Urban Ministry

Urban ministry in American church culture is sometimes portrayed as an optional extra for the Body of Christ, a specialized branch of the church that does something the rest of us don’t really need to worry about.

Although we know that the Church has an obligation to live and proclaim the Gospel to everyone in every place, we see in the whole sum of the scriptures God’s special concern for the poor. From God’s commands to Israel to care for the poor, widowed, orphaned, sojourner and oppressed (see Leviticus 25 ect…) to the Prophets rebuking God’s people for neglecting justice for those same people (Isaiah 58, Amos 5 ect…) and not least in the life and teachings of Jesus (Matt 3, 5, 19, 25 ect…) and the witness of the early church (Acts 2, 4, 10 ect…) we see God cares deeply for the oppressed and poor of the world.

Today the inner city areas of America and specifically Fresno are full of people who although may be looked down upon by society, are enormously precious to God. Jesus shows us in his parable of the good Samaritan that “loving our neighbor” is synonymous with helping those in need. Urban ministry is a concrete response to God’s call for the church to bring the good news of Christ’s Kingdom to the places of need and brokenness.

 “Vocation is where our greatest passion and the world’s greatest need collide”

Those who have heard God’s challenge to put Christ’s love on display to the world have a unique opportunity to serve in Fresno. Our home has been identified as the city with the most neighborhoods of concentrated poverty for a large city in the nation. This could be looked at as a reason to pack up and leave or a challenge to see the Gospel tangibly make it’s way through these neighborhoods, mending broken hearts and re-weaving the social and spiritual fabric of the community.

At The Hub we believe incarnation is an essential element of Urban (or any kind of) ministry. Jesus didn’t just sit in heaven and shoot us some cosmic “forgiveness rays” from his comfortable throne. Jesus “who though he was in the form of God…made himself nothing, taking the from of a servant, being born in the likeness of men…he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:6-8) He became one of us to show how much he loved us. We take that example as supreme for how we are supposed to reflect God’s reconciling love to others. Solidarity with the people of the city is a powerful tool to change lives that we have been learning about at the hub.

The Hub’s ten-month internship will teach you and push you to seek the Shalom of Fresno in new and exciting ways, If you feel God’s call to serve the people of your city I don’t think there is a better way to get equipped and discipled into this challenging and exciting mission field.    

  - Erik Foss

Apply your life for one year in Biblical Community, Leadership Development, and Urban Ministry through the Hub or Pink House. Visit www.fiful.org or www.highwaycitycd.com to apply. Applications for the Hub or Pink House 10-month internship are due April 20, 2011. Apply yourself today.

The Hub Blog: Where I Serve/ What God is Refining in Me

Erik Foss: 

I am serving at the Stone Pine afterschool program as my agency site. We open our door to the kids from the apartment complex and neighboring area around 3:00 when they get home from school. Many of the kids who participate in our program have parents who aren’t home to help them with homework after school or just don’t have a good safe place to hang out when they get home, that’s why we want to be available at those times. We operate the program between 3:00 and 5:30 Monday through Thursday and kids can come to get one-on-one help with their homework. Fortunately our interaction with the kids and their families isn’t confined to the times we are doing homework.

We believe that the homework program is good for the grades of the children but serves a greater purpose than just that, our program is ultimately about creating relationships with our neighbors in the community. At the Hub we are committed to taking seriously God’s call for us to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Creating and sustaining relationships with the people we have decided to live near is step one in living out God’s call to be good neighbors. We have had many great opportunities so far to interact with and serve our neighbors here in Highway City, and we are always seeking God’s direction in how to best embody Christ’s love among the joy and pain of our community.

Right now the after-school program is in the process of making some transitions, with the constant change in residents. We’ve been working to get the word out about our program to families that are new to Stone Pine. We are also planning on moving our headquarters across the street to the Gloria Aldama Community Center in the Sierra Mobile Home Park. At our new location we’ll enjoy better facilities and more room. We’re excited to join our friends who are already working their afterschool program in Sierra Mobile Home Park and we’re excited to continue working for the Shalom of our neighborhood.

Jordan Hogue:

It seems to me like God has some pretty weird plans for people that go through The Hub. It is not a normal day for me if I am not pushed to the edge of my own my comfort and understanding of others. I often feel like I have nothing to offer the people around me but in those times of emptiness is when God really shows up and some words come out of my mouth that I didn’t think I had the courage or capability to say and I find out all to often that God really can speak out of the mouth of a donkey. It is weird that we want to live so close to danger and even weirder that we want to befriend those that are causing it. It is weird that my car was stolen but I was more worried about my family holding it against my neighbors than actually getting my car back. If this is all weirdness then I will pray that God will give me the weirdest life possible because I feel for the first time like I am starting to follow so close to my Rabbi’s footsteps that I am getting dust on my feet.

I have had the refining pleasure of getting to live in community with 6 other awesome men who challenge me to love God and love my neighbor in every way I can. I said refining because living in community is an experience that will quickly show you how selfish you are. I have never before realized that my life is a set of scheduled events. I create these events and pursue them so that I can accomplish my goals of going here, doing this, and reading that but when you open up and start to live life with other people that whole idea gets jacked really fast. At first I was upset saying things like, “Why wont these guys just let me do what I have to do; they keep interfering with my day.” As if I owned the day. The writer Donald Miller said it best when he said that so many people just think they are the star in a movie called “Life” and everyone else is just there as supporting cast, but you can only live in community when you realize that we are all within the same movie of life with equal roles and here to support each other. So now I have started to quit planning and trying to fix my brothers around me to my plans and now started to take part in the richness that is in sharing your possessions, time, and life with other people.

Jesus was not supposed to be at the well in Samaria and I guess culturally we are not supposed to be in Stonepine, but God is not bound by cultural expectations and I refuse to isolate the needy because culturally I am too privileged to be living in this neighborhood. Every day I am hit in the face with situations of poverty that I know breaks Gods heart. What do I do? I make a decision to remind myself that I do not know these people and cannot know anything about them unless I step into their lives and form real relationships. I view my situation here often as the end of religion within me. This is because it is within religion that you work to gain God’s favor by doing things, there is no personality or relationship in it, you do not need to get to know God he is just a means to your end. It is when we throw off religion and say that I have nothing to bring to God but repentance that you start to form a lasting relationship with God that produces incredible fruit. Here in Stonepine there is no set of rules for how we gain our neighbors favor or we don’t want to do things for them so that they will be in debt to us and have to talk to us, but we meet people exactly where they are and accept that they have so much to offer us and all we want is organic and real friendships that lead to fruit in both of our lives. This is the situation I want to be in everyday.