April 28, 1999

Urban ministry is 'foreign' missions
___By Marv Knox
___Editor
___HOUSTON--Texas Baptists must take a "foreign missions approach" to reach the urban "post-secular" society within the state, a couple who started a church in a bohemian section of Dallas reported.
___Dawn and Mark Thames of Lower Greenville Baptist Community discussed their venture in small-group sessions at Beyond These Walls, the Texas Baptist missions conference, this month.
___They described a culture that would appear foreign to many Texas Baptists--and which would see traditional Texas Baptist culture as foreign itself.
___"It's a post-Christian society," Mark Thames said of Lower Greenville, an eclectic artsy community near downtown. "But I would call it a spiritual society ... in the sense that Christianity is a subset of spirituality."
___And people who live in Lower Greenville aren't the least bit interested in the trappings of church identified by most Texas Baptists, he added. "They don't want what we have. (Christianity) is one of those 'past religions' they're not interested in."
___Consequently, Christians face such a culture with three options, he noted:
___ "We can say, 'It's all horrible and bad' and denounce it all.
___"We can be like the Amish and create an island community.
___ "Or we can have engagement of some kind, which is going to be a radical change, but a necessary change."
___The Thameses developed experience and passion for reaching "post-secular" people through a two-part endeavor, Dawn Thames said.
___First, they went to Zambia, Africa, for two years as Journeymen missionaries. Then, "we came back, and all our old friends were out of church," she explained.
___"They felt they had stayed where they were, but the church was so irrelevant they couldn't keep going. They felt an alienation from church culture, but they were so hyper-spiritual in everything."
___"The fundamental aspects of American culture are foreign to the gospel," he stressed. "So, we must take a foreign missions approach: Hold your culture in a bucket and incarnate--embody--the gospel into the culture. It's an overall interaction, not just random evangelization."
___"You have to find out what God is doing there," she added. "You don't 'bring God' to the culture, but you bring the gospel interpreted by your experience."
___The Thameses have worked to help people in their community see Christianity as meaningful and relevant.
___That means meeting in their home--"a home for the spiritually homeless"--instead of a traditional church setting, as well as shaping worship and community to fit the needs of the locals.
___"If you don't know what Christianity is, you are looking for clues about what is going on here," she said, noting such elements as music and architecture are important parts of the worship experience.
___The endeavor is to help people find a sense of community that includes a saving relationship with Christ, he explained.
___"Here, everybody is trying to find a tribe," he said. "They see 'community' as an attempt to manipulate you for mass purposes. They're suspicious of it, but they also want it deeply."
___Post-secular society tends to be comprised of younger adults, but not necessarily so, they reported. Members of this group tend to favor authenticity over excellence, integrity over expertise and eclecticism over progress.
___The challenge of ministering to such people is to live among them in authentic ways that validate the Christian message, she said, noting, "In Lower Greenville, we've had to regain integrity for Jesus. One of the things the church has lost is integrity."
___Evangelism in this context must grow out of long-term relationships, he added. "Evangelism is the reproductive activity of the church, and so they react to it similarly to being hit up for sex in bars."
___Instead, people relate to other people, "where people meet life-to-life," he said. "We went to Lower Greenville to be ourselves in Christ in the culture with them, and we assume Jesus is going to do stuff there."
___Prayer is the key to such a ministry, they insisted.
___"The total beginning and end of all that we do is prayer--that God would bring people to us or lead us to people so we could be with people," she said. "There are other forces out there besides us."

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