Dori Beach used to work in a women’s rescue
shelter. She tells the
story of a pregnant 15 year-old named Janice. Janice is representative
of so many who are caught in the whirlpool of generational habits.
She’s a victim of incest who has raised many of her mother’s nine
children.
While the average 15-year-old has only recently given up
playing with dolls, Janice will soon have the responsibility of caring
for a real baby. In an odd way, it is for her a status symbol, a signal
that she has come of age. Her mother is hardly equipped to help; Janice
will have to raise the child by herself.
How do you reach a girl like
Janice?
Somewhere very early in life she learned that people just don’t
care. What are the odds that her own child will learn the same message?
Through the magic of television, the hard edges of many urban areas
have spilled into living rooms across America like a rolling fog. Urban
lifestyles color the thoughts we ingest from programming as innocuous
as Sesame Street to the hyperkinetic MTV.
For a full-frontal deluge of
urban decay, one has only to turn to such critically acclaimed movies
as Do the Right Thing or Boyz ‘N the Hood. View these movies and
statistics that show that your family has a one in four chance of
experiencing violent crime this year seem normal. And unfortunately, if
we have this kind of fear-soaked perspective of urban life, then those
of us in suburbia are missing out on something we desperately need.
When societies down through the years have been threatened, the
typical response has been to retreat and fortify. The monasteries of
the Middle Ages were as much a response to the threat to Christianity
as the castles and moats were a response to the threat to local
autonomy. From such redoubts, monks and nobility were able to turn back
the occasional siege or frontal attack. The modern day equivalent of
these fortresses is the suburb.
In our suburban redoubts, we are safely
distanced from the turbulence of the city.
Nineveh, a huge city of 120,000 in the year 780 B.C., was a mess.
God’s words to Nineveh were, “I am going to destroy you, for your
wickedness rises before me; it smells to highest heaven.” (Jonah 1:2)
Yet God loved it enough to ask its people to repent.
There is one problem with the strategy of the suburban redoubt. It
is in direct conflict with the strategy God has historically mapped out
for His people.
We may want to shrug our shoulders at the mess beyond
our moat, but God loves the cities. A recurrent theme in both the Old
and New Testaments is God’s love for Jerusalem.
Isaiah 52 summarizes
God’s message to its inhabitants: “Wake up, Jerusalem!” In Luke 19,
Jesus weeps over Jerusalem as he sees the turmoil awaiting her. At
various other times in Scripture, we see God sending messengers to
urbanites to request their repentance. Jonah’s travels to Nineveh are
an archetype of this theme, perhaps because of their fantastic nature.
Perhaps making a foray into a nearby urban center is similarly
threatening for you. It’s not safe. It’s time-consuming. It’s
unorthodox. Well, Christianity is not safe. Jesus left a road map
behind for his followers. It leads us over some precarious swinging
bridges spanning chasms with alligators down below.
Jesus was something
of a swashbuckler. He said, “I have come to bring a sword.” He demands
the passion of an adventurous spirit. He says, “I wish that you were
either hot or cold.”
We claim to be Christ’s followers, but are we really? Maybe in your
mind’s eye you can see Him. He’s up ahead beckoning us to follow him
into the city while we’re off with our groups at Six Flags or some
retreat. Retreat?! Jesus says, “Take the battle to the enemy!” Put on
those infra-red goggles and have a good look at the fortifications the
enemy has built less than an hour’s drive from your church.
You’ve been
given your marching orders and equipment list in Ephesians 6; are you dressed for the battle?
Jonah probably felt very under-dressed for his role as an urban
guerrilla. Many of us probably feel the same way. No matter — God
requires only our willingness to take the fight to the enemy.
Some have latched onto the Bible’s evident concern for the needy
whom we find in such abundance in our cities and have used it to
fashion a theology of works. A theology of works is a hollow religious
shell — furious activity without any specific end. Jesus defines a
theology of love which finds a constant production of fruit as its
natural outcome. Many of us have either embraced works or else embraced
a fundamentally academic interest in love.
Love is by definition active
and practical. It does not exist in the abstract and only flourishes in
adversity — the kind of adversity you find running amuck in our inner
cities.
Even a partial chronicle of the pathologies affecting urban America
underscores the complexity of the challenge facing any church group
that takes seriously its charge to be salt and light. How can one
address the problems of homelessness, inadequate education, crack
cocaine, poverty, guns, broken homes, AIDS, and teenage pregnancies?
Where does a youth group seeking to be obedient begin?
Many organizations have made a long-term commitment to coping with
the fallout of a self-consumptive society. A good place to begin
reaching out in love is to commission a survey of those organizations
already at work in the city nearest you. What needs do they address?
How could your group help them meet those needs?
Bible study and prayer is of course the foundation of discipleship.
But study without action produces a dualistic world view. Your students
segregate their activities into those that are Christian and those that
are “normal.”
Jesus says that every aspect of our lives should be
colored by our faith. When we engage in study without action, we
unwittingly promote a dualistic world view. A whole generation of
teenagers with this poisonous perspective is growing up right under our
feet.
Consider the possibility that you may have already fed your
students more than they’re able to digest. Maybe they’ve heard so much
they’ve got heartburn. Help them with the digestion process by
designing activities which get them in the battle. The enemy is
encamped in our urban areas, we’ve got to take the fight to him.
MAKE IT HAPPEN
Find a program which can serve as your gangplank to the rocking boat
of inner city life. Many programs would be delighted to have the help
of youth groups. They would be happy to help you ease parental
concerns. Some are designed specifically with ministry to youth in
mind.
The Center for Student Missions in cities such as Los Angeles and Washington D.C.
is such an organization. CityTeam is an organization using students to
reach out to downtown San Jose. Inner City Impact is a comparable
organization in Chicago. Rescue missions and soup kitchens have an ongoing ministry to
the urban down-and-out. Habitat for Humanity has affiliates in most
major cities which can provide you with worthy work projects. Your own
church may have outreaches to prisons, nursing homes, and hospitals
which would be perfect for your group.
Another good source of help is the many federal and municipal
agencies which serve as the tattered center of our society’s “safety
net.” Consider talking to welfare offices, schools, hospitals, and the
courts for good ideas on how to lead your platoon into battle.
Before committing your group members’ time, you must answer some of
the following key questions: What are your students equipped to do?
Just about everyone can do the kind of basic cleaning or repair work
that many organizations need. But perhaps you’d like to push your
students further. Could they share their faith if asked? Do they have
the maturity to organize a backyard Bible club?
Have you and your leaders really prayed about urban outreach? God
wants you and your group, but He wants you under His umbrella. Listen
to His voice before stepping out in faith.
(Photo courtesy of http://www.photo-paysage.com/)
