- [Thomas Terry] I think if we, as Christians, are desiring to engage
our cities, then we can't help but think about the realities of gentrification.
I think a lot of people kind of disconnect gentrification, and think, "Oh,
that's just a, it's a economic issue.
It really doesn't have any bearing on the church."
You know, it's just the way the world is.
You know, people come in.
They buy things.
They buy a property, and that's just the way life is.
But I think we have to look at it from a pastoral perspective, and see how it
impacts localized communities where all they've known, especially in cities where
you have, you know, community churches that have been in existence for 20,
30 years, and that's all these people know.
Gentrification has a way of coming in and dismantling people's whole paradigm,
their whole way of thinking about church and community.
And that actually does a disservice to engaging the culture,
the city that we live in with the message of the gospel.
How can they trust that we care for these people's souls when we care nothing
about their buildings, nothing about their homes,
nothing about their neighborhoods?
We somehow disconnect their social issues from the gospel, and that really impedes a
healthy gospel witness.
So, one of the things, my church, when we were looking for a
church building, there were particular parts in Portland that we decided were
completely off limits just because they were heightened gentrification areas.
And we did not want to ruin our gospel reputation by coming into a neighborhood
and bringing in all these people who are not part of the neighborhood
into this city.
That would do no good.
When we think about engaging our communities with the gospel,
we think about the people in our immediate, you know,
two, three-mile radius.
How could we, with a clear conscience, engage these people after we just stripped
away their congregation, their houses, their neighborhoods, their barbershops?
To me, it seems unchristian to go into a neighborhood, dismantle
their neighborhood, and then plant a Christian flag, and say, "Now,
let's do the work of ministry."
What would be better is to be the church that goes into these neighborhoods and
help empower these folks who are struggling.
Give them resources to maintain their communities, to help them thrive in this
community so that they can do the heavy lifting of evangelism
in their own context.
I think we, in many ways, we have, like, the white savior complex
that says, "Well, we would be more effective if we came
into their neighborhoods, and we established all these churches."
Well, maybe that's not the most effective way to do ministry.
Maybe the best way is to empower these local churches who've been
in these neighborhoods forever who have strong relationships, 20, 30 years,
50 years in some cases.
Help them to sustain their neighborhood churches and their buildings for the sake
of the gospel.
We only think of the gospel in this just, very word-based, didactic way.
Well, just preach Jesus.
And yes, that's a facet of it, but what if we came and empowered
localized communities to preach the gospel to their people?
Be much more dynamic and helpful, I think, in my opinion.
- [Joshua Butler] Yeah.
You know, I helped pastor a church for about 15 years.
We were part of, you know, back in the year 2000, we were part of kind
of a church planting movement focusing on cities and kind of cities where there
might be low gospel presence.
So I was in Portland, Oregon, and saw a lot, got to do a lot of amazing things.
And, you know, I think about, sort of that first decade, just God moving in some
really powerful ways.
But in retrospect, I would say I was naive.
I think many of us, we were naive to the processes and realities of gentrification
that were occurring all around us and that we were a part of.
We were kind of embedded in this sort of return of people desiring to live
in cities and move.
People who might be more affluent and all, raising up home prices,
and rental prices, and retail space prices and all that.
And so, in Portland, as an example, Portland has just a horrible,
I was ignorant at the time, but learning more, Portland has a horrible
history of racism, particularly with the African American community.
And just some of the realities that the African American community in Portland has
experienced historically was just heartbreaking to learn more about.
And then to realize in retrospect that we were a part of a bigger, you know,
bigger processes in our city
that were actually economically pushing many African American families from those
historic neighborhoods, out of their historic neighborhoods, and home,
and the culture that was embedded within those neighborhoods because of the
community that was there. And forcing kind of a displacement and relocation to some
distant and kind of difficult areas way further out from the urban
core in Portland.
And one of the things I found most helpful in that process over the years, though,
has really been reclaiming a more significant value of diversity in the
Body of Christ.
For some churches like ours, it was a move towards multi-ethnic
diversity within our church body, from leadership all the way down,
like to begin with that.
I think for some churches, that may mean building relationship
with other churches in the city that might be more ethnic churches of different
minority populations or other populations, the city.
But a lot of the strongest kind of prophetic challenge I encountered was
through building relationship with the broader Body of Christ in our city.
And through those relationships, beginning to see the dynamics.
And I don't know any quick one-size-fits-all solution or answer to
the problems there, the reality is if we hadn't planted, gentrification still would
have been happening.
But because of those relationships now, we've been able to partner with some
historic African American churches and other churches that have had a vision
for church planting out in areas where many of their people have been displaced.
And there's been a partnership with church planting, and ministry,
and being more sensitive to the dynamics that we might unknowingly be participating
in as churches ourselves.