—a theology born out of experience—must be careful not to align itself too closely with top-down Protestant theological approaches and become like them. Pentecostalism is a grassroots movement and provides a revival of the bottom-up theological approaches. So then, Pentecostal churches not only have opportunity to advance ecumenical approaches to ministry but also bottom-up prophetic ministry that cares about what God is doing and aims to do among unassuming common people in society.

There are notable similarities between the first Pentecost experience in Acts 2 and the twentieth century Pentecostal movement at Azusa Street in 1906 that support the bottom-up approach to theology. In both situations people experienced God in a new way. Nothing prior to their experience truly prepared them for this. As a result, many things about the people present for the experience were interrupted. Their theology was interrupted and their lifestyles changed. As a result, they struggled to explain what had happened and what it would mean for them moving forward. One thing they did know was that they had an encounter with God that changed their lives from that moment forward.

As commonly agreed, Acts 2 and Azusa Street are important historical accounts among Pentecostal and Renewal Churches. A close read of these two moves of the Spirit, moreover, reveal that the work of Pentecost is really a bottom-up, practice-theory-practice religious experience that does not fit a top-down, theory-practice paradigm. The first church was born out of this relational encounter. The experience set the platform for the theology of the early church. As a result, theology of the New Testament Church looks different than Old Testament theology. For example, Acts 15 reveals that the apostles extracted a theological precept as a result of the experience of the Spirit among non-Jews. By the Holy Spirit, God saved the Gentiles when Peter preached to them. Following the salvific work of the Spirit, the Spirit also plays a role in ecclesial decisions.⁴¹ No longer must Gentiles be Jewish proselytes to be included in the Church of Jesus Christ. The early church’s theology of circumcision has now been challenged by what God is doing on the ground among the non-Jews. A top-down approach would have pointed to the Hebrew Bible and said, “the Bible says that you must be circumcised. So, you cannot be saved, yet.” However, they were open to what seems “good to the Holy Spirit” based on what was happening in experience (practice). So, they had to re-define their theory of salvation as a result of the experience. They returned to practice with new insight for ministry. The Acts 15 example serves as a clear example that the “New Testament way” is one that values people’s experience as important to the theological discourse (practice-theory-practice). Similarly, the Pentecostal experience at Azusa Street was theological as it set the course for new theologies that emerged or (rather) needed to emerge.

A likely critique of this assertion questions whether all of human experience, or in this case—the urban experience, is relevant to the work of the Spirit. However, Yong’s work on the Holy Spirit⁴² is helpful here. Basing his argument, in part, on scriptures like John 3:8 which states, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (NRSV) and Acts 2:17–18 which states, “In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy” (NRSV). There is a biblical sense that the Spirit moves by divine authority providing all sorts of experiences for humankind. Yong argues for God’s uncontrollable presence throughout the universe. I contend more specifically that the Holy Spirit is present in urban centers. The Pentecostal theologian, moreover, must not subscribe to top-down theological paradigms. These approaches are antithetical to the sensitivity of the “move of the Spirit” in ministry as well as people’s everyday life in the city and beyond.

In Sabbath in the City, Bryan Stone and Claire Wolfteich argue for a divine presence renewing the city through the many churches present there.⁴³ They explain that pastors in metropolises tend to work hard. They are often overworked with little human resources and financial resources to sustain support for their own congregations. The need is too great and the resources are too limited for urban churches to continue to minister in isolation. It is essential that they build collegial partnerships with other churches and emphasize mutual sharing and support, a common project or task, camaraderie and communal spiritual formation.⁴⁴ Churches that do not embrace ecumenical practice of ministry are vulnerable for extinction. This seems evident in the situation of the dying churches in the “turned urban community” in Portsmouth.

While the rationale for ministry coalitions seems to rest in common sense, doing ministry together is more than an appeal to human logic. The communion of the Holy Trinity beckons for greater unity among professing Christians. In the name of Christ, an ecumenical approach to ministry becomes a theological issue more than a humanistic discussion. In other words, Christ calls us to be one with each other to form His Body. As the Body of Christ, we participate in the unity of the Godhead. As God cares for human beings in the human condition, the Church must express care as God’s incarnational presence in communities. Proverbs 31:8-9 expresses the essence of incarnational ministry. Incarnational ministry is pragmatic, being with and advocating for people who cannot help themselves (ref. Prov. 31:8-9).

Evangelical urban scholar, Raymond Bakke’s A Theology As Big as the City is one of the leading contemporary evangelical biblical theologies that expresses God’s attitude about the city. Hailing from the countryside, Bakke’s journey to Chicago was also a theological journey. The hustle and bustle of urban life impacted his perceptions of God and Jesus. His childhood formation within the framework of a meek and lowly Jesus who comes with a soft cozy gospel of affirmation was altered by his new urban formation as an adult. The urban context within which he now found himself profoundly challenged his perceptions of the gospel. His new experiences with people from the urban context of Chicago reshaped the hermeneutical lenses through which he interpreted scripture. A gospel of affirmation and advice became a gospel that changes everything for the better. As in first century Greco-Roman Jewish oppression, the gospel for the urban community is God’s “Good news” of hope for liberation amidst existential mayhem.⁴⁵

Throughout Scripture—Old Testament and New Testament, there is evidence that God cares about the city and its complexities. The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah commands, “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jer. 29:7, nrsv). God sends help for the city’s problems. In fact, the divine commission that is expressed in this passage promises self-fulfillment for those who serve as God’s agents in the city. Another example of God’s expressed love for the people of the city is expressed through the story of Jonah. The God of the Hebrews is compassionate towards a non-Hebrew nation of city-dwellers. God sends Jonah to them to minister to them for the purpose of urban transformation. God’s merciful kindness expressed through God’s emissary Jonah brought heaven on earth and transformed the city of Nineveh.

In scripture, the Holy Spirit moves as God’s power to transform. Genesis 1 explains that the world was in chaos with darkness everywhere. It was within this chaotic framework that the Spirit of God moved. Church history bears record that whenever the Holy Spirit moves, there is a shaking in material reality. In other words, the Spirit is not an esoteric enterprise that is distanced from material reality. The pragmatic nature of the Spirit breathes life and renewal in the face of death and dilapidation. Other biblical examples are Ezekiel 37:1-14 and Isaiah 61. In both accounts, the Spirit moves and things on earth change.

Dry bones in Ezekiel 37 typify both the spiritual and an existential situation of Israel. Ezekiel prophesied to “the whole house of Israel” while they were held captive. In many ways, Israel had “died.” They were not physically dead as such but they were spiritually dead because they were not in good standing with God, and they were existentially dead because they suffered from social depravation and desolation. Reviving the dead bones speaks to the power of the exclusive knowledge of God to bring life back to a spiritually depleted nation. Only the power of God can restore a nation and the spirit of a nation. The breath of new life in the dead corpses symbolized the work of the Holy Spirit (Ezekiel 36:24-28). But God chooses a person to address the bones. God’s own hand brings Ezekiel and sets him in the middle of death and dilapidation. But God does not bring the prophet and priest into this place to be desecrated by the decadence. Rather, God brings him among the dead bones to penetrate the profligacy; God lays God’s own hand on the prophet to speak life to the lifeless and to prophecy hope to the hopeless.

Similarly to the situation in Ezekiel, Isaiah 61 depicts a period of desolation and demise for the Hebrew People. Only, this time, it was during the Post-exilic period. During this period the Hebrew people had much to be discouraged about in the one hundred years following the return from Babylonian captivity. The people were barely surviving. Very few had actually returned from Babylon. For generations, poverty was a spell that they just could not seem to break. Their cities lay desolate. Like in many urban settings today, the people were ashamed of where they lived. It was in this context that God raises up a prophet once again to bring a Word of hope—a Word that gives perspective for vision and leadership within the discombobulated realities of post-exilic Jerusalem. God extends love and service through the prophet. The people and their lived realities were of focused priority in the prophet’s ministry. Equipping the people to rebuild waste places and regain beauty for ashes were more important to the prophet than building his own ministry.

Isaiah 61 is a microcosm for the type of ministry that Jesus Christ later expanded to the world. It is, moreover, a prototype for the Church of Jesus Christ. In Luke 4:18-23, Jesus begins his ministry on the premise set in Isaiah 61. There are two important points that are relevant to the discussion at hand: 1) The Spirit of the Lord descends on Jesus to anoint Him for Word and service among the distressed of society; 2) In Jesus, the Holy Spirit and Christ (the anointed one) achieve the mission of God to become incarnational for the purpose of addressing the human condition. Avis highlights God’s pragmatic mission for the Church as expressed through the incarnation of Christ: “There was no moment in the life of the Church when its Christological, evangelical existence was not ‘incarnated’, embodied and inculturated in concrete structures.”⁴⁶

Urban theologians, Harvie M. Conn and Manuel Ortiz, correctly note that the synoptic Gospels (especially Luke) underline a unique view of Jesus and the cities:

The coming of the divine King to reclaim, redirect, and redeem is the coming of Jesus. The new age of righteousness and grace, God’s jubilee year for the cities (Is 61:1-2) has dawned: “Today,” announces Christ of his preaching, “this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Lk 4:21). To the cities he sends his Twelve with a message: The Kingdom of heaven is near” (Mt 10:7; cf. Lk 10:1, 11). Because Jesus is in their midst, the kingdom of God is in their midst (Lk 17:21). He is the incarnate form of the saving rule of God, the kingdom present in the King, the agent of urban restoration through his life, death and resurrection.⁴⁷

In other words, the Gospels explain that the Christological and the pneumatological extensions of the Godhead work together to transform the depraved human condition into a redeemed state. Hence, the Church born in Christ’s blood and bearing His name must maintain the same connection to continue the ministry that “Christ began to do and teach” (Acts 1:1).

A Historical Interpretation

Over the last one hundred years, scholars like Walter Rauschenbusch, Martin Luther King Jr., James Cone and Cornell West, in a variety of ways, have applied a hermeneutic of suspicion to the evolved traditions to which they belong. They questioned the “thing” that “church” had become in their experience. They argued that the God of the Bible cares about ordinary people often overlooked in society. Yet, they critiqued the church for being apathetical in the face of human suffering. During the Pentecostal consultation at the 2008 Annual American Academy of Religion meeting in Chicago, James Cone challenged the Pentecostals on this issue. There remains more work to be done putting these scholars in dialogue with the Pentecostal Movement. From its inception, the Azusa Street Pentecostal movement was a moving of the Spirit that attracted people from every echelon of society. A gift of Pentecost has been its affinity towards healing among the broken and hurting—physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Yet, mainstream Christianity remained subject to Rauschenbusch’s critique.

Moreover, in the early 20^th century, Lutheran pastor, Walter Rauschenbusch struggled to apply theological paradigms to the urban context of New York City after graduating from seminary. Subscribing to what he called “Social Gospel,” Rauschenbusch spent lots of ink copiously writing out new insights for doing theology. His experience caring for and ministering with the people of the depraved city challenged his theological approaches to ministry. He discerned God working among them in a way that seemed antithetical to theology as taught by European schools that subscribed to top-down paradigms for ministry. His love for people in their needs challenged Rauschenbusch to revisit scripture. This time, he reread scripture in light of lived experiences in the city. His interpretation of scripture was profoundly altered. A greater emphasis on the role of the Holy Spirit in theology is missing in Rauschenbusch’s work.⁴⁸ There is room for more research, locating Rauschenbusch’s Social Gospel within a renewal perspective. The Pentecostal theologian likens Rauschenbusch’s theological process to a “wrestling of the Spirit.” Perhaps, a pneumatological or renewal interpretation of Rauschenbusch’s “Social Gospel” reveals that in his experience with God, God is working in the city because God cares about the city.

It should be suitably noted that biblical Christians were much more ecumenical than today. When the leadership of the local church reported to Paul that there were inklings of division among the Corinthian Christians, Paul wrote to remind them of their divine call to unity. He wrote, “Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose” (I Corinthians 1:10). Two thousand years later, King observes a church that seems to have lost a unified concept of identity in Christ and a unified purpose within community. To borrow words from Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenism, “We must recognize the signs of the times and participate skillfully in the work of ecumenism.”⁴⁹

In his 1963 “Letter from the Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King, Jr. writes, “There was a time when the church was very powerful—in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.” Civil Rights and social justice advocate Father Richard Neuhaus rightly asserts, “We must patiently and faithfully continue the hard ecumenical work of striving for unity in faith, sacraments and ministry.”⁵⁰ During the 1950s and 1960s, the success of the Civil Rights Movement in fighting segregation and economic injustice among sanitation workers of the South were won through a certain level of ecumenical efforts among thousands of Christians from all denominational backgrounds.

The odds that were against African Americans were overcome by the strength of ecumenical social ministry. Even today, the leader of an ecumenical ministry is the only pastor to have a memorial on the National Mall in the nation’s Capitol. I often refer to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday celebration as a federally recognized Pastor’s Appreciation Day. Americans appreciate the leadership of a minister who understood ecumenical “Practical” Theology rooted in a gospel of love and unity.⁵¹ Speculations and polemics against Trinitarian or Oneness Churches, questions of whether or not Catholics are really Christians and other denominational dissentions were minimized by the unified stride towards freedom. King’s pragmatic ecumenical message is expressed in his ability to organize a large number of African Americans and some Anglo Americans ecumenically and then to mobilize them towards a day when “all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last!’” Freedom is lifted up in the strength of ecumenical unity that transforms communities and the world forever.

When urban churches move beyond ecumenical discussions about unity to pragmatic ecumenism, they are poised for liberating the urban communities from their blight. Boston University School of Theology professors Bryan Stone and Claire Wolfteich note that three-quarters of all congregations in the United States have some level of outreach to help people in economic need, particularly urban congregations.⁵² The challenge is that urban churches are often isolated based on denominational affiliation or because they are independent. As in the Cradock community of Portsmouth, there are often five or more churches in a one-mile radius—a Baptist church, a Methodist church, a Presbyterian church, a Catholic church, and an Episcopal church. They limit their collaborations to their own denominations, though their peers are in other towns and cities. Thus, each church’s efforts (if any) tend to be isolated from the other neighborhood churches.
Most congregations might agree that part of their role is to provide assistance for people in need. But no single congregation—not even a megachurch—is fully prepared with resources to address and to engage the roots of poverty and oppression in urban communities. The challenges are severe and require the full presence of the Church as a unified voice to bring about true transformation. Otherwise, a little here and a little there does nothing more than empower poverty. Robert Franklin is correct in Crisis in the Village when he comments that when a church simply provides charitable acts in their community, the congregation’s efforts become merely items on the church weekly menu; as a result, the church participates in empowering poverty. Paulo Freire comments:

True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes, which nourish false charity. False charity constrains the fearful and subdued, the “rejects of life”, to extend their trembling hands. True generosity lies in striving so that these hands—whether of individuals or entire peoples—need be extended less and less in supplication, so that more and more they become human hands which work and, working, transform the world.⁵³

A practical example might be soup kitchens. Soup kitchens at churches are acts of kindness that are helpful in relief efforts. However, Reginald King, president of the Kensington Civic League in Norfolk, Virginia, expresses concern that soup kitchens at churches in the area draw unresolved poverty to the cities. Instead of providing needed help and transforming the city, soup kitchens are less likely to provide long-term community transformation because they address an immediate need rather than addressing the root causes of why the meal is needed. They simply look good for the church missions reports.

However, when churches engage in ecumenical ministry to transform communities, the religious life of the faith communities assume their responsibility together in order to make a difference in the community. When churches take seriously their biblical role, continuing the work of Christ in the world and liberating the oppressed, they must seek out ecumenical coalitions for the purpose of a unified front to fight against the root causes of oppression and injustice. Therefore, churches within their cities must work together to the glory of God for maximum impact as pertaining to community transformation.

Ecumenical ministry moves beyond the institutional, doctrinal, and theological structures of a given denomination (or non-denomination) to engage the biblical foundational calling of the entire Body of Christ to bear witness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Moreover, an ecumenical urban ministry moves beyond isolated manageable acts of kindness to a more prophetic ministry that addresses and engages systemic oppression and injustice that produces and perpetuates urban blight. Prophetic urban ministry requires grappling with principalities and powers. The Pentecostal heritage renders that principalities and powers must be rebuked, “not by power, not by might but by the Holy Spirit” (Zechariah 4:6). Thus, at the level of ecumenical prophetic ministry, the Church (not churches) takes authority over principalities and powers by the Spirit. An urban prophetic witness addresses the root cause of poverty and pain, violence and despair that seem common in urban areas. Stone and Wolfteich rightly point out that “poverty itself is a political, not a natural phenomenon, the result of violence and violation rather than scarcity.”⁵⁴ Practically, a unified prophetic voice demands what Nile Harper calls “systemic justice.”⁵⁵ Harper explains that “systemic justice” by its nature involves political action, mobilizing voting powers, creating common interest alliances and building cooperative coalitions.⁵⁶ An ecumenical theology, moreover, has practical benefits in building necessary alliances between congregations for the purpose of addressing systemic evil with systemic justice.

A Way Forward: Examples of Ecumenical Ministries

Several rationales emerge with the attempt to justify isolation among the churches. There are equally as many theologies that disagree with ecumenical approaches to ministry. It is disheartening when these theologies interfere with the potential for a collective witness to Christ amidst a wide range of urban ills. Nonetheless, there are several exemplary models that are making a difference through creative ecumenical approaches to urban ministry. Two examples are the Ten-Point Coalition in Boston, Massachusetts, and the Dream Center in Los Angeles, California.

First, the Ten-Point Coalition testifies to the strength of ecumenical urban ministry. The organization is comprised of several churches. The interdenominational consortium of churches works together as one, forging a partnership with community and city organizations. Their objective is to apply a unified ministry mechanism for the purpose of alleviating gang-violence and other crimes, and to rectify education disparities among urban youth in the greater Boston area.

Prior to 1992, community activist and minister, the Rev. Eugene Rivers, was a lone ranger advocating for a practice of ministry beyond the walls of the church. The religious tenor in the Boston area was not bent towards ecumenism and prophetic ministry. With the exception of the Center for Urban Ministerial Education of Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, prominent theological institutions all-around—Harvard, Boston University School of Theology, Andover Newton Seminary, and Boston College—styled a religious culture that was not bent towards incarnational ministry.⁵⁷ The culture of theological education seemed distant from the lived realities in the urban streets of “hoods” and “ghettos” nearby.⁵⁸

However, in 1992 gang-violence was at an all-time high. A funeral for a young man, who was murdered during a drive-by shooting, was held at Morning Star Baptist Church on Blue Hill Avenue. Violence broke out in the church among gang members attending a funeral. A shootout and multiple stabbings in the church disrupted the service and threw the congregation into utter disarray. The brazenness of this attack, taking place within a church sanctuary, deeply concerned many of Boston’s black clergy and provoked them to do something about the violence among the youth in Boston.

In an article on the impact of the Ten-point Coalition, Jenny Berrien and Christopher Winship point out, “They [the ministers] realized that they could no longer effectively serve their community by remaining within the four walls of their churches and ignoring the situation on the street. Instead, youth and others in the surrounding troubled neighborhoods needed to become extensions of the church congregations.”⁵⁹ Three ministers—Reverends Eugene Rivers, Raymond Hammond, and Jeffrey Brown—collaborated to mobilize an ecumenical consortium of Boston Churches in a prophetic ministry to end the violence in the community. It was not enough for the ministers to contrive an armchair ecumenism. They saw a need in the community for what I have called “grassroots” ecumenical ministry to transform young people’s lives and end the violence on the streets of Boston.

Berrien and Winship explain two notable outcomes in urban Boston that are direct results from the ecumenical prophetic work of the Ten-Point Coalition. First, the homicide rate has been the most significant in the entire nation. Between 1990 and 1996 the Boston rate reduced 61.2%—from 152 homicides to 59. Between 1996 and 1999 the rate dropped even more—only 43 homicides in 1997 and 35 homicides in 1998. This represents a 77% drop from 1990 to 1999.⁶⁰ Perhaps even more impressive, for the 29-month period ending in January 1998, Boston had no teenage homicide victims. During 1999 there were only four. Second, Boston is unusual in that a group of ministers, the Ten-Point Coalition, is credited with playing a key role in reducing youth homicides.⁶¹

Sufficient to the thesis in this paper, the Ten-Point Coalition during the 1990s is an exemplary ecumenical prophetic ministry with direct impact on the stark decline in homicide rates of Boston. The power of unity as expressed among the ministers involved was so powerful that the actual time invested was modest compared to the impact achieved. So then, urban churches need not work harder as they seem to often assume. The Ten-Point Coalition is an example of how urban ministries working ecumenically as a “prophetic unit”—rather than isolated units—can have maximal impact with less stress on a given ministry.

Second, the Los Angeles Dream Center is another example of a ministry both formed and sustained through the cooperation of an ecumenical coalition of ministry support. The Dream Center’s mission is “to reconnect people who have been isolated by poverty, substance abuse, gangs, imprisonment, homelessness, abuse, and neglect to God and to a community of support to meet their physical and spiritual needs, and to help them develop a support system that will encourage them to make positive, long-term, God-honoring changes in their lives.”⁶²

Matthew Barnett, the founder of the Dream Center, is an ordained minister from the Assemblies of God. However, he pastors the original Foursquare Church—Angelus Temple of Los Angeles. A wide variety of ministries send both human and financial resources to assist in sustaining the ministry at the Los Angeles Dream Center and Angelus Temple. Various Pentecostal-type churches form something like a Pentecostal/charismatic ecumenical network of ministries. For example, Jack Hayford (Ordained in the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel) of the Church on the Way; Morris Cerullo (Ordained Assemblies of God minister) of Morris Cerullo World Evangelism; Paula White (ordained Independent Charismatic minister) of Without Walls Church in Tampa, Florida; Joyce Myers (ordained Independent Charismatic minister) of Life in the Word Ministries in Fenton, Missouri; Tommy Barnett (ordained Assemblies of God Minister) of Phoenix First Assembly in Phoenix, Arizona; T. D. Jakes (ordained United Pentecostal [Oneness] minister) of The Potter’s house in Dallas, Texas; and several others comprise a small ecumenical pool of churches and ministries that form a unified presence of the Body of Christ to support the ministries of the Los Angeles Dream Center.

As a result of the prophetic ministry at the Dream Center, the crime rate in the communities surrounding the ministry has dropped. Only four years after the center was opened, the urban community surrounding it had experienced a dramatic reduction in crime. Prostitution and gang violence dropped by 73% and rape dropped by 53%.⁶³ The Mayor and the City Council recognized Rev. Barnett and the Dream Center for having a direct impact on those figures.⁶⁴

Notably, the Dream Center has a Pentecostal foundation. The founders are ordained Pentecostal pastors. The ministry represents the integration of Christological and Pneumatological categories. The result of such is astoundingly both ecumenically and prophetically. It represents ministry that echoes the potential, which is fundamental to its Pentecostal heritage—a potential that Yong notes in his essay mentioned above.⁶⁵

Summary and Conclusion

In general, scholars such as Yong, Steve Studebaker and others argue that the Pentecostal emphasis on the Holy Spirit provides a pneumatological context for unifying people.⁶⁶ When speaking of ecumenism, however, the key work of the Spirit is to provide a divine unifier for believers from a variety of ethnic, theological and contextual trajectories. This interconnection among believers is underscored by the common denominator, professed faith in Christ. The Pentecostal emphasis on the Holy Spirit, moreover, provides the perfect pneumatological context for ecumenical ministry that continues the ministry that Christ did and taught.

The history of the Pentecostal movement from the 1906 Azusa Street Revival bears record that the Holy Spirit has served a pragmatic role in unifying a diverse people in Christ. Amidst heavy racism, denominationalism, classism and sexism; the move of the Spirit at Azusa Street brought diverse people together as a single Body or one family in Christ. The Spirit as the divine unifying agent in multi-dimensional situations also mobilizes the unified Body of Christ in advancing the mission of God to spread the Good News of hope and existential liberation. This is what Pentecostals mean when we say, “the Spirit makes the difference.” Moreover, a Pentecostal approach to ecumenism offers a boots-on-the-ground approach to discussions on ecumenism—ecumenical prophetic urban ministry. Mere ecumenical theological discourse must move beyond the esoteric discussions of a unified ecclesial identity between Catholics and Protestants and the many Protestant denominational traditions. A unified Body of Christ (the Church) empowered by the Spirit provides the transformational agency necessary to realize the Good News in urban communities.

An authentically unified Church is more than a notion. Viewing each other as brothers and sisters is more than an exercise in intellectual discourse, integrated worship and compassionate outlook towards the variety of Christian religious traditions. It is not just about the Baptist being nice to the Methodists, the Pentecostals being nice to the Episcopalians, the Catholics being nice to the Anglicans, the Presbyterians being nice to the Lutherans and vice-versa. Ecumenical ministry must be grounded in the message and work of Christ to bring “Good News” to the spiritual and material realities of everyday life. To this end, beyond ecumenical discourse and spiritualistic ideas of the prophetic, churches must engage in ecumenical prophetic ministry in the community that overcomes denominational isolations, penetrates despair of the community’s lived realities, and mobilizes the community to realized hope as expressed in the life, teachings and ministry of Jesus Christ.

In conclusion, there are three suggestions to remedy the situation of neglect in urban communities: 1) Churches must care about and engage themselves in the communities surrounding them as conduits of God’s transformational love; 2) Churches must maintain a theological dialectic between lived realities and faith confession to foster ongoing ministry practices that fulfill their divine calling to bear witness of “Good News” among the hurting and broken people; and 3) Local churches must embrace ecumenical ministry for greater impact in the communities in which they are located. The summary of these points equals the incarnational, prophetic ministries that Christ intends.

 
PR

Notes

³⁵ The “Black Church” is an ecumenical concept of ecclesial ministry within the African American communities. These African American churches are noted historically to have nurtured, protected, provided hope and propelled African American communities forward from Slavery through the Civil Rights Movement and beyond. African Americans pastor these churches; their worship in an African American tradition and predominately consist of African Americans. Based on Walter Brueggemann’s definition of a “prophetic ministry,” historically the Black Church has embodied prophetic ministry. Yet, the Black Church is not restricted to a particular denomination. The concept is denominationally ecumenical.
³⁶ Suzanne Perry, “Mission to Rebuild,” Chronicle of Philanthropy, May 3, 2007, (Vol. 19), Issue 14, 29-32.
³⁷ Ibid.
³⁸ Ronald E. Peters, Urban Ministry: An Introduction, (Nashville: Abingdon, 2007), Chapter 7.
³⁹ Ibid.
⁴⁰ This overview of the Evangelical approach is simplified but not oversimplified. The purpose here is to provide a vision of this approach from the perspective of people in distress and in need of a bottom up approach to theology—one for which this essay advocates.
⁴¹ Francois Bovon, Luke the Theologian: Fifty-five Years of Research (1950-2005) (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2005), 250.
⁴² See Amos Yong, The Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh: Pentecostalism and the Possibility of Global Theology, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005)
⁴³ Bryan P. Stone and Claire Wolfteich, Sabbath in the City: Sustaining Urban Pastoral Excellence (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 13.
⁴⁴ Ibid., xiv.
⁴⁵ Ray Bakke, A Theology As Big As the City, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 137.
⁴⁶ Paul Avis, Reshaping Ecumenical Theology: The Church Made Whole? (T&T Clark International, 2010), 55.
⁴⁷ Harvie M. Conn and Manuel Ortiz, Urban Ministry: The Kingdom, the City and the People of God, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 123.
⁴⁸ Reference, Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis (New York: Harper & Row, 1964).
⁴⁹ Vatican II: Decree on Ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio, “Catholic Principles on Ecumenism,” 1:4.
⁵⁰ A Zenit Daily Dispatch (New York), “Father Richard Neuhaus on the Eucharist” (23 Jan. 2005), http://www.ewtn.com/library/Doctrine/ZNEUEUCH.HTM (Accessed, 16 January 2012).
⁵¹ Promeneint theologians such as Reinhold Niebuhr, Howard Thurman and others contemporaries of King also preached a message of love and unity grounded in Christ.
⁵² Stone and Wolfteich, Sabbath in the City, 9.
⁵³ Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Continuum, 1993), 45.
⁵⁴ Stone and Wolfteich, 12.
⁵⁵ Nile Harper, Urban Churches, Vital Signs: Beyond Charity Towards Justice (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1999), 301.
⁵⁶ Ibid.
⁵⁷ “Incarnational ministry” is ministry that aims to translate the Word of God into responses to everyday issues and needs of people in communities of the world.
⁵⁸ Edward Farley asserts that theological understanding in actuality is not simply a timeless instant, a structure, but an activity, a life process. Farley calls this ongoing dialectic between lived reality and faith “theologia.” When applied to ecclesiology or ministry in the church, “theologia” insures that the ministry remains connected—impacting and being shaped by the life of the community in which churches find themselves. Such dialectic approaches to theology and ecclesiology sustains the relevance of the church in light of lived reality. See, Edward Farley, Theologia: The Fragmentation and Unity of Theology Education (Wipf and Stock, 2001), 170.
⁵⁹ Jenny Berrien and Christopher Winship “Should We Have Faith in the Churches? The Ten-Point Coalition’s Effect on Boston’s Youth Violence,” (July 1999), 14, 15. http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/soc/faculty/winship/winshipp1.pdf (Accessed, 19 January 2012).
⁶⁰ Ibid., 1. Also, see Daniel Vasquez, “Statistics Buoy City, But Not Victims’ Kin,” The Boston Globe, 2 January 1999.
⁶¹ See Charles Radin. The Boston Globe, 19 February 1997, p. A1.
⁶² The Dream Center, “Mission,” http://www.dreamcenter.org/about-us/our-story/vision-mission/ (Accessed, 20 January 2012).
⁶³ Vernell Hackett, “L.A.’s Dream Center: Living the Dream” (27 July 2011), http://www.watchgmctv.com/news/living-dream (Accessed, 20 January 2012).
⁶⁴ Ibid.
⁶⁵ Referring to Amos Yong, “Pentecostalism and Ecumenism: Past, Present, and Future,” Pneuma Foundation: Resources for Spirit-empowered Ministry, http://www.pneumafoundation.org/article.jsp?article=article_ecum3.xml (Accessed, 6 January 2012).
⁶⁶ Amos Yong, Discerning the Spirit (s): A Pentecostal Contribution to Christian Theology of Religions, (Sheffield England: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000).