A dying downtown congregation can survive, even thrive, if it is willing to become a true inner-city church.
—Joel Hempel
Trying to function like a suburban congregation in downtown Cincinnati was not working for Prince of Peace Lutheran Church. We realized that unless we became a neighborhood church, the prognosis was certain death. We were attracting few new people. The membership was growing older, and the leadership was getting tired. We might have survived another five years at best.
To survive, we began to realize, we could not be a suburban congregation whose only identity with the inner city was that we happened to meet in a downtown building. Major changes had to be made.
By God’s grace, Prince of Peace now is growing slowly into an inner-city church. The principles that guided our change were revealed through the processes of prayer, listening to the neighborhood, and what I call graced luck: accepting the fact that when we stumble onto something that works, it is because God’s Spirit guides and nurtures our attempts.
Inclusive transition
The first principle directing our change was inclusiveness. In the inner city, diversity is the norm. We could not stay homogeneous. We knew eventually the white middle class would become in our congregation the minority. Two-parent families would become the exception.
Our transition to inclusiveness mainly just happened as we struggled to discover how best to serve our neighborhood. For example, Prince of Peace, through a staff member, became the representative payee for thirty people who cannot manage their own finances, many of whom are mentally, emotionally, or socially retarded. When these people started making themselves at home in our midst, we could either bar them or accept them. We chose the latter.
Later came the decision to try no longer to remake the inner-city people into traditional, middle-class Lutherans who dressed like us, worshiped like us, and enjoyed our music. Some of our leaders began dressing casually for worship, and we made the service more informal. We sought the advice of neighborhood attenders, and they were bold enough to point out changes that made us more inviting.
During our midweek fellowship, you’ll now see people of all races, single-parent families, the mentally ill, low-income and rich folks alike. This weekly supper and worship service mixes the homeless and indigent with those who have solid, middle-class incomes. They wait in the same food line, sit at the same tables, and pray to the same God for his blessing on the meal they all receive free.
Family matters
Similarly, we have come to embrace the idea that we are family. Many people come to the church out of a broken or abusive home environment, so we seek to offer the healthy components of a biological family: support, nurture, education, confrontation, recreation, and freedom to be oneself.
This family atmosphere didn’t happen until we in leadership decided to work on the little things: calling people by name when seeing them on the street, greeting people warmly (often with an embrace), giving people opportunities to help with some task or ministry, praising people and expressing appreciation at every occasion, carefully challenging people when they are doing something harmful, being generous with the church resources and personal resources, respecting people’s culture and tradition by inviting their input for worship. These and similar expressions of interest let folks know we welcome their presence and value their participation.
We found that, at least initially, new members from our low-income neighborhood likely would bring to our family more needs than resources. For instance, many people wanted to be a part of our family but were not ready to commit themselves to membership. One woman became involved with us when her children enrolled in our nursery school and she began attending the weekly fellowship. When a crisis developed in her family, she sought counseling from our pastoral counseling service. When she needed food, we gave her emergency assistance.
After being a part of the family for years, she eventually decided to receive additional instruction in the Christian faith and become a member. Why? After experiencing the church’s commitment to her, she finally was ready to return that commitment and give more of herself to others.
Our worship, where everyone comes together, is the “showing off” place for the cultures and races of our family. The worship committee strives to arrange that, over a month’s time, all members of the family can feel at home in worship, singing their kind of songs, seeing their kind of folk in leadership, and participating in a mode of worship that reflects their tradition. Both members and nonmembers, children and adults, read Scripture and lead prayer.
With two white male pastors, it was decided that a black, and ideally female, pianist from the Baptist tradition was needed. We found her, and our worship hasn’t been the same since.
As might be expected, we met some initial resistance as we changed from a rather formal and liturgical form of worship to a more open, spontaneous, and inclusive form. When the ideas for a more nontraditional service were first introduced to the congregation, we heard comments such as: “Why do we have to give up being who we are?” and “We need to teach these people how to worship.”
This was painful. I thank God that he kept us moving slowly and respectfully, but we also decided not to be overwhelmed by people’s natural reluctance and fears. Through our music, the variety of people up front, and the language we use, our worship now demonstrates our openness to different kinds of people.
Justice work
When people discover a church that will help them with physical and financial needs, they tend to be more open about their emotional and spiritual needs. Therefore, a third principle is assistance. We make food, clothing, transportation, and money available to people who need them.
This means we have to raise thousands of dollars every year and give it freely as a symbol of God’s grace. A man’s father dies in southeastern Kentucky; money is given for his travel expenses. A woman cashed in some food stamps at the beginning of the school year to buy clothing for her children and ran out of food by the middle of the month; food, money, and a referral to another helping agency were given.
Of course we sometimes have to say no when money runs short or wisdom tells us we are being conned. Many times our wisdom fails us, and we’re conned anyway. But we’d rather err on the side of generosity.
Our low-income neighbors have been good models, helping us all to risk greater openness ourselves, and in so doing, we have received care, too. At moments when I feel hurt or upset about something, seldom is it long before someone from the community notices and says, “Pastor Joel, you look down.” When I acknowledge it, the brief encounter often ends with my receiving an embrace.
Besides providing material assistance, our congregation has also raised a prophetic voice in our community to assist our lower-income neighbors. When a friend of the congregation was facing eviction from her apartment because the landlord wanted to destroy her building to create parking space, we felt compelled to confront the process. Our friend and her neighbors, who had been responsible tenants for years, would have been forced into less-adequate housing. A city ordinance requires a public hearing and city council decision before any structurally sound building can be razed, so various church members spoke out at the council hearing. This time the tenants’ rights were respected.
We become involved because we’ve seen that when people are kicked out of their homes, or treated unjustly in other ways, their self-image is knocked a little lower, confirming their feelings of not being valued. And it is exceedingly difficult for people with low self-image to believe God loves them just as they are.
So at times, members of the congregation and staff have argued concerns before city council. Some have joined task forces and committees. At other times, we have even marched to demonstrate our concern. Though clear victories are seldom won, some headway is made in slowing the forces of injustice. In addition, just standing together for a cause contributes to healthy pride and Christian bonding.
Money appeal
Every inner-city church must learn to beg, borrow, and appeal. After all, personnel are limited. The facilities are in desperate need of repair. Materials and machinery for running programs are not readily available. There is little money, and the new members from the low-income neighborhood need their meager incomes to get by. We entertain no choice but to ask for help.
Our methods are many. We sell crafts. We make requests to be included in the budgets of sister congregations. We stuff contribution envelopes into a quarterly newsletter. We seek sponsors for nursery school children. We stock our thrift shop with clothing retrieved from rummage sale leftovers. Government surplus food is purchased. We recruit groups from other congregations to prepare and serve meals at the Wednesday fellowship. Any grants from foundations and service organizations we can wrangle are gratefully received. Also, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod has been approached repeatedly, and it has responded generously.
One anxiety-producing (and faith-stimulating) aspect of inner-city fund-raising for me is my responsibility for finding my own income. It drains the creative energy I would rather invest in people and ministry development. But there just isn’t enough money in our church to pay all the staff members. So we raise our own support.
Frankly, I am better at asking for financial assistance for others than for myself. At first, I had to work through feelings. Am I not worthy of a salary? And in asking for money, I was afraid of rejection. With time and practice, though, I developed more self-confidence by necessity.
What remains, however, is the tension of asking for income for myself, knowing the poor are always with us—and in greater need. I’m not foolish; I know my family and I cannot be without an adequate income. Yet my proximity to the vast suffering around me accentuates the disparity. Most helpful has been the assistance that caring people, generally lay professionals and businesspeople, have provided by working to raise support for me.
If it’s difficult for an individual to ask for help, it also is for our church. The fact that other churches and businesses sometimes get tired of seeing us with our hand out does not make it any easier. But this is a humbling and necessary aspect of inner-city ministry.
Deck hands
We try to involve everyone in the Prince of Peace family in ministry. This is a challenge, but because the opportunities for ministry are so plentiful, it’s necessary.
When people come through our membership instruction classes, we emphasize stewardship of time and energy. We consider involvement in ministry not only a response to ministry needs; it also provides an occasion to give and not just receive. People’s self-image builds when their contributions are appreciated.
At the Wednesday fellowship, for example, teams of people prepare and serve meals. Others assist in leading worship. Still others create art pieces to decorate our worship area. Then there are those who volunteer to help in our secondhand store, answer the phone, stuff envelopes, clean the church, or serve as officers and elders.
We are undecided about paying workers to do various jobs. Volunteer work is a way of paying back the church and even strengthens sagging self-image. On the other hand, a few dollars can mean a lot to some of our people. Our informal policy is to pay a small amount—sometimes no more than lunch—for short-term jobs, but keep on a volunteer basis ongoing ministries such as Sunday school and our thrift shop. And we offer our workers major portions of appreciation.
Besides the regular appreciation (which cannot be overdone), the staff officially recognizes workers through an annual Congregation Appreciation Day. Following a special worship service, the staff serves a meal and offers a personal thank you to each member of the congregation. In addition, every fourth Sunday we highlight one of our ministries in our worship service, giving the workers and their ministry deserved recognition.
The majority of our workers and leaders are always women. That’s because, in our setting, the preponderance of families are headed by women. This was one more area where we had to wrestle with how to translate our theology and practice into our context. We concluded that for our neighborhood, it is not only pragmatic but pleasing to God for women to serve as officers and in key staff positions.
Fun needs
The longer we minister in the city, the clearer it becomes that if we expect people to participate in worship, meetings, and learning experiences, fun and entertainment must be part of them. The stress and pain in people’s lives are lightened with laughter, play, food, and fellowship. And we have found that people from different economic classes and educational backgrounds meet more equally when at play or in less formal settings. Our Saints and Sinners co-rec softball team and our monthly summer picnics are examples of coming together for play. But we try to interject fun into other, typically more serious, church activities.
Awhile back we noticed most of the low-income members were not staying for the voters’ meetings on Sundays after church. The church business proved too boring for some. Others felt overwhelmed by financial reports and official proceedings. Still others felt excluded from the decision-making process. So we created an advisory council to supplement the quarterly voters’ assemblies, as a way to relax the setting and mood for doing church business. This advisory council is composed of neighborhood representatives, elected officers, and staff. They meet quarterly in a retreat format. We provide supervision of children, a meal, and snacks. Together we worship, carry on light conversation—and conduct a business meeting. The turnout has been excellent. People feel included and able to express themselves more openly. No Robert’s Rules dictate the process.
Not that the idea is new. Scripture indicates the early Christian congregations generally mixed business and pleasure: “Day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they partook of food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people” (Acts 2:46-47).
Stage fright
Mixing new people from the neighborhood with our faithful stalwarts created a tension: How do we meet everybody’s needs? Our people newer to Christianity required more of “the milk of the Word,” nurture in their basic Christian faith. We met their needs with most of our resources until we came to the painful awakening that we were not attending to those more mature Christians who needed “the meat of the Word.” Our old regulars were starving.
When these folks, our leadership, began showing signs of burnout, we decided experiences and classes were needed to care for them as well.
So we began a “spiritual companioning group” that brought people together for structured spiritual discussion and prayer. In these groups, the ability to be introspective and reflective of life experiences was required. Few low-income members come to these groups. For many, the pressures of survival distract from time for introspection. Perhaps spiritual development that requires an ability to go on the “inner journey” is a luxury of those who are more privileged.
But we have learned to accept that because people are in different stages of spiritual development, not everyone will be interested in the same learning experience. Likes and needs lead people to exclude themselves from some activities. Being family does not mean we all have to be together all of the time.
Our church, as with all churches seeking to be God’s people, is not consistently faithful to these principles. Workers get tired. Promises are broken. Plans falter. Sometimes people are inconsiderate or too critical of the very ones we seek to include, and people get hurt. Still others fail to follow through with commitments. When needed ministries never get off the ground for lack of money and personnel, we sometimes begin to wonder if God is still in charge.
Yet our experience has shown us that a dying downtown congregation can survive, even thrive, if it is willing to become a true inner-city church. The necessary changes, like surgery, take time and cause pain, but on the other side lies a prognosis of many more years of life and vigorous service.
Copyright © 1996 by Christianity Today/Leadership
