September 9, 2008
Urban Exile: Following Jesus in the Face of Fear
Former suburbanite David Swanson reflects on ministry in the big city.
Pulling up to a busy intersection recently, my wife and I were startled to see a car with its rear windshield shattered. Out of the damaged car leaped a man with a baseball bat, yelling and chasing the two apparent perpetrators. As we slowly drove by, my wife reaching for her phone to call the police, we saw into the back seat where a young girl sat trying to make sense of the chaos that had erupted around her. Arriving at our apartment three blocks away I became aware of an emotion I hadn't felt in a long time: fear.
Three months after moving into Chicago from one of its affluent suburbs, we are still getting our bearings. Is it the Mexican or Polish market that has the better produce? What time is too late for my wife to take a walk by herself? How long will it take to get from the church office to my lunch meeting via the Blue Line? We expected these kinds of questions. Unanticipated, however, was the proper response to shattered windshields and guys with baseball bats. I knew the transition to life and ministry in the city might be tough, but this tangible sense of fear came out of left field.
Our eight years of suburban life and ministry were not without fear, albeit of a different kind. I oftentimes worried about the effect of affluence on our congregation. Anxiety about spiritual formation in a landscape of individualism and crass consumption is enough to keep any pastor awake at night. Conversations with friends and suburban colleagues often centered on pursuing the way of Jesus while being surrounded by the deep-seated values of safety and comfort. You could say my fear was of a spiritual nature: I was anxious about how suburbia affected our souls.
Guys with baseball bats? Never crossed my mind.
Of course it's fair to neither city nor suburb to make such generalizations. Violent acts take place in suburbia just as consumer culture affects many in our new urban congregation. In some ways, my wife and I actually feel safer in our new urban environs. She is more comfortable being home alone at night; the voices of our neighbors provide a friendly soundtrack. I worry less about my numbed soul as the exposed beauty and evil of the city invite increased awareness and dependence on the Holy Spirit.
And yet this newfound fear can't be ignored. A woman in our neighborhood was recently attacked with sulfuric acid. It was less than assuring when her assailants turned out to be a couple of high school girls. Occasionally I'll check an online map for the location of each of Chicago's summer shootings, hoping the latest fatalities weren't in our neighborhood. Do I sound paranoid? Maybe, but after eight years of placid suburban life, shattered windshields, sulfuric acid attacks, and daily fatalities are taking some getting used to.
Fear is not the only new reality resulting from our suburban exodus; faith too has taken on increased significance. Prayer has become a regular response throughout the week - for mercy for the homeless men living under the dank overpass and wisdom for our multi-ethnic small groups as they debrief a sermon on racism and reconciliation. The city, with its in-your-face beauty and pain, has renewed my dependence on the God who holds Chicago together. A sign of my spiritual shallowness perhaps, but my former homogenous and safe suburban life didn't regularly provoke this response of prayer.
What if a healthy dose of fear is important for faith? After all, God often acts in the face of our fear-inducing circumstances. Yet many suburban churches simply blend in, patterning buildings, teaching, and programs on the accepted values of safety and comfort. Likewise, an urban tendency has been to maintain a fortress mentality, protecting congregations from the dangers and temptations of city life. Both responses minimize the fear we experience when we encounter the grief and injustice of a dangerous world. Additionally, when such fearful realities are ignored, people are hindered from experiencing a vigorous faith that must depend on God's presence.
As Christians, surely we are meant neither to blend into our surroundings nor be protected from them. Eugene Peterson writes that following Jesus "is as much, or maybe even more, about feet as it is about ears and eyes." The feet of Jesus carried him and his anxious disciples into some nerve-wracking situations. Field trips in the Samaritan countryside, conversations with scary Gentiles, and parties with prostitutes and tax collectors must have been terrifying to those early Jesus followers. During these encounters, their faith was stretched and strained to the breaking point. Shattered windshields are nothing compared with demon-possessed pigs leaping from cliffs.
Should we purposefully lead people into fear-inducing experiences? Of course! Following the feet of Jesus will often lead us to dangerous places, whether in the city, the suburbs, or elsewhere. Peril is not the goal, but it's a result of pursuing Jesus in our world. Are we calling people to this dangerous way of living? Or has the fear-confronting life been substituted for something safer and more comfortable?
David Swanson is Community Life Pastor at New Community Covenant Church in Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood, and a regular contributor to Out of Ur. Read more from David at his blog, Signs of Life.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga on September 9, 2008
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Comments
I'm happy for you, David, that you welcome fear and have left those churches that value safety.
Sounds like you haven't been really hurt yet.
May you continue to be so blessed.
Posted by: JaimeT at September 9, 2008
And this is why I'll never live in a city...well, with the possible exception of Victoria in British Columbia.
It's not the fear of humans...pfft, but rather the confusion humans bring with them that I find unsettling.
"Why did you break that fence?"
"I dunno...I just did it."
Yes, that was an actual exchange between a police officer, and a teenager that I watched on college campus while I worked as a public safety assistant.
It was a righteous bust, and the chase lasted all of about fourteen seconds. He knew what he did was wrong, and he knew he was going to get into trouble. But he still didn't know why he did it...he just did it.
People go stupid, and when they go stupid, they go really, really quick, and usually in a very bad way that has resonating consequences for them, and others.
And like that little girl, it's extremely disturbing to watch as you try to make sense of the whys.
I much prefer animals, because with animals they are interested in two things, survival and mating, and unlike humans, if the action doesn't involved one of those two things they, the animals, don't engage in it.
Humans, humans are the only ones interested in screwing over their own species just because they can.
Good luck in the concrete jungle there David because your in amongst the worst, and most vicious of predators, man.
Posted by: sheerahkahn at September 9, 2008
good stuff, to know and to do can be two very different things.
Posted by: andrew at September 9, 2008
There's nothing quite like adventure while holding Jesus' hand. God bless. See you there.
Posted by: makarios at September 9, 2008
It's wild how things get really real, really fast when we get outside of our physical comfort zone or go into a new community with different "rules" that we haven't fully defined yet.
Somedays I wish God would have let me stay in Mayberry, but for some of us, it's not meant to be.
Good on ya' mate!
Posted by: scott in vegas at September 9, 2008
"I much prefer animals . . . Good luck in the concrete jungle there David because your in amongst the worst, and most vicious of predators, man."
And thank you for this inclusion of ignorance.
This is precisely the kind of thinking that has contributed to the decline of most of our urban areas. Instead of facing the changing urban landscape with the grace of Christ, most American Christians have chosen to fled to the comforts of suburbia.
Yes, the chaos of the urban context can be maddening, but no more so than the facade a suburban lifestyle offers.
Posted by: steve at September 9, 2008
Nicely written. Living in Chicago for the past 6 years has exposed me to many urban issues (immigration, socioeconomic, political) issues that would have excaped my conciousness had I lived in the suburbs. Often times I have felt overwhelmed by the sick, poor, and downtrodden people that I come across and how I should respond to their needs. I remember how as a child, I came across the first homeless person who asked for money for food. I remember feeling like I should give him all the money in my pocket for this poor unfortunate person or maybe give him my new jacket to replace the tattered one he had on. I remember the anxiety I felt when my parents shuttled me away from him and how I couldn't stop thinking about how long he has gone hungry. Nowadays, I try to remind myself of those feelings when I encounter some of the needy people I encounter but the callousness and cynical heart of mine often overpowers my instincts to do what Christ would have done. Lately this truth has allowed God to change my heart that would have been difficult to relate to in the "safe" suburbs. And I thank him for that.
Posted by: Gerald Liu at September 9, 2008
wow.
anybody remember a 'Christian' radio giant with the tagline, "Safe for the whole family"?
i've always thought that was un-Christlike. but, now, with my own one year old, i'm starting to see the allure in suburban/small-town safety. i don't want anything to ever happen to my little princess.
but then again, maybe that should make me work harder to help provide a safer (and not so homogenous or sheltered) place in my own neighborhood (incidentally, the same area David is talking about) for not just her but countless others like her. doesn't God's heart break for those who commit those acts of seemingly random violence as well as those on to whom they fall?
Posted by: jason at September 9, 2008
It's interesting to read people talking about the "flight" to the suburbs. Is it still 1950? It seems to me that more middle-class people are leaving the suburbs and moving to the city. I've seen both in the DFW area and in the SEA/TAC area that the slums are getting bulldozed and high-end condos are going up. Poor people are actually being forced to move to the suburbs to find affordable housing.
Sure, suburbia has its vices--consumerism, rampart individualism, etc. But is the answer to flee the suburbs or to redeem the suburbs? In my opinion, movement from the suburbs to the city to escape an unhealthy spiritual environment is a lot like moving to the country and hanging out with the animals to escape the problems associated with spending time with people. Further, let's not forget that the city has spiritual vices of its own.
I'm all for having a presence in the city. The Gospel is needed there every bit as much as anywhere else. But I think we need to be careful about romanticizing the city. Let's not give up on the suburbs just yet. Living for Christ in the suburbs is challenging, but no one ever said following Jesus was easy.
Posted by: Matt at September 10, 2008
For all of the people that are moving from the Suburbs to the city, Chicago has still lost 100,000 white residents since 2000. So white flight is still going on. For many people I know it is about children. They move to the city when they don't have them or after they are gone and move to the suburbs once their children are born or at the lastest, when they are ready to start school.
Posted by: Adam S at September 11, 2008