You may have met Ian McConnell before. C.J. posted about him a while ago. But let me give you some real facts about my friend. First, the guy is big. I’m talking 5-brothers-and-3-played-semi-pro-football big. And he’s got a personality to match. There’s just a lot of him. He loves Philly sports, too. We love church planters who love Philly sports teams. It demonstrates perseverance.

What’s most important about Ian is that he loves Jesus. And he lets everyone know about it. His joy is infectious and he inspires those he comes in contact with to love Jesus more. I’m serious. Five minutes with this guy and you’re getting schooled on how to love God.

Ian “re-planted” a church in north Philadelphia in 2005. The church was struggling and its numbers had dwindled to 27…and that included Ian and his wife, Rachel. With a new vision for the church, Ian became the senior pastor and replanted Grace Bible Church.

Just last Sunday, Ian was telling us that they knocked down one of the walls in the church to fit all the people on Sunday mornings…over 200. But for Ian, it’s not about numbers. It’s about people hearing the gospel and learning about Jesus.

I asked Ian to tell us some of what he’s learned about planting churches in the city. Here’s what he wrote.

Lessons I’ve learned in planting a church in an urban setting (Ian McConnell)

I’m humbled that Dave would ask me to offer some thoughts on church planting in an urban setting. We’re learning as we go, and benefiting from the mercy of God in our mistakes, so don’t read this as if it is coming from an urban church planting guru. I’m just a guy trying to serve the Savior and care for his church in Philly. But here are some things I’ve learned so far.

I’ve learned that there is no such thing as a “one size fits all” urban church-planting model.

When you think of the word urban, what comes to your mind? Lively ethnic neighborhoods where everybody knows you and all your family back for four generations? Burnt-out rows of dilapidated crack houses? Gentrified townhouses on tree-lined streets? Highrise condos strategically situated right off the business district? A bohemian enclave with cool little bars, coffeehouses and art galleries?

If I asked ten people for a definition of urban, they would most likely give me ten different answers like the ones above. Urban is a fluid concept. The word itself is an adjective that means “characteristic of a city.” So when approaching planting in the urban setting, I don’t think we should be asking the question, “What are the common ‘characteristics of cities’ that affect planting churches?” Since planting in Philadelphia, I have come to believe that one of the only things I can count on being true when somebody says they are doing an urban work is…population. When I hear “urban,” all I know for sure is “a whole lot of people.”

Cities are where there are a lot of people. It’s a place where a lot of people—some very poor, some very rich, some very in between—live close together. It’s a place where a lot of people—some hipsters, some hip-hop, some metro professional, some artsy, some immigrants—all live close together. It’s a place where a lot of people—some Caucasian, some African American, some Hispanic, some Asian, some Haitian,  etc. etc.—you guessed it, they live close together. That is what makes urban church planting so crucial and so risky. And for guys like me, so exciting!

All that is to say that I have come to learn that stereotyping the urban setting, and approaching planting from that stereotypical vantage point, can be a huge detriment to urban planting before it even begins.
 
The challenge this presents for approaching urban church planting is that we really want to create a model of urban church planting that works the same in every city, and every part of every city. That would be so nice! What potential planter wouldn’t want to get a manual in the mail from Urban Church Planting Headquarters, turn to page one, and just get on with it. I’ve stopped looking in my mail for that package. What I have learned over the past seven years is that our approach to planting in the urban setting will be as fluid as the definition of the word urban itself.

And that’s what keeps it interesting.

I have learned that I must think neighborhood and not whole city.

I know every guy who has driven through a city with the burden of Christ pressing down on his soul, block after block, has at some point had this vision. What would happen if the gospel swept through this city? Why can’t there be a great revival—it has happened before! And why can’t it begin with me?

Come on, you know that last one at least has crossed your mind. And if we understand the power of the gospel, it should cross our minds. But planting a church is not running a crusade. And cities are big and complicated and busy. They resist people trying to change them—just ask the mayor. So as humbling as it may be to our Whitfieldesque dreams, when we think church planting, we need to think neighborhoods first.

Anybody who has lived in a city for any time knows that neighborhoods are well defined, and everybody knows the definitions. Everybody knows the folks on that side of the tracks are different than the folks on this side of the tracks. You know how far to go down a street before it goes from safe to not so safe. As an old East Coast city, Philadelphia was populated through immigration over the past 200 years. Different ethnic groups and nationalities came and dug into sections of the city, importing and planting their cultures side by side—coexisting, but rarely blending together. You tell a Philadelphia native what neighborhood you live in, he can guess your religion, your favorite food, and probably the last syllable of your name. Any big city, whether it is Sunbelt, Midwest, or West Coast, will be a city of neighborhoods. If you’re going to take the city for Jesus, it’s likely going to happen a neighborhood at a time.

This is a big deal to me as we approach reaching our city. I think that the neighborhood planting approach, over time, will be the most effective way to reach our cities. Our core theological values will be the same, and our Gospel message is absolutely unchangeable. But how it plays out methodologically will have to vary from neighborhood to neighborhood. This challenge requires what I like to call demographic exegesis. We need to study and understand the characteristics of the particular urban setting we are exploring and know what we may be getting into. We need to know who the people are in the neighborhoods we are considering for the church plant.

What is their culture? What is the predominant religious background (and believe me, you can have a neighborhood where nobody goes to church but everybody thinks they know all they need to know about God). If we open our doors on this block, who will come, and who will never even know we’re there? If we offer a certain ministry, who will think it is meeting a need and who will think it’s a cultish intrusion on the community? If we have this kind of music, who will like it and who will think the devil is in the building? This, folks, is called contextualization. And you can’t do urban without it.

I’ve got a few more thoughts as well, but I’ll wait for the next post to pass them along.

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Dave Harvey leads international expansion and church planting for Sovereign Grace Ministries and is based in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania. For more information about the Sovereign Grace church-planting process, click here.

 

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