Church in Hard Places E-Book

Mez McConnell

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Jesus came to seek and to save the lost, paying particular attention to the downtrodden and the poor. As followers of Jesus, Christians are called to imitate his example and reach out to those who have the least. This book offers biblical guidelines and practical strategies for reaching those on the margins of our society with the gospel of Jesus Christ. The authors—both pastors with years of experience ministering among the poor—set forth helpful "dos" and "don'ts" related to serving in the midst of less-affluent communities. Emphasizing the priority of the gospel as well as the importance of addressing issues of social justice, this volume will help pastors and other church leaders mobilize their people to plant churches and make an impact in "hard places"—in their own communities and around the world.

Leseprobe

CHURCH IN HARD PLACES

How the Local Church Brings Life to the Poor and Needy

Mez McConnell and Mike McKinley

Foreword by Brian Fikkert

Church in Hard Places: How the Local Church Brings Life to the Poor and Needy

Copyright © 2016 by Mez McConnell and Mike McKinley

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.

Cover Design: Mark Davis

Image Rights: Open Street Maps, Open Street Map contributors, OpenStreetMap.org

First printing 2016

Printed in the United States of America

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-4904-5 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-4907-6 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-4905-2 Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-4906-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McConnell, Mez.

Church in hard places : how the local church brings life to the poor and needy / Mez McConnell and Mike McKinley.

1 online resource. —(9Marks Books)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4335-4905-2 (pdf) -- ISBN 978-1-4335-4906-9 (mobi) -- ISBN 978-1-4335-4907-6 (epub) -- ISBN 978-1-4335-4904-5 (tp)

1. Church work with the poor. 2. City churches. I. Title.

BV639.P6          

261.8'325—dc                              23 2015027062

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Contents

Cover PageTitle PageCopyrightSeries PrefaceForeword by Brian FikkertIntroductionPart 1: The Gospel in Hard Places  1   What Is Poverty?  2   What Gospel Do They Need?  3   Does Doctrine Matter?Part 2: The Church in Hard Places  4   The Parachurch Problem  5   The Local Church Solution  6   The Work of Evangelism  7   The Role of Preaching  8   The Importance of Membership and DisciplinePart 3: The Work in Hard Places  9   Prepare Yourself10   Prepare the Work11   Prepare to Change Your Thinking12   Prepare for Mercy Ministry?Conclusion: Count the Cost . . . and RewardGeneral IndexScripture Index

Series Preface

The 9Marks series of books is premised on two basic ideas. First, the local church is far more important to the Christian life than many Christians today perhaps realize. We at 9Marks believe that a healthy Christian is a healthy church member.

Second, local churches grow in life and vitality as they organize their lives around God’s Word. God speaks. Churches should listen and follow. It’s that simple. When a church listens and follows, it begins to look like the One it is following. It reflects his love and holiness. It displays his glory. A church will look like him as it listens to him. By this token, the reader might notice that all “9 marks,” taken from Mark Dever’s book, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church (Crossway, 3rd ed., 2013), begin with the Bible:

expositional preaching;biblical theology;a biblical understanding of the gospel;a biblical understanding of conversion;a biblical understanding of evangelism;a biblical understanding of church membership;a biblical understanding of church discipline;a biblical understanding of discipleship and growth; anda biblical understanding of church leadership.

More can be said about what churches should do in order to be healthy, such as pray. But these nine practices are the ones that we believe are most often overlooked today (unlike prayer). So our basic message to churches is, don’t look to the best business practices or the latest styles; look to God. Start by listening to God’s Word again.

Out of this overall project comes the 9Marks series of books. These volumes intend to examine the nine marks more closely and from different angles. Some target pastors. Some target church members. Hopefully all will combine careful biblical examination, theological reflection, cultural consideration, corporate application, and even a bit of individual exhortation. The best Christian books are always both theological and practical.

It’s our prayer that God will use this volume and the others to help prepare his bride, the church, with radiance and splendor for the day of his coming.

Foreword

One of the most significant trends of the past two decades has been the renewed commitment of evangelical Christians to fighting against poverty. An avalanche of books, conferences, and ministries is mobilizing and equipping Christians to heed the biblical mandate “to do justice, and to love kindness” (Mic. 6:8). This trend is truly exciting, since caring for the poor is one of the central tasks of Jesus Christ and his followers (Luke 7:18–23; 1 John 3:16–18).

Unfortunately, there has been a second trend as well: a declining commitment to the local church. Although this trend is widespread, it seems to be particularly pronounced among Christians who are the most passionate about social justice. Indeed, it is all too common to hear those who are working full time in poverty alleviation to express not just frustration but outright disdain for the local church. This trend is a profound tragedy with manifold implications, one of them being that the renewed efforts to help the poor are doomed to fail. Those are strong words, so let me explain.

Poverty is a profoundly complicated problem to solve. As we argued in the book When Helping Hurts, poverty is rooted in people’s broken relationships with God, self, others, and the rest of creation. These relationships are broken due to a complex combination of the individual’s own sin, exploitive people, systemic injustice, and demonic forces. There is a lot more going on than meets the eye, so the solutions need to move well beyond ladling soup, dispensing clothing, and handing out food stamps, as important as those activities can be. Indeed, the problem of poverty is so complex that it takes a miracle to eradicate it.

The good news of the gospel involves King Jesus using his power and authority to conquer the individual’s own sin, the exploitive people, the systemic injustice, and the demonic forces that are at the root of poverty (Col. 1:15–20). It is King Jesus alone who can do all of this, so the poor—a group that includes all of us—need a profound encounter with him. By “encounter,” I do not mean a one-time meeting. Rather, I mean a deep, organic connection to the very person of Jesus Christ, who saves individuals from their sins and ushers them into a new world in which there will be no more exploitive people, systemic injustice, or demonic forces . . . and no more poverty (John 17:20–23; Eph. 1:2–23; Rev. 21:1–4). The poor need to be united to King Jesus, and he is present—mysteriously but truly—in the church (Eph. 1:23).

It is simply impossible to alleviate poverty—in its fullest sense—apart from the local church.

Thus, if we want to alleviate poverty, we need churches in the “hard places” where the poor live. Unfortunately, many churches are located far from the poor, and those that are in close proximity are often unprepared for effective ministry. And that is where this book steps in.

Drawing upon their personal experiences both as poor people and as pastors of churches in “hard places,” Mike McKinley and Mez McConnell provide practical advice for using the ordinary activities of the church—the preaching of the Word, prayer, accountability, and discipleship—to draw poor people into a transformative encounter with King Jesus. These “routine” activities work because God has ordained them to work! They are the primary techniques that God has established to draw people into a transformative relationship with King Jesus and to nurture them in that relationship. Hence, the authors are rightly passionate in their desire to keep these activities on center stage, rather than relegating them to a sideshow.

You might not agree with every word of this book. Indeed, I wish there were some things that were stated differently. But do not let that deter you. Mike and Mez are addressing a profoundly important—but increasingly overlooked—issue that is absolutely crucial for the advancement of the kingdom of God and for the alleviation of poverty: How can we plant thriving churches in hard places? As one who has dedicated a lifetime to addressing poverty, I cannot think of a more timely or important topic.

Brian Fikkert

Coauthor of When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate PovertyWithout Hurting the Poor . . . and Yourself

Founder and President of the Chalmers Center at Covenant College

Introduction

I (Mez) was fifteen years old when two things happened to me: one of my friends was stabbed to death in the street, and I became aware of the church for the first time. A local church hosted the funeral for my friend.

The church building was big, imposing almost, and built from bricks as red as my friend’s blood as he choked to death on the way to the hospital. I’ll never forget that church. It had arched wooden doors and reinforced steel protectors over stain-glassed windows. Its steeple loomed overhead. And it sat proudly in the middle of our council estate (Americans call them “housing projects”), surrounded by a sea of drab, gray, pebble-dashed terraced housing.

The church was open only when somebody died. Now somebody had died. I recall standing outside that building in the pouring rain as people carried my friend’s coffin inside and committed him to a God none of us believed in. After that time, I associated churches with dead people.

Sometimes we would see the local minister walk up to the shops. We would usually throw stones and flick cigarette butts at him. Of course he always smiled. That’s what ministers did, didn’t they? Turning the other cheek and all that? Religion and that church in particular were irrelevant to us. We would talk about it only to mock it. The only thing that a church was good for was as shelter if you wanted to have a smoke out of the rain.

As I got older, our little estate got worse. In the late 1980s and early ’90s, drugs began to take a serious hold on all of our lives. Lifelong friendships turned sour as greed took over. Houses grew steadily more derelict as decent people looked for a way to escape. Flowers and shrubs were replaced with motorbikes and car parts. Rows of houses were boarded up, with litter, weeds, and dog muck strewn about as a symbol of a deeper degeneration.

But I always remember that church building—red and proud with beautifully manicured grass, seemingly untouched by the disintegration of our lives. It was always empty and as dead to us as the graves surrounding it, but it was also a place of mystery to my friends and me. Years later when I was living in a crack den, dealing drugs and getting into trouble, I would stare out of my eighth-story window and look out at that building. Through my drug-induced haze I would wonder about God: Did he even exist? Did he care about people like me? I would wonder why the building was there with nobody in it. Maybe it was just there to tease us about how pathetic our lives were. I pondered on why they would build a place like that just for the dead. If you had told me then that the local church would save my life in years to come, I would have laughed at you. I was sure that the only time I would find myself in a church would be in a coffin. Thankfully, I was wrong.

Who Are We?

This is a book written by two men who genuinely believe that the Scriptures teach that the gospel is good news for the poor and needy, and that the church is for all people in all places whatever their status in life. Yes, many churches are dead, like the one that held the funeral for my friend. This is tragic. How critical it is, then, for those churches who are alive to the gospel to pursue the poor, the down-and-out, the hard-pressed! We write this in the hope that the Western church will get better at bringing light to the dark and neglected places too often found in their own backyards.

These are my own roots. I was abandoned at age two and raised in the foster system. By age sixteen I was on the streets full time. But God smashed my hard heart through the persistent witness of several Christians who visited me in prison, and he saved me. Since 1999, I have been a pastor/planter involved in full-time church ministry. In that time I have been an associate minister of a middle-class Baptist church, served as a youth pastor for an inner-city evangelical church, founded a street children’s charity and planted a church for street children in one of northern Brazil’s poorest cities, and overseen the revitalization of a church in one of Scotland’s most deprived housing schemes, Niddrie Community Church. I am short, opinionated, passionate, and desperate to see this kind of work modeled and magnified throughout Scotland’s housing schemes and the rest of the United Kingdom. I am more than happily married to Miriam and have two young girls.

What Is a Scheme?

A Scottish housing scheme is a cross between an American trailer park, an American urban housing project, and an American Indian reservation. Schemes were originally built aslow-incomehousing for the “new” working class (after the Industrial Revolution), replacing many slum tenements. Today, they are a mixture of social housing and homeowners.

Mike McKinley is the lead pastor at a Sterling Park Baptist Church, a church revitalization in Virginia. Unlike me, Mike is tall and not really all that opinionated (except for matters relating to American football and punk rock music). He has written several books and is a member of the board for Radstock Ministries, an international network of church-planting churches. Mike and his wife, Karen, have five unusually good-looking kids (or so he tells me).

The great thing about writing this book together is that we come from completely different backgrounds and ministry experiences. Mike’s church is in a wealthy suburb of Washington, DC, but Sterling Park Baptist has found fruitful ministry inroads among their neighborhood’s homeless, the working poor, and illegal immigrants. I am presently pastoring a church in one of my country’s toughest schemes and overseeing work in several others through 20schemes, the church planting ministry of our church. 20schemes exists to revitalize and plant gospel churches in Scotland’s poorest communities. If everything goes according to plan, my group will plant churches in twenty other housing schemes in the next decade.

Our contexts are different. Mike works in a multicultural context, whereas I work in a comparatively monocultural context (although that is changing). Couple that with the cultural differences between Americans and Europeans, and we are an interesting mix.

However, both of us are committed to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ as the good news for a dying world. Both of us are committed to the local church as the platform and voice from which that news is proclaimed, where converts are discipled, and where we practice all the elements of church discipline and membership. We not only believe in their importance but we also assert their necessity for our work.

What Is a “Hard Place”?

We have decided to call this book Church in Hard Places, but recognize that we’re using the term “hard” advisedly. In Brazil, I worked with children as young as five years old who sold chewing gum to make ends meet. When that failed—and it did—they were pushed into prostitution by unscrupulous adults. It was a horrendous life, and still is for untold millions. In some ways, yes, this is a “hard” place to minister.

But that’s a one-dimensional assessment. I notice that when I tell stories like these to other pastors, they often pat me on the back and say something like, “Well done, mate. I couldn’t do what you do. It sounds so hard.” Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate the sentiment, and it’s nice to get a pat on the back once in a while. But here’s my dilemma. In some ways, it is not hard at all. I would even say living and working among the poor can be very easy. Sometimes I feel like I need to come out officially as a pastoral fraud, and say to my friends pastoring in wealthier areas, “Well done to you, mate! Yours is the harder ministry.”