- by Doug Hartman
In his book Beyond Charity (1993), John Perkins addresses some of the issues that complicate life in the black communities of our urban centers. The issues are many, they are powerful, and the resultant situation is extremely complex. He provides the following statistics: 2/3 of black children are born to unwed mothers, and of the 4.6 million black families in America, 2.6 million are headed by single women. This is readily apparent in our community where we meet family after family without an adult male of any type (whether uncle, brother, or even a stable boyfriend) present. So, where are these men? Ever notice how a disproportionate amount of the people involved in homicides (either the victim or the perpetrator) are black? Perkins notes that 25% of black males aged 16 through 30 are in our prison system, 64% of the prison population is black (as opposed to 12% of the general population), and that homicide is the leading cause of death for black males aged 15-44. Too many fathers are dead or in prison, leaving too many children without stability, without any type of positive male role model, without any financial support, and without much needed emotional security. With more and more women perpetrating the violence and abusing drugs or alcohol, it is also not uncommon to find kids without their mother. A grandmother or an aunt is left with the responsibilities of raising the kids.
These are obviously sensitive issues without simple solutions. But it is reality, a part of everyday life in the inner-city. Such powerful and pervasive issues are likely betrayed in their importance by the statistics: real lives-both adult and child, male and female-are destroyed every single day by the violence and substance abuse in our urban communities. The long-term ramifications are mind-numbing.
The specific nature of poverty that (sometimes unfairly) defines our modern urban communities is actually quite unique, but some of the basic elements have unfortunately been apart of human existence for millennia. Oddly enough, it is exactly here that the Christian community can find hope and direction, because these same basic elements were present in the various societies in which the Scriptures were written. God has much to say on the subject. The essence of the good news of Jesus Christ is redemption, regardless of locality, crime rate or tax-bracket. It is because of God's vision of restoration, justice, and righteousness in the midst of fallen humanity that we too may have hope. In truth, the options of despair and hopelessness are not available to us; God has not given up on humanity and thus neither can we.
History is almost always told from the perspective of the powerful, the conqueror. Those who have the money, the political clout, and the right connections can usually get their way if they complain enough. But the weak and the "insignificant" of society do not have a voice or influence. When the socially marginalized person suffers, they often do so alone, with little hope of change or justice. It is all the more powerful then when we hear about a story when the weak and the powerless overcome some opposition or injustice. In Scripture, God consistently comes to the aid of people without power or influence. Even more powerfully, God often defines himself in relation to those discarded by society. Let me give just a few of the myriad examples in Scripture:
· "'Because the poor are despoiled, because the needy groan, I will rise up,' says the LORD; 'I will place them in the safety for which they long.'" (Psalm 12:5)
· "'He [Josiah, King of Judah] did what was right and just, so all went well with him. He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?' declares the LORD." (Jeremiah 22:15-6)
· "The LORD enters into judgment with the elders and the princes of his people: 'It is you who have devoured the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What do you mean by crushing my people and grinding the faces of the poor?' declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty." (Isaiah 3:13-15)
The writings of the Psalms, the Law, and the Prophets reveal the God whose very nature is tied to the weak and the insignificant. God manages to trump even that with the scandal of the incarnation. In Christ, the Sovereign Lord of the universe became weak and insignificant. God identifies with the powerless, and when they are hurt or denied justice, he takes it personally (see Proverbs 14:31). It is remarkable that the God who holds all things together concerns himself so profoundly with such things.
Despite the complexity of the various people's situations in the inner-city, the study of Scripture has led me to believe that when the poor single mothers and grandmothers cry out, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ hears and responds. Likewise, study has led me to believe that the authentic Christian community hears and responds as well. When the Lord says, "I will rise up," his people rise with him. We will not solve all the problems in the world, but Scripture nevertheless calls each of us to love the one next to us as ourselves.
Our situation is very different from that of ancient Israel, but much that was said then remains applicable today. In the Psalms, we are commanded, "Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked" (82:3-4). Many Christians may point to the text where Jesus says, "The poor will always be with you" (Matthew 26:11). It is true. There will always be those who are weak. There will always be those need deliverance from the wicked. There will always be those who have no voice. Jesus' point was not that we should do nothing, but that we will always have an opportunity to show compassion and love to those ostracized and rejected by the rest of society. We have that opportunity and need to make the most of every opportunity to visibly and concretely display the love that God gives us for others. The authentic Christian community comes alongside the weak to be their voice, defend their rights, and ensure that they have justice.
But we must be careful about how we do this. Much damage can be done by people with the purest, most sincere motives. The welfare system and many charitable groups, for instance, try to help those in need by what amounts to throwing money at the problems. Time has proven that such methods result in an unhealthy form of dependency and even resentment (likely much to the bewilderment of the taxpayers and donors). The problem with writing checks is that it is by nature a detached way of helping others. The majority of donors to charitable organizations never meet the people they're trying to help-even when they live in the same area of town. It can become as impersonal as paying one's gas bill.
Detachment makes poverty an issue. Perhaps poverty is an issue, but the poor are people. People instinctively react against anything detached and impersonal. To biblically maintain the rights of the poor and defend the fatherless, we must always strive for a connection-a genuine encounter between the wealthy and the poor, the weak and the strong that results in a new way of life for both. We must be creative and persistent, but everything must issue forth from that basic relationship. The biblical call is not for a discussion about poverty or to create a program. The biblical vision is a face-to-face encounter: to know the poor and be among them. Only then are we open and receptive to how they can build into our lives. And it is only then that we earn the right to build into the lives of other people.

- by Tim Baumgartner, UC Intern
I wasn't a Christian when I grew up, and I thought about life very differently than I do now. God teaches me things all the time about His kingdom and my priorities in life, which are much different than they used to be. My eyes and heart are being unveiled. As you read you will find out how.
When I grew up in the suburbs of Cincinnati, Ohio (Forest Park) I developed a mentality that life should revolve around sports and making it to the NBA. I was told I needed a "backup plan" in case I got hurt, so starting in middle school I thought I could be a physical education ("gym") teacher and coach a basketball or soccer team. My counselor persuaded me that it would be too competitive to get a job and everybody wanted to "be a gym teacher," so I needed to pick another profession. I was gullible, so my response was "O.K."
As I entered high school, sports became even more important to me, and I could picture myself playing sports in college in the very near future. Sports often made me happy in my life, but they also made me very upset when things didn't work out as I wanted. Since I didn't have God or Jesus in my life (in part because of a failure of others to share Him with me), I really missed out on a different path in life. But it all happens for a reason: Instead of carrying around all this excess "baggage" about being mad that certain things went the way they did, I can be thankful. I'm still alive, I'm healthy, and most importantly I have Christ in my life now. Instead of being forced by my parents to go to church or learn about the LORD when they themselves were not "living the life," they told me that "I could figure out what I wanted to believe about God and go from there." This all has been a huge blessing for me. My eyes and heart are being unveiled.
Acknowledging Christ as Savior has been an amazing blessing, which has changed my priorities, goals, vision, and outlook in life. I realize that life's about having a personal relationship with the Christ Jesus who loves us in ways that are different from our ways of loving each other. We often do things for those we love: we buy them things and show them affection. These expressions of love are entirely different than the way Christ loves us. Instead of doing those things, Jesus died for us because of the love He has for us. People commenting on the new Mel Gibson movie The Passion of the Christ say, "It's too violent. Jesus was all about love." Exactly! That's why he died for us. It's not our way of showing love to others. Think about Ephesians 2:8-9, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-not by works, so that no one can boast." Jesus loves us even though we don't deserve His love. My initial human response to the LORD is to think that I don't deserve His love. I feel like I need to do a whole lot of things for His kingdom to make my life pleasing to Him. But the fact of the matter is that He just wants me to have faith in Him. My eyes and heart are being unveiled about these things, too.
Being exposed to life and to the people of the inner-city unveils my eyes and heart to many other things as well. Now I live on the near East side of Columbus, and most of the youth here are having a very difficult time growing up. I've learned some have both parents in jail and live with other family members. Others have witnessed their parents commit felonious crimes right in front of them and do drugs in front of them. Some of these parents claim to be followers of Christ, but it is difficult to be a witness for Christ when they don't prove it with their lifestyle. This creates a lot of issues in the lives of the kids that really need to be dealt with. It's really hard, and I've gotten a "taste" of what Doug, Cathy, and many others have experienced as they try to meet the needs of the youth in the inner city.
Matthew 9:36-38 comes to mind, because we have compassion on the people here since many "are like sheep without a shepherd." In this passage Jesus goes on to say that the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few, and that we need to ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest field. I want to be one of these workers so I can meet the many needs of the youth here on the near East side. God put on my heart to start an additional Program here at Urban Connections. Doug and I were praying one day for the kids, and He put on our hearts Saturday and ALTernative, so we put the words together S.ALT. (which refers to Matthew 5:13). Through S.ALT., God is using my love for sports to teach the kids about God and the new priorities of the kingdom.
My eyes and heart are being unveiled to the kingdom priorities in life. Since I didn't grow up having faith in Christ, my hope and desire are to expose the youth to the Word of God and to its truth. I know how much the LORD can help people out in their lives. I realize how much more we need to be thankful for all the things He blesses us with. I used to complain about all the things I didn't have. Now I think about all the things I do have. I want to use the gifts God has given me to teach the youth to be thankful for the things we have and to get to know the LORD. My eyes and heart are being unveiled.
As you read this newsletter, please pray about how God has gifted you. There are many things that could be done, but we need to unite better. When we overlook all the "barriers" that divide us, the opportunities are endless as to how the world around us can be impacted. We need to keep in mind that Jesus said that all will know that we are his disciples, by the way we love each other (John 13:34-35). If we come together, it will unveil the eyes and hearts of those who witness all of the changes being made in the inner cities. There are numerous ways in which the LORD encourages us to come together and make a difference. Ephesians 3:20 says, "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us." Shortly after, it goes on to talk about how God has given His body various gifts "to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the full measure of the fullness of Christ" (3:12-13). What reassurance and trust God is passing on to us as the Body of Christ! There is hope! But we all need to be willing to do what God wants us to do. I'll admit that it's very difficult sometimes, but the best promise I've ever received from God is, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you" (Hebrews 13:5). My eyes and heart are being unveiled. What about yours?

What Kind of CEO Would God Make? - by Doug Hartman
In a Bible Study recently we were studying in Deuteronomy, and an interesting question came to mind: "What kind of a CEO would God make?" It may strike us moderns as a strange question, a kind of logical conundrum created by inappropriately mixing genres. The idea sounds crazy, like asking if a sockeye salmon would make a good point guard in the NBA. The chief executive officer of a business and the God we sing about on Sunday morning-what do they have to do with one another? Most modern Christians understand their faith in Christ as a private heart religion: attending a church service, giving some money, and if possible avoiding the more audacious sins. As a byproduct of how many people have understood and practiced Christianity, the overlap between business and the Almighty would have to be slim indeed. The salmon-point guard comparison is an understatement.
To make matters worse, the passage in question (Deut. 12-17) reveals God's character in ways that are quite alarming. He commands his people to periodically forgive all debts, to completely destroy pagan temples and altars, and to make extreme personal sacrifices in order to care for the poor. He bans eating certain animals and orders punishment by death-even for an entire city-for those who entice others to worship any god but the LORD. Other portions of Scripture reveal more of God's alarming characteristics: inexplicably gracious, loving to a ridiculous extent, forgiving (including those who commit the most vile and heinous acts), and as One who detests greed and selfishness.
What kind of a CEO would God make? Someone steals $10 million from the company, but then begs for forgiveness? God grants him a full pardon and makes him a corporate Vice President. An advertising executive suggests a new campaign promoting the company's latest technological innovation? God lambastes the employee and fires him immediately. A new ad campaign is launched encouraging people to work less, to spend more time with their families, and to volunteer weekly in homeless shelters. Someone else mentions the annual executive business trip to the Caribbean? God actually fumes at that one...He sells the company jet and uses the money to raise public awareness of the millions of homeless street children in South America. Employees complain about their wages and the rising costs of health care? God looks at his own salary and is appalled. He takes a 75% pay cut and then decrees that all company employees are to be paid the same as he is. He makes health care free-pays the co-pays himself!-and extends those benefits to anyone who asks, even if they don't happen to work for his company. God is so other-focused and so selfless. By any sort of modern business standard, we would have to say that the God of Scriptures would be a horrendously pitiful CEO.
God's priorities generally are not ours. That much is fairly obvious, but God also chooses to do things in some very strange ways. In our situation here on the east side, one of Jesus' most peculiar parables, the story of the Mustard Seed, keeps surfacing in my thinking. The story is a simple one: Jesus said that his kingdom is like the tiny seed of the mustard plant. At the beginning at least, a seed is frail and quite vulnerable. (Remember Jesus' story about all the bad things that can happen to seed in Mark 4?) Mustard seed in particular is small, inconspicuous, and extremely forgettable. It easily goes unnoticed. God's Kingdom is easy to miss? Why would God do that? One of my friends offered a modern illustration of the Mustard Seed principle: God's Kingdom is like a little blade of grass that is nevertheless able to bust up through a sidewalk, crumbling the concrete. Humanly speaking, it is much more natural to think in terms of concrete and steel, dividing and conquering, glitz and glare, money and power. We so often instinctively reach for the CEO model espoused by corporate America. We may steal its form, borrow its principles, duplicate its strategies, mimic its ways, but God chose the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the mustard seed. It is his very strange way.
I am learning that Christianity is the story of everyday heroes. Just look at the God we serve! Christians hold that God became a single human being, not born into the royal lineage of the emperor or in Rome, the greatest power center of the ancient world. Instead he became the son of an obscure, poor family in an undistinguished village-one even despised by fellow Jews-on the outskirts of that empire. In life, Jesus rarely used his power or authority, and when he did, it was always for someone else. In death, he was brushed off as a common criminal. The odd part is that this was God's design, God's intention. But we clamor for significance and power, the essence of the CEO image. We strive for efficiency and wide market appeal, the essence of the CEO message. But God gave us the King of Kings as a frail peasant perched on top of a donkey. "How foolish and inefficient!" we say. For all his opportunities in life and death to seize the moment, to grasp for power, and to use circumstances to his advantage, Jesus refused. He chose instead to follow his Father's bizarre ways.
And what was the significance of Jesus' life? Jesus had his moments, but his public life was mostly unexceptional and easily misinterpreted. He did not burst onto the scene with a flourish of his power, removing all confusion and doubt. In many ways, Jesus' life and death actually created more confusion-initially even among his most devout followers. Ancient Roman and Jewish historians looked scornfully at the founder of the Jesus movement as a troublemaker, an instigator of illegal superstitions, and a threat to the Pax Romana. "God's Kingdom is here!" he said. Really?-someone may well ask. This is it? Early Christ-followers looked at the same things that led the Romans and Jewish authorities to scoff. They just concluded differently: Yeah, that's our God...how could you miss him? Accepting the crucified Messiah as Lord radically altered their perspective: they didn't grasp for power and privilege. Instead they gave them away, defying greatness and shying away from fame. They understood that the real power is in the mustard seed.
Many talk of cleaning up the urban communities, meaning that we should throw the drug dealers and prostitutes in jail, crack down on crime, and drive out the riff-raff. Though not easy, these are certainly manageable and sensible goals. They are also Christ-less. We seek to do something much more idiotic: transform the neighborhood by turning the "hoodlums" into holy-ones and the crack-heads into Christ-followers. This is not an approach endorsed by Forbes magazine. And compared us to the variety and intensity of influences counter to Christ in the inner-city, we stack up quite poorly. It makes no sense to open a house in my neighborhood and invite people in to eat and talk about God. Viewed objectively, it simply doesn't make sense. We choose to stay anyway, inviting kids and teenagers from all sorts of backgrounds and places in life, sharing life with them, and sharing the crazy love of Christ with them. It is not a choice based on good business sense, sound socio-psychological principles, or even a shred of human wisdom. Ultimately, I think it is the foolish choice to remain faithful. It is a choice to believe in God's ability to use a tiny mustard seed, a feeble blade of grass to bust up through layers of steel and concrete. I thank God that he chose to base his kingdom on the strange principle of the Mustard Seed.

- by Doug Hartman
"For you so loved the unlovable, that you gave the ineffable.
That who so believes the unbelievable, will gain the unattainable..."
These words from the song There You Go by Caedmon's Call always resonate with great depth of meaning to me. They are obviously poetic, but they are profoundly biblical, too. I especially like they way they blend the view of who and what we are before experiencing the grace of God and who and what we can become through the experience of God's life-transforming grace. On the album (40 Acres) cover, Caedmon's Call writes: "There is a geography to redemption, a way in which the ideals of grace and renewal make themselves real in this world." Many rightly talk of a radical new lifestyle with new priorities when someone is "in Christ." It can be a different matter when people actually look for that geography of redemption. Relatively few seem to make concrete strides towards that end of a new lifestyle with new priorities. When it comes to discussing what we have or have not attained of the unattainable, many seem to baulk and make excuses: we feel judged and can get defensive. Christianity it seems is much more comfortable in the realm of ideals and doctrines, much less so in the actual realm of how we approach life, money, work, family, Christian community and ministry. What has become of our "geography of redemption"?
Author Tom Sine spoke at a recent urban ministry conference. He said that he believes the first call of the gospel is not to proclamation (evangelism), not to mission, and not to social action. Seeing as he was speaking to a bunch of social activists, the majority of whom are evangelical, this is a pretty radical statement. While not minimizing the importance of those elements, he said that the first call of the gospel is the call to incarnation, the call to flesh out the realities of God's redemptive actions in our life together as Christ-followers. John Stott would seem to indicate the same. In the IVP commentary of 1st Thessalonians, Stott wrote, "No church can spread the gospel with any degree of integrity, let alone credibility, unless it has been visibly changed by the gospel it preaches. We need to look like what we are talking about. It is not enough to receive the gospel and pass it on; we must embody it in our common life of faith, love, joy, righteousness and hope." Stott's words are especially interesting to me because of his emphasis: incarnating our message is tied intricately to sharing that message. If we cannot find a way to make the precepts of Christianity real among us, we cannot effectively share that message.
I think Caedmon's Call, Sine, and Stott are all absolutely correct. This "call to incarnation" is so much of the focus in the biblical writings that its obviousness may get it lost in the mix. Paul's intention in urging people to "live a life worthy of the calling you have received" (Eph. 4:1) or to "live by the Spirit" (Gal. 5:16) was not that people would learn some doctrine. One can hardly doubt that he actually expected people to live that way. Peter did not write, "...just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do" (1 Pet. 1:15) so that we could ponder the concept of holiness for 30 minutes in a sermon. Both apostles were calling people to incarnate this different way of life. Study of the Scriptures is good, but we miss the point entirely if we do not then translate that knowledge into a new way of life. As James says, "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says" (1:22). Yes, we Christ-followers must engage those around us with the good news of Christ. We must strive for justice in our communities and in our world. We must work for the good of others. But those things pale in comparison to the importance and necessity of incarnating our message.
I believe that the lack of incarnating the gospel message is largely due to what Tom Sine calls a dualistic form of discipleship. This simply means that there are two separate agendas or pursuits that we are trying to develop and learn simultaneously. As Sine explains, for the vast majority of Christians in America, Christian discipleship is largely relegated to gathering together for a couple hours on Sunday morning to attend a praise &; worship service. The rest of the week is spent pursuing the American Dream, getting ahead in our careers and getting ahead in our personal lives: larger homes, more expensive cars, finer things, and the latest electronic toys. This is not to say that most Christians do not take their faith seriously; many do. But the distinction between strong and weak Christians is often only in how seriously they take the details: do they go to a good, Bible-believing church? Do they attend faithfully each week? Do they tithe? We have grown to accept a privatized faith that does not significantly impact our politics, our attitudes, our lifestyles, our prejudices, our employment, where we live, or how we spent our time and money. Those decisions are left to values imported from modern culture. But the American Dream is not the "unattainable" that God gives to those who believe the unbelievable.
These separate agendas pull us in different directions. Many Christians keep struggling to not be possessed by our possessions and not be defined by our work, all the while trying to work more than ever in order to possess more than we could ever use. By the indifferent way many approach Christ, the prayerlessness, and the lack of discernment in lifestyle choices and entertainment, it sure seems like the American Dream is winning in the tug-of-war over our hearts and affections. And it will continue to do so, because this fundamentally flawed vision is never questioned and never challenged.
We must dig deeper. To quote The Cross Movement's song Forever, "In the last and evil [days], it's gonna take more than stained glass and steeple, but a distinctive people who only bow down to the Regal One who didn't count it robbery to be called equal." To follow Jesus, the Regal One, is to be a distinct people. God's Word was not meant just for our devotional life. We must use his Word to significantly shape the basic elements of life, like how we use our time and money, how God can use us to make a difference for his kingdom, and where and how we choose to live. We must figure out ways to structure our lives around God's kingdom. There will be financial, personal, social, and political sacrifices. We must be willing to make those sacrifices so that we can build into others, not being afraid of those who might find that uncomfortable. We must find a way, because it is not enough to have sound doctrine and flawless worship services. New programs and cutting-edge methodologies won't get us there, either. Our geography of redemption makes us distinct. Reflecting on his life and staring death in the face, Paul could say, "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain." That is a different way of life.

"Why do you want to live there?"- by Cathy Alexander
Doug & Jill Hartman and Jason & Cathy Alexander live in the neighborhood where Urban Connections serves. Although Doug and Cathy are both on staff at the ministry, it is a family choice to live where we work. Life is different here, as we watch our neighbors struggle in ways we aren't used to and with situations that are foreign to us. We'd like to share some of the stories of the things we see and face with you. Our prayer is that you'll have a clearer view of things here and begin to see and share our heart to serve.
Many people think it is strange or even wrong when they find out where we live. They ask all sorts of questions like: Why would you live there? Aren't you scared? Do you hear gunshots? Isn't buying a house there a bad investment? The answer to some of those questions is easy. Yes, sometimes we are scared. Yes, we definitely hear gunshots. And, no, we're not worried about the investment possibilities of our house. With those kinds of answers, people inevitably come back to, “Why?” Sometimes the answer is simply that we can't be any closer to a neighbor than living next door.
Jason and I live (with our daughter Hope) on Morrison Avenue, just two blocks from the ministry house. Before we moved here, we used to talk about the needs of the poor: things like the bad schools and the lack of jobs. After moving in and seeing the struggles of the poor firsthand, we realize that we were kidding ourselves to pretend that we knew what we were talking about. We are constantly learning about the complexities of life in the inner-city. Here are a few examples:
We, as many people do, pay our bills by writing a check and mailing it to the water, electric, gas, phone or mortgage company. This is a luxury that comes with having money and a bank account. If you've grown up without knowing anyone who has money in the bank, it's hard to trust it. Having enough money to keep the account open may be a struggle. For some of our neighbors, getting a paycheck cashed or paying a bill is a major time commitment. First, they have to get their paycheck cashed, if they get a paycheck, then get a money order, get on a bus, ride to the payment department of a company and pay as much of a bill that they can afford. Then repeat the process, taking a bus to each company they owe. I don't know for sure, but there may be a long line at the payment counter, making this process take hours instead of minutes. We have one neighbor who receives a social security check in the mail that she lives on each month. Her neighbors know when it is coming and sometimes steal it, making it that much harder for her to pay her bills. We at UC are helping kids understand how bank accounts and credit work, to make it less scary and to encourage them to save.

I've often heard people say, “The poor can get help if they want it... there are food pantries that give away lots of food.” Thankfully, there are many food pantries to help provide for the basic needs of people who can't afford to do otherwise. But pantries have limited supplies; they can sometimes only give small amounts of food to people, even if there is a large family. I recently talked to a neighbor with 5 kids who had to spend several days in one week going from pantry to pantry (to 4 or 5 in all) to get enough food to feed herself and her kids. Frankly, even if that is a few meals (I didn't ask how much food she got in all), it is certainly not a long term answer. She is thankful for the school, which gives them breakfast and lunch. Food pantries also try to protect against people who abuse the system. So, there are many “hoops” that people must jump through to receive help. Something as simple as registering over the phone the day before can be a problem: the poor are the first to feel cut backs when the economy is weak. Many food pantries are currently understaffed and under-funded, so a simple two minute phone conversation can involve a several hour long wait. And what are you supposed to do if you don't have a phone? We try to help her by giving her some of the excess food we have after serving meals to the kids, but we know that is not a permanent solution either.

Over the past couple of weeks we have begun to realize the dangers we never saw coming. We know about the theft and some violence - we've even gotten used to some of it. But in late August one woman in our area had an interesting discussion with the police. Because she lives in half of a duplex, she is very aware of her neighbors' questionably criminal activity. When one of our neighborhood police officers stopped to talk to her, she assumed it was about her neighbor. But instead, he told her that if she didn't move out immediately, she was risking having her children taken away. We have communicated with the police on this issue, but some tip-toeing is required. Associating with the police can also be dangerous in the inner-city. If we are too obvious, we could become targets - and the woman in our neighborhood is scared of being shot at if she calls 911.
I can appreciate the value of the policeman trying to protect the neighborhood children. But I am left to ask - if the police have reason to believe there is a real threat, then why not address the threat instead of trying to punish the family next door?
This leaves us in an unjust and dangerous situation. It also puts us in a place to understand why people in the inner-city (even those who aren't doing anything illegal) don't view the police as their friends. Is it neglect to simply live in this community? Perhaps some would say yes, and that may be fine for those with the resources to be choosy, but then what are people supposed to do if they cannot afford to move? Can someone be labeled as a bad parent simply because he or she is poor? And then what becomes of the neighborhood itself? Are we willing to give the area over to the drug dealers and prostitutes and call the near-east-side a loss? Frankly, we don't plan to let that happen. Christ calls us to something different, and we intend to figure out what he wants from us.

Lastly, at our most recent neighborhood picnic, one mom (who didn't yet know that we offered tutoring) was talking with a volunteer about the after-school program at her children's school. They encourage the kids to play for several hours after school without starting their homework. This mom was saying she wished someone would help her kids with their work right after school. It is our pleasure to offer this to the kids in the neighborhood. And I was encouraged by her excitement at hearing that her kids could come for tutoring. She is very willing to drop them off and then let them stay for Bible clubs because of our willingness to meet their need for tutoring.

As we experience life here, we realize that loving our neighbor unconditionally means meeting needs as Christ did. We want to live out the gospel by helping meet both the physical and spiritual needs of our neighbors. And there is no better way to understand what those needs are than to live here.

Response to "Real Hope In Chicago" - by Tim Baumgartner
Tim Baumgartner was the Urban Connections Intern for the 2003-2004 school year. As part of his training, he was assigned reading material and asked to write a response paper. This is an excerpt from his response paper for the book, "Real Hope in Chicago" by Wayne Gordon.
Thirty years ago, Wayne Gordon was a recent college graduate from Wheaton College with a burden to make a difference in the lives of young people in inner-city Chicago. He got a job teaching and a vision for ministry, and both required him to move into "a part of the Windy City most white Christians avoid." Wayne moved into Lawndale, one of the poorest communities in Illinois, but it was where his students lived. He started a Bible study, and as a surprise to many, he stayed. He got married there, he raised his children there, and he called Lawndale his home. He did this for a variety of reasons: his competitive nature, his enormous heart, and his inexhaustible drive, but he never thought about failure. He chose to live among and identify with the people he wanted to reach with the good news of Jesus Christ.
There was one potential roadblock to his vision: he was a white guy who grew up in rural Iowa and knew nothing about the African-American culture. But he knew the Gospel and how God was renowned for His ability to reconcile both people to Himself and to others. He knew how God's power transcended any barrier, especially racial. He became an "ambassador of reconciliation." Reconciliation, he argues, is at the heart of the gospel.
In relocating to Lawndale, Wayne Gordon chose to live an "incarnational" lifestyle. The needs of his neighbor became his own. He was able to experience what they experienced, to some extent, and was able to have a totally different worldview as a result. Since he lived there, he had many more opportunities to serve the people around him and to win people to Christ than he ever expected.
After reading this book, it is obvious that the LORD upheld His Word with Wayne. Luke 16:10 says, "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much." When Wayne and his wife Anne moved into Lawndale, there weren't hospitals, gymnasiums, clinics, businesses, churches, and other various things that form the backbone of most communities. Eventually, through Lawndale Christian Church and its ministries, they addressed many of these needs. But it took time to build relationships and to prove their faithfulness to the LORD, to the members of their community, and their supporters (who prayed, helped out financially, and helped serve the people of Lawndale). The LORD can and will use people who are willing to "deny themselves, pick up their cross, and follow [the Lord] daily" (Luke 9:23). Wayne's ministry has been very fruitful. He was the kind of branch that bore fruit and then pruned again so that it will be even more fruitful (John 15:2).
Wayne Gordon and John Perkins worked together to establish the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA). At the CCDA, they encourage everyone to follow the wisdom of the Chinese poem entitled, Serving the People. It says, "Go to the people. Live among them, learn from them, love them...Start with what they know, build on what they have. But of the best leaders, when their task is accomplished, their work is done, the people all remark, 'We have done it ourselves.'"
I think this poem is profound! It explains how people from outside a community in need like Lawndale should not just come in and try to fix all of the "problems." People coming in from the outside need to realize that their assumptions are not always wise. The insiders who have been living in a certain area can understand the history and express the needs far better than someone on the outside can. Outsiders need to live with them and learn from them so they can understand the community from the residents' perspective. It's easy to make judgments as a "spectator of the game," but the people who are actually "playing the game" and are involved with all of the various situations firsthand have a completely different perspective. An outsider might have learned how to run a business in other contexts, but that approach may not work in the inner-city. They need to teach the people who are already there and allow reciprocity of learning to take place.
During their Bible Studies, the youth expressed what needs they felt were important to Wayne and his wife. To their surprise, one night the youth asked Wayne and Anne if the Gordon's could start a church. The needs and desires of the community were being expressed! They prayed about it and felt the youth were being sincere about learning about the Lord, so they did it. They nominated Wayne as the pastor, and so Lawndale Community Church was born. This was one of the first things Wayne and Anne did after listening to the people.
Wayne and the youth also went door-to-door, questioning people about what they thought needed to be done in the community. Their responses were things like health care, better education, jobs, housing, recreation, and combating drugs &; violence. But as they thought of what they could actually do right then, a woman raised her hand and asked, "What about a safe place to do laundry?" Wayne wasn't really excited about the idea. He thought, "Couldn't it have been something that would have more of an impact than a Laundromat?" But that is what they wanted and that is what they got. It proved to be incredibly important in bringing the people of Lawndale together to solve their problems.
As the bond between the community and Lawndale Christian Church grew, they eventually came together to tackle the other issues. In time, the church developed ministries to help create jobs, to allow people to renovate and buy homes, to operate a huge medical clinic, to build a gymnasium, and to improve the public schools. As the peoples' basic needs were being met, they felt empowered to make a difference in the community themselves.
This is the kind of faithfulness I want to demonstrate with God. As the Christian rap group Priesthood states, "Help me LORD to put my words into action." As long as we are connected with Christ and filled with the Spirit, we will be able to live out the fruit of the Spirit and use the gifts that God provides for His people. I think Wayne Gordon and the others (e.g., John Perkins, Beyond Charity &; Keith Phillips, They Dare to Love the Ghetto) who decided to live in the 'hood have proven what a remarkable impact we can have through "incarnational" ministry.