Urban Church Plantations (Christena Cleveland)

This post by Christena Cleveland, author of the wonderful book Disunity in Christ, stunningly takes us to the mirror to look at ourselves. The American church’s divisiveness tells a story that Lent ought to provoke unto repentance.

A few charismatic leaders — Tim Keller and Mark Driscoll in particular — have spawned flourishing church planting folks, but if these church planters do not work with already-established churches then opportunities to coordinate ministries will be missed. Christena has some important words for all of us to hear.

The urban pastors reported that, in the wake of Governor Cuomo’s announcement, many predominantly white, wealthy suburban churches in the area have expressed renewed interest in Buffalo’s urban center. But rather than connecting with the urban pastors who have been doing ministry among the oppressed in Buffalo for years, and looking for ways to support the indigenous leaders who are already in place, they have simply begun making plans to expand their suburban ministry empires into the urban center. In other words, they’re venturing out into the world of urban church planting.

One older African-American pastor said he’s heard chilling reports of meetings, in which representatives from many of the suburban churches have gathered around a map of the city and marked each church’s “territory,” as if Buffalo was theirs to divvy up. The indigenous leaders were not invited to these meetings, nor have they been contacted by these churches. It’s as if they don’t exist, their churches don’t exist, and their expertise doesn’t exist. The suburban churches are simply marching in.

This is happening all over the U.S. In Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Boston , Charlotte and many other cities, I’ve seen predominantly white, wealthy suburban churches take an imperialistic glance at the urban center, decide that they are called to “take back the city” and then proceed with all of the honor and finesse of a military invasion.

I recently conversed with an urban Latina pastor about this issue. While talking about the ways in which non-indigenous urban church planting negatively affects a community, she nonconsciously misspoke, referring to “urban church planting” initiatives run by predominantly white suburban churches as “urban church plantations.” She kept right on talking, seemingly unaware of her Freudian slip.

But she’s right. So much of the urban church planting I’ve seen simply replicates and extends the power inequities between whites and people of color that were cemented years ago on plantations. Like the suburban pastors in Buffalo, many urban church planters charge into cities with blatant disregard for the great ministry work that is already being done by under-resourced pastors and churches, blind to their own privilege and cultural incompetency, and accompanied by the arrogant empire-based idea that more money means more effective ministry.