To Sustain Inner-city Church Plants, Adopt A Missionary Model

In a conversation at church one Sunday, a pastor told a friend of mine, “Your friend should quit trying to plant churches in the inner city. It doesn’t happen because it can’t happen.”

I was visiting this friend just before COVID-19 hit, speaking at a separate church about our ministry, New England Urban Church Planting. Our organization was new, and my sinful inclination was to think, Oh, you just wait and see! My friend was equally defensive. Yet this pastor was onto something: It rarely happens, and it is indeed hard.

Why is church planting in our nation’s neglected inner cities so rare? Why are underserved urban communities overlooked by gospel-preaching churches? Stakeholders in our ministry have discussed these questions since 2009, leading to the organization’s founding in 2020. We’ve learned a lot in these years of full-time work as we’re growing this network of inner-city planters.

The work is hard for two key reasons. Yet it’s possible. And it’s crucial. Christ has commanded us to make disciples of all nations (Matt. 28:19)—this includes in our own nation’s inner cities. To plant churches in these spaces, we need to think like missionaries.

Problem

Unless you grew up in the inner city, serving there is a cross-cultural experience. This is the first reason church planting hard. Ruby Payne asks her readers if they can survive in poverty: Do you know how to keep your clothes from being stolen from a laundromat? Do you know how to move in half a day? Do you know how to keep your car from getting repossessed if you fall behind on payments?

Discipling men and women in the inner city can be exasperating when they have a new burner phone frequently. Inner-city pastors need to know how to preach and how to administer Narcan. And behind all that is the sound of gunshots, fights, loud TVs, and the quiet exit of well-meaning suburban Christians who came to help but didn’t last long.

Christ has commanded us to make disciples of all nations—this includes in our own nation’s inner cities.

Evangelicalism often feels like it’s married to only one culture: suburbia. Postwar Americans migrated from our cities to set up homes and churches in the suburbs. In 1940, 15 percent of Americans lived in the suburbs. By 2000, that number was 50 percent. Evangelicals were a disproportionately high percentage of those who made the move. As this happened, Brian Miller argues, the values of suburbia melded with and shaped the values of evangelicalism.

Churches in impoverished neighborhoods are rarely financially self-sustaining—the second challenge. Even if a pastor disciples his church toward generosity, being generous with a poverty-level income won’t pay the bills. So pastors who serve in these places get beaten down by serving a needy congregation while holding two other jobs “on the side.” It’s unsustainable. We don’t believe the answer for inner-city pastors should be a bi- or trivocational life.

Solution

The solution to these two challenges is within reach: the model of a supported foreign missionary. Since the late 18th century, the church has been training and sustaining men and women for gospel work in unfamiliar places, where they cannot expect the financial support of locals. This training-and-supporting model should be applied to inner-city church planting.

The change we need has four aspects. The first is a change of heart. We need gospel-saturated hearts that understand that all people are impoverished by sin. Those living in a homeless encampment share the same fundamental condition as the wealthy suburbanite. Filled with gospel grace, we can move toward the poor because we’re more alike at heart than we are different. Our hearts must be shaped by the reality of Christ’s initiative to leave the riches of heaven for us, to become poor for us, that we might become rich (2 Cor. 8:9).

Second, we need to believe that God’s heart is particularly inclined toward the overlooked (Ps. 72:12–14) and toward those generous toward them (Prov. 14:21). Generosity should begin with planting churches; the greatest mercy we can bring to underserved communities is a healthy church. After all, Martin Luther said, “After the preaching of the gospel, the office and charge of a true and faithful pastor is to be mindful of the poor.” Let’s be mindful of the poor with the preaching of the gospel in the context of inner-city churches.

Third, we need strategic minds to see that the American church can sustain inner-city churches just as we do global missionaries. It’s a foolish church that would send a missionary to unreached people groups with the promise of three years of step-down funding. Similarly, we shouldn’t send inner-city pastors and their staff members to their neighborhood with only short-term start-up money and the expectation that they’ll somehow figure out how to sustain the ministry.

Fourth, we need to train inner-city missionaries. The unique subculture calls for dedicated training. Just as a newly graduated MD needs a residency in her specialty before she can practice, so seminary graduates need specialized training in urban anthropology, missiology, ecclesiology, apologetics, and preaching before planting and pastoring. They need a well-formed biblical understanding of the relationship between mercy ministry and gospel discipleship. They need to know how to handle gangs, dealers, the undocumented, and mental health challenges.

All We Need

If we believe the American church can’t plant healthy, Christ-exalting churches in the inner city, this will be unique in the history of modern missions. To my knowledge, the American church has never considered a people group to be beyond our reach. We mustn’t start now.

Planters need to know how to handle gangs, dealers, the undocumented, and mental health challenges.

We have much to gain in doing so. Foremost is the glory of Christ, whose name is to be known and worshiped everywhere. His glory alone is worth our effort.

Second is the opportunity to tell of a Savior who proclaimed good news to the poor (Luke 4:18). That good news is Jesus himself, who paid the debt of sin for all people and fulfilled the promise of Isaiah: “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost” (Isa. 55:1, NIV).

Third, we gain God’s blessing. His heart is inclined toward the overlooked and toward those generous toward them. If we want to be blessed, we must care for the needy.

We also face a great danger in not doing so. James links good deeds with genuine faith and warns that neglect of the needy is a sign of false faith:

Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. (James 2:15–17, NIV)

Dead faith isn’t saving faith. Perhaps the greater danger is neglecting our inner cities, not walking down their sidewalks.

The Great Commission includes our inner cities. Yet we’ve often neglected this work, believing there’s no model that allows us to plant churches in these communities. But there is. It’s the missionary model.

We have all we need: a commission from Christ, the promise of his presence, the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, a clear need, and a tested model. It’s time we put that model to work here in our inner cities.