Practical Urban Mission - Part 1
By S. Crawley

God is at work, people are dissatisfied with the brokenness they see and experience, but the vast majority of residents in our cities are not responding to Jesus' Good News.

There is a disconnect here. How can we, as urban harvest workers, be more effective at connecting the dots?

Urban Challenges

Part of the challenge is the nature of city life.

In cities, we are surrounded by a sea of people and social networks with their own unique patterns of connection. We have no direct interaction with the vast majority of these. Lack of connection makes it hard for us to understand how they see the world and what they are hungry for.

Without understanding, it is difficult for us to meaningfully help them see the connection between the desires of their hearts and our loving Father-King.

The complexity of cities creates an additional challenge.

There are so many different social networks and sub-cultures! Each of them has their own specific areas of brokenness and hunger and it’s not humanly possible to deeply engage all of them.

What do we do with this?

One possible response is to ignore the complexity! Just use the same evangelistic methods and messages everywhere, to everyone.

However, when we look around us it is obvious that this is ineffective amongst the majority of social and cultural groups. It also contradicts the examples of Jesus and Paul who both made intentional adjustments to their message based on who they were talking to (eg Jn 4:5-43, 1 Cor 9:19-23).

The Bible points us to two foundational mindset shifts in evangelism.

Firstly, putting God at the centre of evangelism instead of ourselves. He has a plan, He is already taking action, and has perfect understanding of all the complexities of cities, social groups and people. Our limitations are much less of a problem when He is at the centre!

Secondly, understanding ourselves as witnesses rather than salespeople. Our role is clear and simple - to faithfully and obediently love and serve our Father and the people He places us amongst in prayer, word and deed. We can rest secure in the knowledge that evangelistic outcomes are His job, not ours.

These paradigm shifts are crucial, but it’s still theoretical. How do they look practically?

They play out in three elements which are essential for ‘successful’ urban mission.

(Remember, "success” as witnesses, not salespeople!)

Three Essential Elements

1. Point to who God is by who we are becoming - authentic and integrated people

2. Discern how God is already working so we can respond in prayer and action

3. Create space for people to discover, listen and respond to God so they can get to know Him and choose their response to Him

In upcoming posts we’re going to look at simple, practical steps in each of these three areas.

In this post, we're looking at pointing to who God is by who we are becoming. This is about our lives being authentic and integrated.

Element #1: Point to God by Who we are Becoming

Threats to Our Witness

Lack of Authenticity

To be “un-authentic” is to perform.

Religion (any religion!) can create pressure to cultivate an outward image that does not reflect our inner reality. This pressure encourages us to pretend. If we deny the truth of our inner world, we can’t grow, and we can’t heal. This never produces life or spiritual health.

If we feel pressure to be a good ambassador for our religious brand, in-authenticity is knocking on our door.

Lack of Integration

"Un-integrated" is where we’ve allowed some parts of our lives to be transformed by our relationship with God, but not others.

We have all experienced wounding in different areas - sometimes we try to protect ourselves from pain by "shutting down" that area and avoiding it. We all have things - habits, beliefs or possessions - that are important to us and we’re not ready to let go of. Either way, we block off that part of our lives to God and this prevents the Father's love from touching and healing every part of our lives.

This means we have different “authorities” ruling different parts of our lives, resulting in a lack of integration which sends mixed messages to the world around us.

Fear

For some of us, fear has caused us to hide God's centrality to our lives. People around us reacted negatively to our identification with Jesus or His people. We felt unsafe and learned to hide Him.

Pointing to the Wrong Thing

For some of us others of us, we have been trained to promote our religious community or activity. We comfortably talk about the activities we are doing, the programs we attended, or the rituals we performed. This is not bad, but it tends to highlight a particular community or a tradition rather than the God who stands above all of them.

Each of these things dilutes our ability to be witnesses to God’s goodness and hides Jesus from those around us.

The Key To Authenticity & Integration = the Gospel

God invites us to accept Him as our King, and to live as His deeply loved children. Authentic and integrated lives with our Father are a natural outworking of saying, "yes" to Him.

The essence of the Gospel is that God sees all of our brokenness and weakness AND invites us to join His Kingdom and family. He promises to lead us through and out of our brokenness if we are willing to follow. We know we can trust Him because He has demonstrated His commitment to us, made sacrifices for us, and revealed His character to us.

This reality should free us to be authentic. Yes, we're weak and broken. We're also loved and redeemed and secure in His commitment to us. We're "works-in-progress" - our mess will never be an obstacle to Him if we are willing to acknowledge it and keep leaning towards Him daily and hourly.

In this sense, we don't have to "try" to be witnesses - witnessing flows naturally.

Our "yes" to Him leads to a dynamic, living relationship. We find ourselves in a continual adventure as He invites us into the things He does within us (healing, loving and revealing to us) and outside of us (healing, loving and revealing to others). We grow towards a greater share in His joy. We experience fruitfulness that lasts. Through it all, the people around us are exposed to Him and His goodness. The Father is glorified (John 15)!

We point people to God by how we live our lives with Him and who we are becoming - day-by-day.

Integrated Kingdom Transformation

As a reminder, we started this post by introducing three essential elements in successful urban evangelism:

1. Point to who God is by who we are becoming - authentic and integrated people

2. Discern how God is already working so we can respond in prayer and action

3. Create space for people to discover, listen and respond to God so they can get to know Him and choose their response to Him.

We are to be witnesses who point to God through our authentic journey towards wholeness in relationship with Him. Our journey points others to the same path, which leads to transformation that integrates the Gospel of Jesus with holistic personal and community transformation.

In a future post, we’ll look at a second essential element - some practical ways to “listen” and discern how God is already working in the harvest fields around us, so we can respond effectively in prayer and action.

For Reflection

1. A Scripture - Matthew 23:23-28

- What does this passage tell us about observing religion in contrast to living authentically with God?

2. A thoughtful question

- What is a specific next step for you on your personal journey towards authenticity and wholeness?

3. A possible application

- Think of one of a specific person God has put in your life. How could you allow your relationship with God to be more visible to that person?

Discipling the Urban Harvest provides practical insights and encouragement to walk with God in multiplying discipleship in an increasingly urban world - growing as children of the Father, serving the communities He has called us to, and discipling those hungry to know Him.