Urban Churches

This is a re-post of a post which has had enduring appeal on my blog: Urban Churches are unique in many ways. I have discussed this several times with colleagues: CONGREGATIONS: Tend more than other Churches to be a rich cultural mix, and a rich spiritual mix, haves and have-nots together, highly mobile (one-third turnover a year may not be out of the ordinary), far more visitors, and Church services may be chaotic. ADMINISTRATION: Events, meetings, and rosters may be harder to co-ordinate, small groups tend not to work as well in homes, people need to be enlisted and recruited faster, and finances tend to be unpredictable and unstable. ENVIRONMENT: More social trauma, greater social isolation, unpredictable work hours, unreliable transport, and many people approach the Church for help. MINISTRY: A more radical gospel required, a more radical faith found with many people, awkward hindrances to visitation, the requirement of "trade English" in ministry, more hardened people around, diffiicult youth, extreme counselling situations, and many special predicaments (squatting, threats, assault, vandalism, landlords, pimps). And Church planting in urban areas is precarious -- in fact the maintenance of established Churches is precarious. OBSERVATION: When speaking with non-urban ministers, they may not have heard of much of the above -- in fact, congregants in urban areas may not have heard it. I would see a lot of the above as being positive. It means, among other things, a more meaningful ministry, a more interesting ministry, greater dependence on God, and so on. It is, however, a big challenge. I have called urban ministry "riding a tiger".