The people around us

As you’ve no doubt picked up from my previous updates, I live in a complex city. Though if you take a look around, you may see that your community is more complex than you previously thought. Addressing the evangelical flight from cities to suburbs, Ray Bakke describes his personal struggle in urban ministry. ‘The greatest crisis I faced was theological. I didn’t have a theology that addressed the world I was experiencing. My theology was not adequate for the issues I was facing in ministry or in my family.’ (A Theology as Big as the City, page 22) Many churches are struggling to relate to the neighborhoods around them. Some find it easier to leave than change. Personally, my own previously held beliefs have been challenged as I seek to minister in a religiously, culturally and morally pluralistic city.

But while our communities are increasingly fragmented and complex, the past few years I have also been struck by the complexity of the human heart. In my last email I mentioned how contemporary worship choruses reflect the desire of many for healthy relationships. Sitting in coffee shops and pubs, I have many opportunities to listen to the stories of brokenness and shame. Not only do people find it difficult to live with each other, but they can’t even live with themselves. There are few things worse than this.

If you can forgive my endless quoting from popular music (the Bible of postmodern people), how can the church respond to the following songs by the Goo Goo Dolls and Johnny Cash’s remake of a Nine Inch Nails song?

I don’t want the world to see me
‘Cause I don’t think they’d understand
When everything’s made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am
(Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls)

What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
You could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
(Hurt sung by Johnny Cash)

What does God want to do in the cultural, ethnic, and theological diversity of a city like Nicosia? What does He want to do in the hearts of men and women feel no sense of guilt and yet live paralyzed by chronic shame? How will the story of Jesus shape the stories of those that I meet? How will their stories shape mine? Where are we going, and what will our hearts look like when we get there? What will our churches look like?

These are just some of the questions that are going through my mind today as I’ve been praying and reflecting on the past week’s conversations.