City Reaching: On the Road Community Transformation

Sayo Ajiboye
DMin Creating Onramps for Calling
Sept 2007
City Reaching: On the Road Community Transformation Jack Denisson 277 pages

This is an optimistic book about the power ogf God to transform whole communities, it is a book about processes; its emphasis is on partnership of the people of God to facilitate change in the city; its focus is on America.

Change is necessary in our cities; quoting Bill Bennet on the “Index of Leading Cultural Indicators,” there has been a 500% increase in violent crimes, 400% increase in out of wedlock births, 400% increase in divorce, 300% increase in number of children living with a single parent. This is all in a period that there was a 40% increase in population. The author quoted Michael Reagle’s concept of the “widening gap”. This concept states that the ratio of decay within the American Communities and the capacity of the church to respond has continued to widen over the years (p.6). He also quoted John Dawson who referred to Christians as “bewildered survivors bereft of a unifying purpose” (p. 9).

The author referred to the explosion of the church in the global South and called this the “dream hour” of the church in spite of the challenges faced by the Western Christian community. 10,000 South American per day, 140,000 African per week and 90,000 Chinese per month become Christians He doesn’t go forward – however – to discuss the impact of this on the communities that he referred to. He also used data in a manner that troubles most social statisticians; he presented figures that are not represented by a common baseline. He did not ask the pertinent research question, why has the massive movement into the church in these climes not affected social change in the nations? The author therefore quoted facts that did not address his own thesis. Writing as a person from the global south, it is true that there is indeed a world wide assent to the message of Christ in the nations, but there is a simultaneous reality that we do not have a Nineveh, at least not yet.

Furthermore, as I read the things that were written by the author about awakening in America, he wrote about “unprecedented stirrings of interest in the things of God…,” the analysis seems to be based on what I will term a ghetto assumption. It is the assumption that the experience of my team is normative of everyone else on the globe.” If Promise Keepers mobilizes a city or a region and maybe reaches a million men, can this event or movement be said to represent the norm in the society? Can we seriously agree that change has come to our cities based on this platform? Has a critical research of impact been done? Has the result of such an event or movement been randomly evaluated? Are we making assumptions based on the borders of our turf within our philosophical ghettos? For a movement to claim impact on the society, we must evaluate its impact on the workday week and not just on Sunday attendance in a regional church.. We must ask ourselves about our impact on Microsoft, on Macdonald; on Boeing. The Church requires stratified scientific evaluation of community engagement and not project based on wishful assumptions.

Rick Warren was right in saying, “we must penetrate the culture. We need a church with the capacity that bridges cultural chasms and responds to the actualities of our surroundings. (p.41,42). The church must determine culturally appropriate strategy to congregationalize the people “where they are.”

The least common denominator required to reach a city is unity. This unity so defined must be relational unity rather than cooperation based on a project. Relational unity defines a goal for the city and allows each segment of the church determine how it fits in to this goal and what part it is to play.

The author writes about the need for spiritual power and states a need for an exponential increase in this power of the church within the nation (p.73). This power will not come from performance of task but also from fulfillment of God’s purpose. What is God’s purpose in the context of now for the church in America? The author joined others in his writer’s time span to focus on a time ina Year – Year 2000. He locates this as the period for the “Fourth Great Awakening.”

We are in the Year 2007 and for all the expectations surrounding the Year 2000, the Gospel still NEEDS to be preached today, the cities of America still requires an Impacting presence! Does this detract however from this detract however from the validity of the Concept built up around the Year 2000 – a mobilized church, responsively focusing on communities that surround it and engaging with its realities in a practical manner? I dare say no. The church will benefit – however – from shifting the focus from the battle to fixing our attention on the War.

The author requested his readers to avoid tunnel vision which high visibility actions can generate. He insightfully noted that high visibility does not necessarily imply high impact; he noted that high visibility actions can actually result in a low to no impact scenario. Most purposive actions tends to start as a low visibility actions, in it, we build relationships, we work from the grassroots, we pursues internal and structural change we avoid sensational presentations.

The author sought to avoid specifics for the strategic. Since this course is specific to urban situation and the authors seems to be focused on reaching the cities, I cannot but wonder about this book being a policy makers support manual for large organizations. It may be a little out of sort in the intensive trench warfare of urban outreach. People do not – as rule – do most of the things that the author suggested, the tendency actually is to ignore his suggestions. The book represents the dichotomy between the cry of the real urbanites – often minority, poor ministry leaders and the leadership of the successful suburbanite church. Does the book offer strategic insight for relationships to the suburbanite leadership crowd – Yes, Are they apt to take it? No. So the research question then is this: How do we equip action agents where they are without assuming a need for suburbanite intervention?