The comment I hear a lot of from suburban folks is that they reflect and serve their community (as an explanation for why they are mono-ethnic or mono-class), but I think that will change (and has changed already in a lot of places). It will be pastors like Kent (comment above) and others who will lead the way in thinking creatively about how to make their churches places for these immigrants, so to speak.

I wish God’s people/ churches were more involved with the hurting. I’ve been working with a couple who keep getting turned down by the system yet live with integrity and do what they can. The system is broken down for all the good it does. And the church doesn’t hardly know what to do, too often, apart from a benevolent fund. Thanks for this post.

I assume Jesus will call people to minister to the poor in the suburbs. I have friends doing so in the Oak Park neighborhood of Sacramento. Gentrification is a big issue in their minds as they purchased a duplex. They want to see transformation of the community, but not at the expense of the people who live there. Perhaps it’s better to say they want to see transformation of the community and for the community.

I’m praying Christians will keep re-imagining the way we live, whether urban, suburban or rural.

I live in a university town of about 50,000. My husband and I are praying about selling our house as soon as our youngest graduates from high school and moving to the center of the city–we’d like to rehab an older house and design it for intentional community.

We’re not sure how we would invite people to share in this experience, but we can’t shake the sense of calling to it.

We feel God’s is asking us to draw closer to the ecumenical and economic center of town. Although one goal is to live more sustainably–to walk and bike more and drive less–another goal is to be a presence for churches and social agencies located at city center instead of being the imported saviors who drive in from the affluent neighborhoods.

We believe the example of living modestly and intentionally in community might be a much needed witness to the power of Jesus to transform lives instead of merely promoting a personal piety.

“Urban ministry” in the US is changing, at least in certain metro areas.

We moved to Denver from LA four years ago. Our old house in a Latino immigrant community in Southern California is worth $800,000 today.

A few thoughts:

Gentrification in inner city neighborhoods has been going on for years since a certain segment of the upper middle class and wealthy always preferred living near downtown even during the huge middle class migration to the suburbs after WW2.

That gentrification surge has turned into a flood over the past 10 years or so. Major cities figured out they would die economically if they didn’t market themselves to young, highly skilled folks who want to live with folks like themselves in stimulating urban environments. Cities like LA, Chicago, NY, Seattle, Dallas, Denver, etc. are some of the current winners in that fight for young tech talent.

So property values in what used to be inner city neighborhoods in those cities skyrocketed. Some simple lifestyle inner city ministry types who bought homes in poor neighborhoods early in the surge have gotten equity wealthy with the appreciation “funny money” that came their way due to the wealthy young professionals willing to pay top dollar to live in their neighborhoods to be close the urban action.

I know a lot of those ministry types and they can’t quite figure out what to do with their sudden wealth :^) The urban ministry folks who didn’t buy got caught in the vice of rapidly rising rents that always accompany higher property values.

As a result the location of ‘urban poverty’ looks different depending on where you live in the U.S.

In the cities winning the tech talent war, the well off increasingly live in what used to be ‘inner city ghettos’ and in the ‘exurbs’ out beyond the old suburbs. Urban ministry in a place like LA will have to increasingly focus on the old suburbs where poor folks (and those who love them and want to minister to them) move because that’s the only place they can afford to live.

In cities that are losing the tech talent war, urban ministry will likely look more like it did in the past.

Organizations like Servant Partners will probably want to focus attention on newly poor suburbs in ‘winning cities’ and on traditional inner city ministry in “losing cities” (primarily in the Midwest and the Northeast).

The CCDA—and particularly Bob Lupton’s ministry—developed in classic post WW2 circumstances where “inner cities were inner cities” and property values were very low.

Current urban poor ministry in the US should probably focus on poverty in ‘metro areas’ (including traditional suburbs) and not as much on ‘inner cities.’