City Church, Country Church

Worship, sharing, giving and trials are universal to the body of Christ. A similarity in our daily Christian walk is apt to bring a great deal of color into the fellowship of believers from both the urban and suburban Church.

Yeathus Johnson, senior pastor of the Paterson Gospel Church, located in the heart of the active city of Paterson, NJ, drives this point home with his motto: "Diversity is better than uniformity." Johnson says there are many needs within the urban Church that Christians from suburban areas can help meet. His suggestions for doing this include:

1. Since urban churches are in desperate need of trained leadership, suburban churches can receive interns and leaders from the urban context for the purpose of discipling, training and developing those urban leaders. Urban churches can receive interns and leaders from the suburban context for the purpose of those suburban leaders becoming incarnational and providing support. Furthermore, these suburban leaders will be urban missionaries in a city environment for a two- to three-year period, enabling them to learn about the complexities of urban life and ministry.

During a recent interview, Pastor Doug Thuen of Sparta Evangelical Free Church in a bucolic suburban area of northern New Jersey, mentioned that the area Evangelical Free Churches are actively working cooperatively with urban and suburban churches and are partnering in outreach, discipleship and worship. Concerning the urban and suburban families of God, Thuen says, "The diversity is so rich, it paints for us a picture -- yet still small -- of the wonderful gathering of the saints before the throne of God as depicted in Revelation 7:9-10."

"Some of our urban churches have asked for support in these areas where they are limited in resources and man power," Thuen adds. For example, his own church has begun conversation with an Evangelical Free Church in West Orange, NJ, with the intent on bringing our worship teams in to lead Sunday worship for the body of Christ.

As these pastors illustrate, developing a formal training ground, in concert with each church, will enable both urban and suburban bodies to cultivate a new generation of leaders who will be effective in both environments.

2. Urban and suburban churches need to build authentic relationships with each other. Discipleship is a process of spending time with each other, being honest and fostering open dialog, vulnerability and intimate communication. This must happen first between urban leaders and suburban leaders, and then trickle down to the congregational level. There must be an exchange where congregations periodically worship together, pray together, play together and enjoy mutual fellowship. Relationships take work and time. Urban and suburban churches must spend time together.

3. Urban churches do not need the "other" resources of suburban churches as much as they need their wisdom. We are destroyed for the lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6).

4. A change of attitude and core values. Both the urban and suburban Church must realize that they need each other if evangelicalism is going to thrive. Other religions and non-Christian religious sects have learned they need all races and ethnic groups to realize exponential growth and sustainability -- why can't we?

At Paterson Gospel Church, one core values states, "God has called us to a faith community and people relationships. We belong to each other." Urban and suburban churches also belong to one another.

Another core value is, "All people, from every nation, matter to God. He wants them in right relationship with Him." Each member is called upon to value others regardless of skin color, ethic origin or cultural background.

5. At the core of city problems are community problems. At the core of community problems are family problems. Both urban and suburban churches need healthy family models, but many more homes within the inner city are dysfunctional and non-traditional to a fault. Once relationships are established, a deeper level of mentoring and modeling must be developed for inner-city families. Suburban families can help sponsor them.

Urban and suburban churches can establish classes and clusters to explore the opportunities in nurturing, non-traditional healthy families in today's society and this millennium. Classes on basic life skills, communication, interpersonal skills, financial management, problem solving, conflict management and decision-making will suffice for starters.

"I believe the key the key to being effective as God's people, whether urban or suburban, is to be good stewards of the talents that He has entrusted to each church body," Thuen says. "Every church body, according to Scripture, has been given the gifts to effectively communicate, both by word and by deed, the compassionate message of the Love of Jesus Christ.

"The question is, does every church take seriously the responsibility of being faithful with their time to serve with the tools God has given them?" he adds. "Time is short -- serve hard!"

Mary C. Ross is a freelance writer living in Mahwah, NJ. E-mail her at Wordwarrior40@earthlink.net.