By Michael Crane
The nature and posture of the church in urban settings has been given too little attention. In many respects, churches function as if they are in tight-knit smaller towns, assuming mutual trust, established relationships, and community. Churches have given into superficial tribalizations (ethnic homogeneity, partisan political affiliations, and other more subtle ques like dress, jargon, or unexplained rituals). Well-intentioned churches are often slow to respond and engage swift-moving urban society.
In order for the church to thrive in the city, fresh thinking is necessary. Moreover, “structural differentiation” is exigent if the church aims to address needs in the broader society.
The phrase “local church” has gained popularity in usage in recent years, but seldom includes thoughtful reflection on the locality of the local church. The very notion of “local” is not easy to define. There is an argument to consider physical and nonphysical spaces as localities: “Locality today is rendered more complex because people live in both spatial and virtual neighborhoods.”
This blurred understanding of what is local pushes people to attachment with a particular place. “This social pattern of disintegration fosters our lifestyle, which means that it is very difficult to bring the differing parts of our lives together.”
Cities are full of diverse people spread over vast and complicated geography. I lived in the Los Angeles Metro Area where it can easily take an hour to go fifteen miles. Churches (particularly in the Free Church tradition) have had a tendency to be ruggedly independent, preferring to do everything on their own (it is perhaps another casualty of urban choice-driven culture). Churches as well as people can become individualistic. Lesslie Newbigin noted the negative outcome of this tendency: “When numerical growth is taken as the criterion of judgment on the church, we are transported with alarming ease into the world of the military campaign or the commercial sales drive.” How do we maintain a strong understanding of the local church while also addressing the needs of the city?