Urban Calling

One of the purposes of the Sabbatical, for our family, but also for our church, is to explore our urban calling.

By exploring our urban calling I mean answering questions like these: what does it mean to live as Christians in the urban context that God has called us to? What does it mean to love and serve Indianapolis? How can we not "use" the city or be "conformed" to the city, but, as the church, live as a counter-cultural "city within the city"? What does it mean to exist as the church for the "peace and prosperity" of the city?

To help me reflect on this important questions I am reading Ray Bakke's The Urban Christian. Bakke is a leading Christian urban life and ministry thinker. So, though the book is a bit dated (written in 1987), I expected to be challenged.

What I did not expect, was to find so many similarities in our stories. Ray Bakke was raised in "a remote rural valley near the Canadian Border in Washington State." It turns out that I've taken youth groups on trips to the cabin owned by his family in this remote rural valley!

Bakke's first real urban experience was in Chicago when he attended the Moody Bible Institute. The first big city I lived in, really experienced, was Chicago (though we lived in the suburbs, we spent quite a bit of time in the city) while I attended Trinity Divinity School.

From Chicago, Bakke and his wife Corean, moved to Seattle where he pastored an urban congregation. Seattle was also the first city Jenny and I really lived in. It is where we fell in love with city-life: its grittiness and glory. It is in Seattle that we began to understand that we were called to urban ministry.

Eventually Bakke and Corean moved back to Chicago where he gave his life to ministry in the inner city. I was especially encouraged by his description of their "family life" in the city, and their role in the public school system of Chicago (158-178).

In the same way, God has called our family to Indianapolis. To share solidarity with the suffering of our city. To not run from its problems. And, in some small way, to be a part of its renewal.

If you are interested in exploring your urban calling I highly recommend this book to you: Ray Bakke, The Urban Christian, Inter Varsity Press.