Cracking the Code of Your City
"I believe every city has a key to it. If you can find the key to your city, you can unlock the opportunity to reach them with the love of Jesus."
- Ps Marc Estes, City Bible Church, Portland OR
If every city has a key to it, how do we find it?
It’s easy to take what we’ve learned, read, seen, and been taught about church and reproduce it. But the truth is, every city is unique, living, breathing, and ever changing. If you are called to a city, you are called to its people. Not just to bring in answers and solutions – but to engage in conversations.
A city is made up of individuals, their stories, their pasts, their dreams, their fears, their talents, and their potential. And they collectively not just represent – but actively shape its statistics.
As we study the demographics, economy, statistics, and so on, we must first remember…
If we want to unlock the “key” to our city, we must start by unlocking the key to individuals hearts. And that can only come through engaging and listening. If we want to “speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves” – we must first let them be heard in our own ears.
At Antioch Church in Long Beach, CA, Ps. Wayne Chaney and his team are cracking the code in their community. He says that the first step in doing this is through authentic relationships and listening more than we speak.
“Sociological observations are great. I celebrate seminary education. But you learn so much from legitimately doing life with and living amongst the people. Interacting. Listening.”
“In urban centers, particularly places experiencing gentrification, we’re seeing a lot of people coming in with a plan as the hot shot to those communities. But so much can be gleaned from the people who are already there.”
“Our first job, I think, particularly when coming into a community, is to learn all that we can. Again, to listen more than we speak. No matter what we’ve come with in terms of prescribed ideas, they have to yield and adjust to the environment that we are in. That’s extremely significant. To learn the rhythm of every city.”
Ps. Wayne describes the rhythm of his own city he has come to know well. How being just 25 minutes away from Los Angeles the entire atmosphere and culture changes. The rhythm is different. “We have to understand the difference between cities.”
An understanding of his city has led to meeting many needs through food banks, prison ministry, legal aid, counseling, and much more. All through knowing the city and empowering the people of Antioch Church to discover their own “Passion Points” to make a difference. Ps. Wayne describes their vision to “become more like Christ and to create environments that are more like heaven.”
Nina Vickers, Outreach Director of Together Church in Yakima WA, similarly shares that our first step in cracking to code to our communities is to first “ask” then “listen”.
“Go to the local jails, schools, police departments, and senior centers. Ask questions.”
“How many residents do you have living here? How many of them don’t have family members around?”
“We see there’s a high gang violence rate right now; we’re here to help whatever you need.”
We can’t come in with our own plan. We may have great ideas to make a difference. But we may not even be seeing the real problems yet. Ask and listen.
But what if we ask and then find the need is too great? That we don’t have the resources or adequate ability to respond?
Nina answers, We go in with no expectation. We ask ‘if you could do anything, what would you do?’. Though we know their answers could be endless, we make it clear upfront that we can’t make any promises - but we can commit to praying. That’s our starting block. From there we can work to connect the dots from needs to partners, volunteers, service groups, etc. Don’t be afraid to ask these questions. Even if you don’t have the answers – someone does.
We’ve partnered with a local elementary school for five years now. Another local church has done the same with different school nearby. Actually, over these years all of our local elementary schools have been adopted by churches. We now have the entire Yakima school district, all of the schools, all of the churches meeting together once a month. We’ve seen test scores go up, absences go down, parents getting involved, church members tutoring, service projects taking place. That’s the result of the faith community coming in and not saying that we have all of the answers, but saying “we know that there’s a list of needs at schools and together we can tackle them one at a time. We may not have the answer to the whole problem, but we can help with a portion of it. And those portions add up.”
Don’t be afraid to go to places that people say you can’t.
Nina shares that if they had held back on this partnership with the schools because they knew there was red tape between church and state, or because the problems seemed too big, then they would have missed breaking a barrier that has now made a major impact. Not just on the school they adopted, or the neighboring schools they partner with, or the Yakima School District, but now even other school districts are coming in to LEARN and model what they have built. The school is coming to the church for answers.
Sometimes, you may get told no, but you may also get told yes!
A few years ago, in Loveland, Colorado, an uproar broke out in the community when a travelling art exhibition passed through displaying a heinous image of Jesus entitled “The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals”. As protests, lead by Christians, were breaking out, the story made local and even national news. There were 37,000 hate letters and death threats sent to the artist and museum in a span of 6 days – all by self-proclaimed Christians.
Ps. Jonathan Wiggins of Rez Church recounts his response.
During the time this outrage was unfolding, their church was focusing all of their energy on a new event for first time believers. Someone in the church contact Ps. Jonathan prompting him to catch up on what was happening outside of the church.
Realizing there needed to be shift of focus from inward to outward, Ps. Jonathan started reading the news, looking up the stories, and checking out this art piece that was causing such a riot. He says I didn’t like it one bit. But I didn’t really care about the art. I believe it’s our job as pastors, leaders, and believers to be watchmen. This was a watchmen moment. It wasn’t about the art – it was about the artist.
Ps. Jonathan decided to reach out to the artist via email (it wasn’t hard to find). His subject line read “Message From a Pastor in Loveland”, knowing that would grab the artist’s attention based on the negative feedback he had been receiving from the faith community.
The email started, Hey, I’m a newer pastor in the community. I know what’s been going on with the protests. Honestly, I’m not reaching out to argue with you. I’d just like you hear what it is you’re trying to say.
Within two hours the artist responded with a four paragraph message explaining his perspective of Jesus. Being raised in the Catholic church, he described how the Catholic school had been very abusive to him. This was his way of essentially getting back.
In his message, the artist said to Ps. Jonathan, I think the idea of Jesus is beautiful. It’s the pastors and priests that make him look terrible.
Over the course of several days, these message exchanges continued and God gave Ps. Jonathan an idea. He replied to the artist, You said that the idea of Jesus is beautiful to you. I would like to see how you see Jesus. Would you create an honoring image of Him? If you do, I will hang it up in my church.
Now this guy is a world class artist. He has pieces in the Met in NY, the Sydney Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum, etc. And I basically just asked him for a free image of Jesus.
Surprisingly he agreed, but with the question “but would your church accept something from someone like me?”
Of course the answer to this sobering question was yes. And from that, the artist asked Ps. Jonathan to describe his Jesus.
“Of all the opportunities I’ve had to share my faith I knew this was it. Instead of describing the Jesus we see in pictures, I began to share the Jesus of the Bible. The One who is able to see people where others see labels. The One who had high standards but at the same time offered forgiveness to people right in the middle of their darkest moments. I shared of what He did on the cross, saying Father forgive them. And as I’m describing Jesus to this artist, I am crying and praying for his soul.”
To this the artist responded, “I see Jesus in your description and that will be my guide for the portrait.”
The painting, valued by insurance companies at $35,000, is now displayed at Rez Church as a testimony for all to see.
The artist expressed to Ps. Jonathan that their friendship has brought a profound transformation to his life. And though there isn’t proof that he has since put his faith in Jesus, the artist travels worldwide telling the story of how a church in Loveland, Colorado and a pastor that reached out as a friend, is reflecting Jesus in an honoring way.
This experience has opened wild opportunities for Ps. Jonathan and Rez Church to receive new artists to their church family, invitations to art exhibitions, requests for art critiques, ivy league schools requesting comments on new pieces.
“I’m from a trailer park” Ps. Jonathan humbly and jokingly points out – “but God has opened doors for us in Loveland, nationally, and internationally, just because we took a minute to reach out. It was offensive, but he was broken, hurting, and just needed someone to be available and to listen.”