Planting Churches among the City's Poor - Volume 1

Part I Developing Urban Congregations: A Framework for World Impact Church Planters The missional center of our urban ministry has undergone great change over the last forty years. After beginning with a focus on Bible clubs and children (the mid 60s to early 70s), we shifted to a discipleship focus on teens (mid 70s to early 80s), the formation of compassion and justice ministries (early 80s), with early Christian gatherings (mid to late 80s), and finally to indigenous church planting (since 1990). More than twenty-five years ago, World Impact announced its intent to plant self governing, self-supporting, and self-reproducing indigenous churches among the urban poor in the city. This change was neither easy nor hassle-free, but it was organic and deeply life-changing. Still, to shift in this drastic way seemed both natural and necessary. Our missional identity grew, deepening more and more as we realized that in order to truly empower the urban poor we would need to allow the Spirit to let them general his forces in their own communities. Thus, our journey in urban church planting began with a goal to empower indigenous people to transform their communities, and our desire to see new generations of urban poor leaders emerge to lead those congrega tions gave way to a dedicated organization that continues to marshal its resources for the sake of planting churches among the least and the lost in the city. This essay deserves its own unique place in our anthology, since it was in fact the first and definitive statement on the nature, scope, and meaning of urban church planting for World Impact. It is the culmination of much thinking and research that led up to its creation, with many dialogues, consultations, reports, and discussions leading to its writing. Terry Cornett and Jim Parker are its authors, who, at the time of writing, were the Director and Assistant Director of Missions Studies for World Impact, located in Los Angeles. Both had been full time community ministers in urban poor neighborhoods, and Jim had served as our World Impact Portland Director. Their keen intellects and rich experience were harnessed to pen this piece which represents some of our earliest and most formative writing on the nature of urban church planting. As editors of the anthology, we find it heartening that this seminal piece continues to resonate, providing insight into the promise and the challenge of urban church planting among the poor. We are equally convinced that its insights and clarifications will still prove useful for those planting churches among the poor in urban neighborhoods today.

19