The Church is Meant for the Wild
“The Church has no connection to life on the street and instead serves only as a sentimental ornament of days gone by.” James H. Coston
I had a conversation with a city leader last week, and he dropped a bomb on me. He said, “There are thousands of worship services in Baltimore City every week. How will you be different?”
As a church planter in Baltimore City, my job is to start new churches. Churches that will love and serve the communities and neighborhoods they inhabit. I work to establish communities that will show off Jesus and what it means to live as a follower of Jesus. The problem is, there are churches on almost every corner.
Littered like a back alley in Baltimore, the hood is marked by liquor stores, pawn shops, and churches.
Everywhere you look there are religious institutions that blanket the landscape.
If you ride down any street in Baltimore City and especially, Ova East or West Baltimore, you will be swallowed up in a sea of churches.
Churches of all sizes and shapes, denominations, and affiliations. There is no shortage of churches in this city and inner-cities all over the country.
But there is a sad reality that must be realized. Where there are many churches, there is much bloodshed. The church is in the wild, but it has lost its teeth.
“On Sundays, grandmothers go to church while drug dealers scheme. The Church’s impact on urban society within this world has at best political effects. Clergy and churches lack relevance, either through civic impotence or empty conviction, on the corners.” James H. Coston
The church has lost all significance in the hood. To the point where it’s not even a point of conversation in grassroots organizations and movements in the city.
No one cares about the church or even thinks they bring something of value to the table.
That’s a shame because the church is meant for the wild.
The church is not an institution that was crafted in the ivory towers of ancient academia or palace halls created by Caesars and politicians. The church did not start high in society and trickle its way down to the poor and the destitute.
On the contrary, the church was established in the margins. Jesus said to his disciples, “I am sending you out as sheep among wolves. Therefore, be as shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves.” In other words, I’m sending you to live among killers, so stay sharp in them streets.
Somewhere along the way, the church has lost its way in the wild. Now I picture the church like ancient ruins in the heart of the jungle. The church is overrun by the pervasive vines of selfishness and political wizardry. And its priests have sought greener pastures away from the dangers lurking in the wild.
The church needs to reclaim her place in the streets.
Christianity began as an urban movement (Acts 2–4). It was woven into the fabric and complexities of urban life.
Christianity serves as a revitalization movement that arose in response to the misery, chaos, fear, and brutality of life in the urban Greco-Roman world…Christianity revitalized life in…cities by providing new norms and new kinds of social relationships able to cope with many urgent urban problems. To cities torn by violent ethnic strife, Christianity offered a new basis for social solidarity. Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity
As cities and hoods continue to struggle, caught in a web of social and political disintegration, people are looking for hope. The wild things happening in the streets have always been there. But the church has been there too.
In decades past there have been those churches in the streets that labored to push back the darkness by their presence and booming voice. In recent years, we have lost that prophetic fire.
The Church must be where the wild things are. Let us reclaim the street corners, transform the vacant lots, rebuild the dilapidated buildings. Let us take our worship to the streets; let us live in the community and leave the political rhetoric behind. We must cast aside our suburban ideals and abandon our political aspirations for Kingdom impact so that we may transcend evil and transform lives through Jesus Christ.
