mgpcpastor's blog

What does For The City promise?
Darrin Patrick and Matt Carter have planted churches in the heart of two US cities. In 180 pages they seek to ‘shed light on what a healthy church looks like, [and] share from our experiences as church planters how to pursue the goal of healthy, God-honoring churches in cities that desperately need gospel transformation.’

What I appreciated.
This is not so much a ‘This is how you should…’ sort of manual as a ‘This is what and why we did, and what we’ve learned along the way…’ book. It is engagingly written and relies heavily on the stories of Patrick and Carter, relating how each came to plant their respective churches. It is a substitute for a conversation over dinner.
In that sense it is meant to be a highly relatable book, and succeeds.
There is an effort to point out lessons learned from failures as well as that which worked, and though the immediate context of their ministries seems distant to this writer, the basic principle that a church ‘submitted to and saturated with the Gospel … does not have to fear the culture or become the culture, but it can influence the culture, redeeming it and presenting it back to God as an act of worship.’pg80
The challenges of building bridges for the Gospel in different contexts and to divergent groups are described and both ministries are at pains to point out that they do not mistake the work of building bridges over which the Gospel can be communicated for communicating the Gospel itself.
It is refreshing to see the Gospel as a whole of life activity, not just a belief confined to certain areas of living and culture.
I appreciated that this approach is not a quick-fix, nor is it easy and it demands constant consideration of what the church should be doing and why.
To be honest, I had thought that this book may have been full of the notion that building churches in cities should be a priority because cities are where most people are or because cities are where culture and thoughts are shaped, both of which are concepts currently doing the rounds. Both Patrick and Carter have gravitated to the inner cities because they are hard and because there are people there who have been functionally abandoned by much of the church. That’s a thought that should actually resonate in the country.

What I’m not sure about.
The contemporary appropriation of Jeremiah 29:4-7 by pentecostal Christians seems to be taking root in the wider evangelical world.
The text reads: “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”
It is a key text in For The City (pg24), and the idea that civic service, urban renewal and pursuit of the worthy end of the arts are intrinsic to the Gospel mandate, that is that seeing these concerns come to pass is to see the promises of God to grow His kingdom being kept is a concern.
The sentiment sounds fine, but I don’t think Patrick and Carter would commend Christians to encourage their children to marry unbelievers, for instance.
I believe that these activities are outworkings of a faithful response to the Gospel, not that they are Gospel work themselves. That doesn’t make them unimportant, or even optional.
The activities of these two churches are laudable expressions of Gospel life, that are opening doors for Gospel communication.
Taking Old Testament texts and using them to back up the methodology is not necessary and runs the risk of confusing civil reform with the coming of God’s kingdom.
The book does not really unpack how the authors view the emphasis of their ministries in theological context. The notion of the church transforming culture and heralding the coming Kingdom of God almost sounds post-millenial, but I couldn’t deduce from the book how either writer understands these matters.
It will be instructive to see how, in the passage of time, that these ministries continue to build consensus among their congregations about which activities are legitimately contextually appropriate for communicating the Gospel and what may be thought to be mere capitulation to the demands of the surrounding culture.
The Gospel itself can be identified and agreed upon objectively. Contextual approaches to culture will be more subjective and therefore more prone to disagreements about what is and isn’t appropriate.

Conclusion.
For The City is not a long or labourious read. It will invite you to think about how your church can most wisely and winsomely be the body of Jesus in the place where it is. Whether in the city, or even the suburbs, the provincial centers or the country. And that is a think that is always worth having. You probably won’t do it like these guys, but you should be doing something.

NB. The review copy of For The City was received courtesy of Zondervan Publishing’s Engaging Church blog as part of a For The City blog tour featuring the book.
A positive review of the book was not required.