On Reaching A City

By Jon Tyson

Published: September 08, 2009

Even in a culture so fluid as America, sociologists seem to agree on at least one thing: urbanization is here to stay. The latest trends indicate that 80% of the world's population will live in cities by the year 2030.

Faced with this brave new world of urban societies, church planters are scrambling to find strategies for reaching cities. As Christians, looking ahead to the New Jerusalem that will crown the wonder of the new heavens and earth, we see everywhere the seeds of the Kingdom growing and budding in today's urban contexts. We believe Christ calls us to see the City of God-luminous and captivating-hidden under the grime and misery that so often cover the cities of man.

However, developing a holistic vision of urban renewal is not straightforward. Most church planters have the conviction that Jesus calls us to more than the establishment of new religious institutions. His call is to ‘seek first the kingdom.' Sadly, most city churches wind up being representative of a single neighborhood-or perhaps an industry-at best, leaving many of us wondering how to translate Jesus' call to seek the kingdom into our church planting efforts.

One thing is clear: the kingdom involves both saving grace and common grace, the redemption of individual souls and human systems, neighborhood renewal and industry renewal. Many church leaders are becoming aware of the need to bring people from various neighborhoods, industries, and socio-economic and cultural backgrounds to a common table in order to truly address both personal brokenness and systemic evil and injustice across a city.

An emerging strategy that addresses this need is the City Parish model, which, though in some ways is as old as St. Paul, perhaps has never had such direct relevance to a culture as to our age of urbanization. The model envisions one urban church community consisting of several neighborhood churches that network together for the common good and renewal of the city. The city parish church is diverse in its essential nature, uniting women, men, and families from various cultural and socio-economic backgrounds across a major metropolitan area.

THE CITY PARISH MODEL
Every six weeks all neighborhood churches come together for one citywide gathering to tell the story of God's grace to the city at large. These citywide gatherings feature stories of transformation, freedom, healing, and renewal from every corner of the city. From these gatherings, the harmony of passionate, reverent worship offered by so many different tongues rises over the city, and an integrated, holistic vision of urban renewal emerges. These citywide gatherings of a single city church also leverage influence, steward momentum, and display unity to the city.

Each neighborhood church has its own elders and senior leadership team who provide spiritual direction and a specific missional vocation for the congregation. Each neighborhood community also has its own structures for pastoral care. On the other hand, the neighborhood churches share centralized resources such as student, workplace, family and artistic ministries, as well as a counseling center and citywide mercy projects, to name a few.

These neighborhood churches hold weekend worship gatherings that highlight how the kingdom of God is being expressed all across the neighborhood. Each community has the freedom to contextualize its worship to the culture of its neighborhood; communities meeting in areas with many families may focus on developing a thriving children's ministry, while a gathering in a neighborhood full of artists may include interactive, creative elements in its worship.

MISSIONAL FOCUS
The heart of each neighborhood congregation is a network of missional communities: medium-sized groups (30-50 people) that meet throughout the neighborhood and provide the ideal environment for building relationships while connecting to the heart and mission of the church. To join a missional community is to enter into the journey of Christian discipleship. The missional community is essential, as it keeps the church small enough for everyone to have a real identity and be involved in the work of ministry, each using her own gifts to build the church.

Missional communities are organized around a shared mission to a neighborhood or industry. They cultivate partnerships with schools, organizations that provide social services, business leaders, activists, community organizers, and anyone else who loves his city and wants to make it a better place to live; they then leverage those partnerships to implement strategic projects aimed at redeeming and renewing that neighborhood.

FACILITATING INTIMACY
Several lifegroups, which typically consist of 6-12 people, comprise these missional communities. Lifegroups provide an opportunity to cultivate vulnerability through committed relationships, servanthood, and love, and very often meet over a meal in the home of a fellow member. These groups allow believers to walk together in the rhythms of Jesus' way through the practice of shared spiritual disciplines: prayer, the study of Scripture, fasting, relationships of accountability. The pursuit of vulnerability in these groups requires the practice of reconciliation, and communal life deepens as members learn to bear with one another in love.

Triads-groups of two to four people of the same gender-are the smallest unit in the church community. These are the close friends within a lifegroup who know each other inside and out and will always tell each other the truth. Triads provide a framework for confession, accountability, encouragement, prayer and support, precisely because the smaller environment allows for greater vulnerability than can be practiced in even a lifegroup setting.

The city parish model is a highly relational, deeply interdependent, kingdom-focused vision of the city church. It enables church to remain small enough for each member to be known intimately and to involve every person in ministry while maintaining a kingdom-sized vision for renewing the city. Mission is both local and citywide.

Our sincere hope and prayer is that this model-by combining the best practices from several emerging church structures-will serve as an important contribution to God's great work of renewing the world through the cities of our day.

Jon Tyson is the lead pastor of Trinity Grace Church in New York City. Their church is composed of four neighborhood churches, following the City Parish model.

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