The Archaeology, Artistry, and Architecture of Kingdom Ecosystems
A review of the book--Brave Cities--by Taylor McCall and Hugh Halter
Rundown:
FTI Blog Post 103 is a Book Review. This post includes—Reading, a Rating, a Review, personal Reflections from George, and questions for your Reaction.
Reading:
Taylor McCall and Hugh Halter. Brave Cities: The Archaeology, Artistry, and Architecture of Kingdom Ecosystems. Kindle Edition. 100 Movements Publishing, 2024. See the book on Amazon HERE
Rating: Seven out of Ten
Rating Scale: One to Three means do not waste your time. It is just mediocre information. Four to Seven says the book is worth a quick read to harvest some learnings. It enhances your knowledge. Eight to Ten suggests the book is worth underlining, highlighting, and quoting. It increases your wisdom.
Review:
Creative Missional Concepts. Beautiful Words Overwritten. Lacking the Words “Shoulders” plus “And”
Creative Missional Concepts
A focus on urban ministry is a huge part of my life. I love books which present creative missional concepts about urban ministry. This is one of them.
Some urban missional concepts are within the box, some outside the box, and a few beyond the box. Brave Cities is at least outside the box. They would be beyond the box except being beyond the box involves admitting the box is credible.
Brave Cities rejects the box. They can only reject the box if they have found the Holy Grail of urban mission. They have not—yet. The authors do make us think in new ways. But rather than rejecting what we have known, they should be calling on us to transform how we serve.
I affirm many things they advocate about contextual ministry. They are often right, correct, and helpful. They are insightful about urban underclass to working class immersion ministry.
However, it is necessary to wade through their hubris about having the best model and other models being wrong. They take cheap shots at people who challenge things about their model and their chosen lifestyle. Their co-opting of a theology of apostolic looks a whole lot like cultural entrepreneurship. With a dose of arrogance.
They do present some great insights from which we can all learn. We need the positive, proactive parts of their voice.
Beautiful Words Overwritten
Brave Cities is about “a kingdom ecosystem that breaks into the world in new and creative ways. It’s a community of people intentionally held together and propelled forward by their collective calling of Jesus and his avant-garde artistic activity in the world to help people experience deep transformation.” (p. 30)
These are beautiful words overwritten. Forty-four of them.
I rewrote them in 14 words: A community pulled forward by the call of Jesus to help people experience transformation.
Even these fourteen words may be too complicated for people who are the primary focus of their ministry. I challenge them to say the same thing in seven to ten memorable words that can be shared with everyone they encounter.
Many pages later they share some more beautiful words describing what ought to characterize a kingdom ecosystem. I love these statements. They are rich. They could lead to multiple dialogue sessions among urban ministers to unpack their meaning and application.
Here are their words.
“A kingdom ecosystem needs unique disciples, convergent spaces, a kingdom economy, intentional homes, and tables surrounded by stewards, workers, and seekers. This ecosystem works best when planted in the rich soul of the kingdom’s nuances of incubation and innovation, anonymity, and humility, decentralized and distributed structures, access, togetherness and proximity, levity, and suffering.” (p. 90)
The greatest challenge for these words is a readability assessment reveals it takes 19-plus years of formal education to understand what these sentences mean.
That could be positive. No one could say they know exactly what these sentences mean. Therefore, dialogue would reveal the learnings. No one solution or meaning would emerge. Participants might leave the dialogue prepared to apply the principles in various ways.
Shoulders Plus And
Rather than rejecting the box of organized—even institutionalized church—I wish the authors saw what they do as standing on the shoulders of others who have come before them.
Reading the book, my mind wandered back. I did not go any farther than Walter Rauschenbusch and his progressive social gospel in Hell’s Kitchen in New York City more than 100 years ago.
I thought about specific ministry center. One day a little girl stopped by the center on a day it was closed. The director redirected her home. The girl said, “This is my home.”
I recalled Jonathan Wilson Hargrove and his inner-city ministry in Durham, NC. His family, and a swinging door of people, lived and ministered in a house in the ‘hood.
Brave Cities stands on the shoulders of numerous creative, innovative ministries which have gone before them. It is not their way or the wrong way as they seem to imply. It is their way and the ways that came before them on whose shoulders they stand.
Reflections from George:
When I saw the reference in Brave Cities to Love City urban ministry (See https://lovecityinc.org) in the west end of Louisville, KY, I thought about my own ministry in that same community. In the 1970s I ministered from the base of West Side Baptist Church. This involved many immersion missional experiences.
Love City is an example of the principles of Brave Cities. I commend what they are doing in the Portland community of Louisville from a ministry perspective.
West Side was less than a mile from the location of Love City. I was associate pastor and then pastor while pursuing multiple degrees at the Baptist seminary in Louisville.
When associate pastor, my wife and I lived on the seminary campus seven miles away. When pastor, we lived in the parsonage eight feet from the church building. The house was connected to it by a passageway from the basement into the ground floor of the church.
That was great during bad weather, but a constant reminder that we were still technically in the church when we went to our home.
Internal Christian Ministry Agents
A key issue for Christian immersion ministry is for the minister to become an internal agent in the community. It means to the community people say, “You are one of us. You are trusted.”
Even while living seven miles away, it was important to my wife and I to be seen as internal ministry agents who cared deeply about the people in Portland. We seldom mentioned we lived outside the community.
We simply gave it our full heart, soul, mind, and strength.
During the first two years as associate, it was helpful we lived seven miles away. We had just gotten married when our ministry began there. We were not only ministering in this community where we experienced culture shock every week. We were learning how to love each other more deeply and live with one another 24/7.
When we moved into the church parsonage in April 1974, we were more ready to immerse ourselves into the community than we would have been two years earlier.
We assumed were being accepted as loving persons who cared deeply about the community and the people—one at a time. We found out at Thanksgiving we were seen as internal ministry agents.
At the community Thanksgiving worship service, it was our church’s turn for our pastor to bring the major message. As I spoke, I referred to moving into the community just seven months earlier.
After the service, a key community leader who lived in Portland all her life, came up to me. She said, “I had no idea you did not live in the community. You care deeply and are so well accepted by everyone. You really work to get things done to help the residents.”
Becoming an internal Christian ministry agent is a key to effective ministry. Additionally, living in the community is an added value.
I am still learning how to do ministry from what I experienced in the Portland community five decades ago.
Reactions:
You are invited to share some reactions (comments) to this book review and my reflection. Here are three questions to guide your reaction:
1. From this review—or perhaps your reading of the book—what does it mean to be Brave Cities?
2. What does it mean to be a internal Christian ministry agent in your ministry setting?
3. How do you evaluate your ministry? Is one of maintenance or one that is cutting or leading edge?