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WI+H is a movement of faith-filled visionaries living the justice only Jesus gives.

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We have all felt moved by racial injustice in our nation, but oftentimes we don’t know how we can make a difference beyond the social media post or yard sign.

WI+H is a place where you can put your feelings into practical action.

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One Pastor’s Story

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At around 3:30 in the afternoon on Saturday, August 13, 2016, two police officers pulled up behind a parked car in the Sherman Park neighborhood of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The seconds that followed set off a chain reaction that reverberates to this day: One of the occupants of the vehicle, a 23-year-old Black man named Sylville Smith, bolted from the car. The officers chased on foot as Smith ran across a small lawn and turned between two houses. The first officer rounded the corner, saw a handgun in Smith’s right hand, and fired two shots 1.69 seconds apart. The first shot hit Smith in the right arm. The second struck him in the chest and ended his life.

Word of the shooting—of a Black man killed by a Black police officer— soon began to spread on social media.

The summer of 2016 had already been

full of tension in Milwaukee, and just six weeks earlier police in riot gear had been summoned to Sherman Park to deal with unrest.

And in the nine hours before the fatal shooting of Smith, the city experienced nine other shootings, including five homicides. As one Sherman Park resident later described the situation to news reporters, “It was a powder keg.”

Between 8 and 9 that night, about 100 protesters gathered near the intersection of North Sherman Boulevard and West Auer Avenue, a block east of the shooting. At some point that evening, the protest turned violent. Several vehicles, including a police squad car, were set on fire. Through the course of the night, a gas station, a bank, and an auto-parts store were also set ablaze, and several other businesses were looted.

And just as the shooting of Smith instigated a response from the protestors, the riot sparked a reaction from Milwaukee’s faith community.

We Did It Scared As the frustration and disenfranchisement in Sherman Park boiled over into violence and destruction, Bishop Walter Harvey of

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Parklawn Assembly of God—located just six-tenths of a mile north of the shooting—was called on to make decisions that would affect not only his own congregation but churches throughout Milwaukee.

“The situation was overwhelming,” says Harvey, who now serves as the president of the National Black Fellowship of the Assemblies of God (NBF). “A canopy of hopelessness

decided to mobilize his congregation for action. Through social media, he spread the word: “Parklawn, we’re having service. We’re going to walk to the riot area and start cleaning up.”

That Sunday morning, the Parklawn Assembly family, along with people from other congregations, marched into the burned-out neighborhood, shoulder to shoulder. “Yes, we were afraid,” Harvey says. “God

hung over the city. But in that moment, I sensed God speaking. We were in that place at that time for a reason: to take the love of Jesus to our community and into the world. Obedience couldn’t wait. I could not hold off until the heat died down. I had to lead, follow, or get out of the way.”

The riot continued from Saturday night into early Sunday morning—a matter of hours before church services were scheduled to take place. Rather than hide from the chaos, Harvey

didn’t take away our fear. But He gave us grace—and we did it scared.”

Two years before the riot, in 2014, Pastor Harvey was consecrated as a

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bishop by the Outpouring Ministry Network in Milwaukee, a recognition of his standing in the faith community. He was a pastor of pastors, a leader of leaders, and now, even as the BP station at North Sherman and West Burleigh was still smoldering, other pastors in the city turned to him. The chaos had come to his neighborhood, and they wanted to know: What are we going to do now?

That Sunday evening, dozens of pastors from across Milwaukee gathered at Parklawn Assembly to pray—and then they walked together down North Sherman Boulevard to the site of the riot. What they saw and heard there changed the focus of Harvey’s— and Parklawn’s—ministry.

Where have you been?

As the pastors approached the protestors, the scent of skunk wafted in the air—the product of a particularly pungent variety of marijuana.

The people looking back at them gave off a feeling of hopelessness. They were young men with

baseball caps, gold chains, and silver teeth. They were young women who looked like boys. They displayed piercings and tattoos. They were angry, frustrated, disenfranchised, and disconnected.

And they also posed questions to the ministers that needed to be answered: “Why are you here?”

“Where have you been?”

“Will you come back tomorrow?”

A CNN crew was on site. A writer and a photographer from The New

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Parklawn congregation and resulted in a significant restructuring of the ministry, from budget decisions to use of space within its facility to how Harvey himself would allocate his time and energy.

York Times were documenting the events of the day. Local media were everywhere. And the young people wanted to know if the clergy showed up just to get on the evening news.

By most measures, Harvey was a successful pastor, with the Sundaymorning attendance, church budget, and staff to prove it. But he was standing face to face with a segment of his city that would never walk through the doors of his church building. His congregation could put on a compelling Sunday service and run effective and efficient programs, but it was not structured to reach these young people. The church has long been viewed as a vital leadership organization in the Black community in America, but it was seen as irrelevant by these protestors in Sherman Park—and by others like them. This realization led Harvey to a startling yet immediate conclusion: We need to change our approach to ministry.

Over the following weeks, Harvey opened up with church leadership about what the Lord was speaking to him. Those conversations expanded to include the entire

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The Church Has Left the Building Walter Harvey is a son of Milwaukee. He grew up in the zip code with the highest rates of incarceration, poverty, unemployment, and other racial disparities in the country.

He could have become just another statistic: another criminal, another addict, another prisoner, another lost cause.

But the prayers of his believing mother were answered, and Harvey

surrendered his life to Jesus at the age of 19. He earned a degree from Marquette University in his hometown and eventually walked away from a successful career in the marketplace to serve God in full-time church ministry.

In 2020, after 28 years as senior pastor at Parklawn Assembly, Harvey demoted himself and simultaneously transitioned into a wider apostolic role. As president of the NBF, he is leveraging his national platform to spark and shepherd a movement to reach America’s urban communities.

The issues that dominate the country’s inner cities—spiritual emptiness, poverty, unemployment, addiction, poor health care, and inequality in the justice, educational, and economic systems—require bold solutions.

And these problems demand that the church of Jesus Christ leave the comfort and safety of the pews and take to the streets: to love their cities, to listen to their neighbors, to learn from their experiences. When churches and leaders do this, sometimes it will mean a slight adjustment to their mission and methods.

Sometimes it will mean a radical restructuring of their existing organizations. And sometimes it will require new ways of doing things, from forming networks of micro-churches to establishing economic development corporations.

Bishop Harvey knows we cannot reach and transform our cities from a distance. He knows there are no easy

solutions. And he also knows we will never succeed if we don’t try.

“The American evangelical church has long stated that our purpose is to spread the gospel around the globe,” he says. “We accepted that vision for world missions, but America’s inner cities have been neglected. We have the opportunity now to demonstrate the full gospel to all the world— and the full gospel includes justice for the hard places of urban America.”

by Michael Murray

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A Theology O

ne of the many thoughts that occurred to me in August 2016, when a riot erupted just three blocks south of our church building in Milwaukee, was that we needed a theology of the city.

What does the Bible say about our role as God’s people in the urban centers of America?

What are the unique challenges of urban ministry, and what guidance does God’s Word provide for those of us called to serve Him and live for Him in these contexts?

As I began to contemplate and pray about these questions, the Lord reiterated to me His love for people and for places—especially cities.

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I was reminded that Jesus wept twice in Scripture, once over a friend and once over a city.

God also answered my questions in part through Jeremiah chapter 29. The prophet describes the context of this chapter within its first several verses: King Jehoiachin, along with the other leaders and craftsmen and artisans of Jerusalem and the rest of Judah, have been exiled to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. In a letter to these exiles, Jeremiah passes along a message from the Lord. He tells them that they will be in Babylon for seventy years but he will then bring them home again. He also includes specific instructions for the people: “This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says to all the captives he has exiled to Babylon from Jerusalem: ‘Build homes, and plan to stay. Plant gardens, and eat the food they produce. Marry and have children. Then find spouses for them so that you may have

of the City many grandchildren. Multiply! Do not dwindle away! And work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare” (Jeremiah 29:4–7, NLT).

In this message delivered through Jeremiah, God calls His chosen people to put down roots in the land of their captivity. Though Babylon isn’t their ideal zip code, he instructs them to pray for it and to work for its prosperity. And even though we are centuries and continents removed from the Babylonian exile, the lessons it contains apply to us as well.

Let’s look at some of the specific points in Jeremiah’s letter and what they mean for God’s people today:

To all the captives he has exiled He reminded the people that He was their God and that He was the one who had ultimately

sent them to Babylon. Their exile was not a mistake or a happenstance of history. We need to be reminded that the Lord is the one who directs our steps. God has not buried us in our communities; He has planted us in them for His glory.

Build homes God told them to build homes and plan to stay. This command speaks of both ownership and longevity. Owners and renters often have drastically different mindsets toward the same piece of property. Someone renting a home does not feel the same sense of obligation to its upkeep as someone living in a house he himself owns.

Renters are transactional, while owners are thinking of long-term investment.

Whether we rent or own our homes, we all need to take spiritual ownership of the block or neighborhood where God has placed us. Just as equity in a property grows, spiritual equity builds

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day after day and year after year as we remain obedient to the work the Lord has given us.

Plant gardens God also told His people to plant gardens and eat of their produce. They were coming from an agrarian society, and they were instructed to carry on these practices—practices involving seed, soil, water, sunlight, and especially time.

They would be in Babylon for several generations, and the Lord wanted them to be mindful of the long-term consequences of their actions.

The work of planting gardens and eventually seeing their fruit reminds us of the process of discipleship. The transformation Jesus wants to bring about in the lives of His people does not happen overnight—just as a robust, ripe tomato does not appear the day after the seeds were embedded in the soil. When we plant the seed of the gospel and wait patiently for the harvest, our Jesus-centered communities will eventually enjoy the fruit. But it takes time.

What would our cities look like seven decades from now if we committed ourselves to the long and arduous process of discipleship?

Marry and have children The next instruction from the Lord to the exiles is to marry and have children, and then to find spouses for their children so that grandchildren will result. Again, this is a reminder that their captivity will encompass multiple generations. God has placed them in a foreign land for their good and His glory—and one of the institutions that most clearly blesses people and glorifies God is the family. He wanted the exiles to establish these covenantal relationships so their family lines could carry on and bless the whole world through their seed. “Multiply,” he commanded them. “Do not dwindle away!”

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The spiritual parallel should be clear to us. As we proclaim the gospel and make disciples, we must not only pray for those we see today with our own eyes, but also for those yet to come. We pray for our spiritual children, and their spiritual children, and their spiritual children, down through the generations. Just as Jesus prayed for all believers through the ages (John 17:20), we can pray for those who will eventually fill out our spiritual family trees.

Work for peace and prosperity In his final set of instructions, the Lord tells His people to turn their eyes outward, away from the concerns of their own homes and gardens and families, and toward the city in which God has planted them. They are not to be passive residents, indifferent to the needs and concerns of

those around them. Rather, they are to take active roles in working for their neighbors’ peace and prosperity. As the city prospers, so will God’s people. As the city goes, so goes the state and nation.

And their calling is our calling. We pray for our cities, asking the Lord to bless them and make His presence known within them. But we also have work to do. God is commanding us to identify and become involved in the difficult issues confronting our cities.

Put down roots where God places you, even when it’s hard, even when the neighbors are different from you, even when the grass seems greener elsewhere. The purpose in life is not to live free from pain, suffering, chaos, and strife. The purpose is to bring glory to God. We won’t transform America’s cities and neighborhoods overnight. But we can trust God to change hearts and lives as we labor faithfully.

There are no quick fixes. We need churches that will remain and invest in the lives of the people, block by block, generation after generation.

People are flocking to the urban areas of our nation. As God’s people, we must learn to exegete our cities and understand their history and story—and then help write a better ending chapter for them and the people who live in them.

by Walter Harvey

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MicroChurches: Families on Mission

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merican culture constantly tells us that bigger is better. But is this true of the church? A growing number of Christian leaders are saying no, declaring that big sanctuaries, big budgets, and big staffs are not the way to reach every community. In some contexts, micro is the most effective model to employ in proclaiming the gospel and making disciples.

The leaders of the WI+H movement have, for the most part, spent the majority of their ministry lives in the prevailing Western macro-church model in which congregations own buildings and land, hire pastors to do most of the work, and expend much of their energy on creating a Sundaymorning experience for those who already believe. This is the model they grew up in, were trained in, and have been effective in. But they have also seen that this model—along with its

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emphasis on getting people into their buildings—leaves large segments of their communities on the outside. So these leaders want to make room for micro- as well as macro-expressions of the church within the movement.

So what are micro-churches?

Basically, they are spiritual families on mission. They are based on New

opportunities quickly. Some micro-churches function entirely independently, but most are accountable to broader networks or denominations that provide apostolic oversight. The simple structure extends to buildings as well; very few micro-churches own property.

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Testament principles and are just as biblically sound as current Western models. They are intentionally simple, streamlined, informal, relational, and often volunteer led. Perhaps the best way to describe micro-churches is to look at their most common characteristics. Here are some of them:

SIMPLE STRUCTURE Micro-churches have a minimal amount of structure—just enough to function effectively and often no more than that. Their organization tends to be flat rather than hierarchical. This mode of operation enables the church to make decisions and respond to

Another obvious difference between micro-churches and the prevailing model is the size of the church staff. Most micro-churches are led by volunteers or bivocational ministers. One reason for this is simple economics. By definition, a micro-church is small (typically no more than about twenty people), so it would be nearly impossible for one to financially support a full-time leader. Another reason is philosophical. Micro-church proponents and practitioners value being in the marketplace, building relationships with people and families in their communities who are not yet followers of Jesus. Micro-church leaders see their so-called secular job as ministry in itself. The fact that these spiritual leaders are not full time does not mean leadership standards are lowered. Anyone in a position of spiritual authority and leadership must meet the requirements laid out for church leaders in the New Testament.

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ALL BELIEVERS ARE MINISTERS Micro-church practitioners believe in the biblical concept of the priesthood of all believers (1 Peter 2:9). Although some are part of the five-fold ministry (apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers), and others serve as elders and deacons, all believers in the church are called to use their unique spiritual-gift mix to serve one another and their community. Micro-church leaders must take the time to get to know everyone within their groups to help them identify, develop, and deploy their spiritual gifts.

GATHER TO SCATTER Micro-churches meet regularly for worship, prayer, and Bible-based teaching, but their gatherings do not necessarily resemble a Sundaymorning church service. These gatherings could take place in a church building, but more often they happen in homes, workplaces, or even parks.

Worship and teaching both look different from what is experienced in the prevailing macro-church model. There might be musicians, but they are not necessary. Worship might include singing, but it could also involve recitation of Scripture or simply recounting the things God is doing in the lives of those present. Teaching

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might be in the form of a sermon, but it could also be a guided discussion based on a passage of Scripture. No matter what it looks like, the gathering prepares the micro-church to go out into the community with the love and message of Jesus.

FAMILY ON MISSION Micro-churches are focused outward, not inward. They are concerned with reaching their communities with the gospel of Jesus, not on meeting their own needs. Microchurches often feel burdened to reach a very specific geographic location

(a neighborhood or part of a city) or demographic group (disenfranchised young people or de-churched families, for example). This focus is constantly before the people, as they gather to pray for their neighbors or coworkers and strategize about meeting needs and contextualizing the gospel to reach them.

FOCUSED ON MULTIPLICATION Healthy micro-churches attempt to make disciples who make disciples, who plant churches that plant churches. It begins with being disciples, with being apprentices of Jesus. This focus demands that micro-church leaders learn how to make disciples. As believers learn to live and love like Jesus, they will lead others to Him and teach them to do the same. The result will be more micro-churches that multiply into even more micro-churches. As Mike Breen writes in Building a Discipling Culture, “Here’s the thing that can be difficult to wrap our minds around: If you make disciples, you always get the church. But if you make a church, you rarely get disciples.” Micro-church leaders understand the proper order of this formula: Disciples lead to churches.

MICRO SIMPLY WORKS It comes down to this: Not only is the micro-church model closest to how Jesus and His first apostles actually lived, but it works. In cities across

the country and around the world, in nations with a rich Christian heritage and in regions where the name of Jesus is hardly ever spoken, the Holy Spirit is breathing life into micro-church structures and bringing forth spiritual fruit.

In Saudi Arabia, the heart of the Islamic world, a church planter serving with Live Dead reports: “We have seen a local church planted and rejoice that it is growing. Local leaders are being developed, and the body is learning to love one another.

Men and women have been saved and baptized from Saudi, Yemeni, Sudanese, Egyptian, and Palestinian backgrounds. . . . God is moving by His Spirit.”

The same micro-church principles and strategies are bearing fruit—in the form of disciples and churches—in India and Central Asia and closer to home in urban areas like Minneapolis and New Orleans and Omaha.

Jesus commissioned His followers to make disciples who make disciples who make disciples. Church planters and other Christian leaders must ask themselves: How do we do this? What is the most effective way to accomplish this task? The WI+H movement and countless others across the country recognize that micro-churches are uniquely positioned to meet the challenges and needs of reaching the inner cities of America.

– by Michael Murray

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t’s no secret that many churches were initially paralyzed by the coronavirus pandemic. They could no longer gather together on Sunday mornings for worship, preaching, and prayer. They could no longer pass an offering plate. Their buildings sat empty.

But for those with a broader perspective—for those who see church as something more than a place people visit on a certain day of the week for a specific set of activities—the upheaval of 2020 and ’21 created opportunities to be the church.

“The pandemic has presented incredible opportunities to live on mission,” says Tom Lyon, a micro-church pastor in Minneapolis. “Gatherings were shut down, and people couldn’t be with each other physically, but there were opportunities everywhere to serve others.”

Lyon and his wife, Trina, started The Fruit Church Minneapolis in the middle of the pandemic—not an ideal time to plant a church in the prevailing Western model, but perhaps the perfect time to consider micro. They spent time getting to know the members of their community, learning about their specific needs, and then meeting those needs.

Since becoming a follower of Jesus as a 15-year-old on the South Side of Chicago, Lyon had grown frustrated with the church’s inability to relate to Millennials and members of Generation Z, especially those in the Black community.

“I noticed that the church’s influence was dying,” he says.

“More and more young people were disconnected from the church. We weren’t speaking their language. Most kids didn’t know anything about the church. They didn’t see it as something they needed.”

The answer, he realized, was what he calls a lived-out apologetic—showing people Jesus by living and loving like Jesus. The two-headed crisis of the pandemic and the murder of George Floyd laid bare the needs of the underserved

communities of north Minneapolis. The inner city’s economic struggles were exacerbated by social unrest. “Martin Luther King, Jr., said, ‘A riot is the language of the unheard,’ ” Lyon says. “The community was hurting, and we wanted the church to become a voice of peace. And we wanted to be a narrator of truth and transparency.”

While The Fruit Church Minneapolis has been establishing a presence on social media, the ministry of the micro-church has largely been face to face, as Tom and Trina go into their community to meet and get to know people, as they become the hands and feet of God’s mission in the world, the physical embodiment of the Missio Dei. Throughout the past year, they have begun serving the members of a tent encampment in their part of the city. Tom says, “When Trina and I first walked into that tent community, people came out of their tents and asked, ‘Who are you? Why are you here? Nobody ever comes to see what’s really happening here.’ ” As they have built relationships inside the encampment and started to meet some of the physical needs of those inside, Tom and Trina have been welcomed. “They started showing us their community,” Tom says. “They started showing us how they are honoring each other. One guy built a shower that people can use, five gallons at a time. Another guy built a generator out of two old lawnmowers. Another guy built a shed to store their food. . . . There’s a sign at the outer edge of the tent community that says, ‘This is what community looks like.’

These people are living it.”

The last time Tom was in the encampment, he met a man who hadn’t been around during his previous visits.

The man became territorial, asking, “Who is this guy?

What does he want?”

A community leader nearby said, “That’s Tom.” The agitated man asked, “Who’s Tom?” The leader replied, “I’m not really sure, but I think he’s a Christian. I think he’s a pastor. He’s helping us out with whatever we need.”

Hearing this explanation, the man calmed down and sat in his chair. He finally looked at Tom and issued a challenge to the church everywhere: “We need more people like you.”

by Michael Murray

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12 charts that show syst Statistics and charts from businessinsider.com

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stematic racism in the us

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Why create a discipleship making movement focused on people wrongfully convicted that have been found innocen Project) During the 2015–2016 school year, Black studen but they made up 35% of students suspended once, 44 students expelled. (US Department of Education) Black Am but Black Americans are 6 times more likely to be arrest of Colored People) In New York City, 88% of police stop involved white people. (Of those stops, 70% were compl study found that job resumes with traditionally white-soun traditionally Black names. (Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Acti workers to be employed in a job that is consistent with t Black Americans make up 12% of the overall workforce, Economic and Policy Research) A 2019 study by executive of Fortune 500 and S&P 500 companies. Only 8.7% of the 6 only four Fortune 500 companies have Black CEOs: pha retailer Lowe’s, fashion holding company Tapestry, and in came into session after the 2018 midterm elections, was members of Congress are Black. Similarly, overall income in 2018. While there are about six times as many white Am by the former is about 17 times that held by the latter. In typical white man made. For every student enrolled, the a a white school district Poor-white school districts receiv — an injustice all to itself. Yet they are still receiving near 15% of Black students from less-educated households w 33% of the country’s prison population — yet just 12% of t times as likely to be imprisoned as their white peers, and to be imprisoned than white men. For every 100,000 Black white men there are just 392 inmates. Black Americans w for marijuana possession Black people are 6.77 times mo 26

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n blessing black people in urban pain points? Of the 375 nt and freed, 225 (60%) were African American (Innocence nts represented only 15% of total US student enrollment, 4% of students suspended more than once, and 36% of mericans and white Americans use drugs at similar rates, ted for it. (The National Association for the Advancement ps in 2018 involved Black and Latinx people, while 10% letely innocent.) (New York Civil Liberties Union) One US nding names received 50% more callbacks than those with ion Lab) In the US, Black workers are less likely than white their level of education. (Economic Policy Institute) While they account for 17% of frontline employees (Center for e-staffing firm Crist Kolder associates looked at the CEOs 675 companies in the study had CEOs of color. As of 2020, armaceutical company Merck & Co., home improvement nsurance company TIAA. While the 116th Congress, which s the most diverse ever, only 57 of the current 535 voting for Black Americans was about 42% lower than for whites mericans as Black Americans, the aggregate wealth held 2018, the typical Black woman earned just 66% what the average nonwhite school district receives $2,226 less than ve about $150 less per student than the national average rly $1,500 more than poor-nonwhite school districts. Only went on to finish college Black inmates made up roughly the US’s total population. Black men aged 18-19 were 12.7 d Black men of all ages were roughly 5.8 times more likely k men there are 2,272 inmates, whereas for every 100,000 were arrested 3.6 times more often than white Americans ore likely to be under parole supervision than white people M AT T E R S I S A M I N I M U M

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and church planting

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t’s lunchtime in Milwaukee, and a car pulls to the curb in front of UpStart Kitchen on West Fond du Lac Avenue. The passenger leans her head out the window, gestures to the building, and asks a gentleman on the sidewalk, “Is this a restaurant?”

The man happens to be the CEO of the corporation that owns the business, so he is able to give her a definitive answer: “No, it’s a commercial kitchen.”

As the car speeds away, the CEO points out a spot up the block that he hopes will one day be the site of a cafe, retail space, apartments, and more.

UpStart Kitchen may not be a restaurant, but it is the start of something much bigger.

Inside the doors of UpStart, a half-dozen people work efficiently at various food-preparation tasks, demonstrating the fluidity of movement that comes from good training and long experience in a kitchen. UpStart features about 1,350 square feet of kitchen space, 24/7 secure access, three rentable kitchen areas (bakery, hotline, and sandwich prep), and rentable storage space (dry goods, walk-in freezer, and refrigerator).

UpStart Kitchen was opened in 2020 by PRISM Economic Development Corporation with the goal of providing local food entrepreneurs access to an affordable, fully equipped commercial kitchen along with resources to help them start or grow their food business. By serving as a business incubator for entrepreneurs, UpStart Kitchen seeks to address two of the most pervasive problems in America’s inner cities: high unemployment and a lack of jobs that offer a living wage.

PRISM grew out of Parklawn Assembly of God in the Sherman Park neighborhood of Milwaukee, and the church’s former senior pastor, Bishop Walter Harvey, serves as CEO of the nonprofit corporation. Harvey knows that any Christian ministry that works in the inner city must address the whole person—not just the spiritual aspect but the physical, social, and economic realities as well.

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‘Self-determination and responsibility’ One of Harvey’s role models in the area of community development is John M. Perkins, a minister, author, and civil rights leader who has been working to bring holistic transformation to the Black community for decades. In his book A Quiet Revolution, Perkins writes, “A ministry in the poor community which has no plans to create economic support systems in the community is no better than the federal government’s programs which last only as long as outside funds are budgeted. The long-term goal must be to develop a sense of self-determination and responsibility with the neighborhood itself.”

In A Quiet Revolution, Perkins calls the church to the three R’s of Christian community: relocation, reconciliation, and redistribution. The first point deals with living among the poor in the area of need; it’s not possible to reach the cities while living in the suburbs. The second focuses on reconciling ourselves across racial and cultural barriers, and on reconciling people to God. The third R, redistribution, is the focus of PRISM and other nonprofit organizations with similar goals. Redistribution is not simply taking wealth from one group of people and giving it to another. It involves working to ensure that wealth and financial resources stay in the communities in which they were generated.

Different ethnic communities in the United States experience drastically different financial realities. Not only does the average Black family have less than one-tenth the net worth of the average white family, but money circulates in different communities at radically different rates.

Bank Greenwood points out that although Black individuals and families have nearly $1 trillion in gross national income, only 2 percent is reinvested into Black communities. An organization called The Black Star Project has studied the circulation of money in various communities and discovered some startling statistics. A dollar spent in the Asian community stays in that community for thirty days. In the Jewish community, a dollar will circulate for twenty days. A dollar spent in the white community stays there for seventeen days.

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But a dollar spent in the Black community circulates for only six hours before it moves on to another community. The reasons for this are quite simple: Citizens in Black communities have limited opportunities to spend their money in Black-owned businesses, which would keep that money in their community.

Black homeowners who walk into a bank to pay their mortgage are handing over their money to a corporation that is based in another city or state. Within hours of that mortgage payment, the funds have left the Black community.

Just the Beginning This brings us back to Perkins’s idea of redistribution—and to PRISM’s goal of empowering entrepreneurs in the Sherman Park neighborhood and beyond. Perkins’s call for self-determination within a community aligns with PRISM’s mission to “provide access to resources that result in sustained economic growth and human flourishing.”

Harvey says that UpStart Kitchen is just the beginning. Across the street from UpStart is a building that will house a Clean Laundry franchise, possibly before the end of 2021. And PRISM has plans to revitalize the entire block with a long list of enterprises.

These businesses not only provide jobs for community members, offer valuable and needed services to the neighborhood, and allow the area to generate long-term wealth, but they will also eventually play a vital role in the WI+H movement. As WI+H develops micro-church models to reach America’s inner cities, the leaders of these new churches will need the ability to earn a living independent of the churches, which are not structured to pay full-time ministers. Harvey envisions Clean Laundry franchises popping up across the country, providing income opportunities for the men and women the Lord is calling to serve Him and establish His church in urban areas.

And Harvey also sees a day when economic development corporations modeled on PRISM spring to life and work shoulder to shoulder with angel investors and church planters to bring meaningful work, positive change, and spiritual fruit to some of America’s most difficult places.

by Michael Murray

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Strateg artners Strategic Partnerships

Urban and Suburban Churches Working Together

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s Pastor Darrell Geddes drove throughout south Minneapolis in the days following the murder of George Floyd, he surveyed his community through a shepherd’s eyes. He saw the need to be with those who were hurting. He saw the need for healing, for justice, for peace. And he observed something more immediately pressing: He saw the need for food.

The peaceful demonstrations that had sprung up in the aftermath of Floyd’s death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer had turned violent, and hundreds of buildings were burned and gutted. Geddes noticed that among the destroyed businesses were two Aldi grocery stores, a Cub Foods, and a Target store just off East Lake Street about a mile away from the church he leads. With these businesses looted, the community suddenly had no access to groceries.

While he was driving through the neighborhood assessing the damage, Geddes received two phone calls within minutes of each other. One was from a pastor at Grace Church, a congregation in suburban Eden Prairie.

The other was from Nate Ruch, lead pastor of Emmanuel Christian Center, a multisite church in the northern

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suburbs of Minneapolis. Both pastors asked the same question: “How can we help?”

Geddes, pastor of Christ Church International since 2002, described what he was seeing. “The community is devastated,” he said. “Food insecurity is going to be a huge issue. People are going to be desperate for food. We need to become a food hub for this community.”

Ruch immediately made plans to join the effort.

He says, “We were in a series at the time, preaching on Nehemiah and talking about broken-down city walls. So there was a natural parallel. I said that this is our city, and it’s our responsibility to weep and care and not just stand back.” The people of Emmanuel responded. Church leadership allocated funds to help Christ Church buy food, and people started dropping off nonperishable food items.

Within a few days, there was enough food for two truckloads to be delivered to CCI. “Not only did they send food, but they also sent volunteers,” says Geddes, who serves as secretary of the National Black Fellowship of the Assemblies of God. “Their leadership team joined our leadership team. Their church worked alongside our church. We wouldn’t have been able to have

gic erships the same impact without Emmanuel and Grace Church.

They enabled us to be salt and light in our community.”

Both Geddes and Ruch say one of the key elements in their churches’ partnership is their own personal relationship. The men first met in the early 1990s, when Geddes was a professor and Ruch a student at North Central University in Minneapolis. They maintained contact through the years, primarily through district functions, and this shared history enabled them to act quickly when the need presented itself.

“We had the opportunity because we already had a relationship,” Ruch says. “Everything moves at the speed of your relationship. But that’s built over time, and then trust develops.” For suburban pastors who are interested in forging partnerships with urban churches, Ruch says the first step is building relationships with pastors in the cities— listening, learning, and hearing their stories.

Geddes adds that it’s not enough for the pastors alone to build bridges of reconciliation and partnership; church staff and lay leaders must become involved as well.

“A church will not change just because senior leadership has a passion for something,” he says.

Another key in forming partnerships, Geddes says, is intentionality. In the aftermath of the riots sparked by the killing of George Floyd, Geddes received a call from Tom Johnson, pastor of New River Assembly of God in Red Wing, Minnesota. “He sought me out,” Geddes said.

“He was very intentional. He was watching the news and decided he wanted the perspective of a pastor living in the midst of it. He was tired of what he was seeing on cable news and wanted firsthand information.”

Johnson says, “It’s too easy to watch something on TV and then make an unchristian judgment. I think a lot of people do that. . . . I wanted our church, which is in a white town, to connect. People can sound incredibly stupid

because they are just not connected to others who have had different experiences. They don’t know where others are coming from, so they can’t speak with wisdom.”

To help bridge this knowledge gap, Geddes and Johnson have preached in each other’s churches and have arranged combined work days for their congregations that have included time for dialogue. As a result, New River AG has helped Christ Church to renovate a space that will be used as a homework hub. This hub will be open three or four nights per week during the school year so students in south Minneapolis can access the technology and tutoring they need.

This project highlights another partnership key that Ruch lives by. “Discover what the real need is,” he says.

“Sometimes we want to answer the question before we even ask it. But we need to be quick to listen.” Sometimes the urban church needs financial resources to start a ministry.

Sometimes it needs volunteers willing to put in a few hours of physical labor.

And sometimes the church could benefit from a specific area the suburban church might be proficient in, such as accounting practices or logistic systems. The key is to listen before assuming what the need is.

Finally, Geddes wants suburban and rural pastors to see partnership with urban churches as a marathon and not a sprint. The Floyd killing and subsequent riots are now history, but the cooperation they sparked continues to this day. “Even though the heat of the moment has passed, the relationships still stand,” he says. “We want to be intentional about maintaining that for the long term.”

by Michael Murray

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The WI+H Movement is emerging now in 9 cities, with countless more to come.

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Among Wolves: Disciple-Making in the City

by Dhati Lewis Lewis, lead pastor of Blueprint Church in Atlanta, points out that the world has changed dramatically over the past 200 years, from rural to urban, but the evangelical church has not kept pace with this shift. His desire is to develop a strategy that embraces the density and diversity of the city context and helps indigenous churches create a culture of disciple making. The result, he writes, is “a church that is both culturally relevant and doctrinally sound, while fully present in the urban context.”

Becoming a Disciple Maker: The Pursuit of Level 5 Disciple Making

by Bobby Harrington and Greg Wiens The authors’ stated goal is disciple making that leads to multiplication. They write, “That is our big prayer here—to see a disciple-making movement resulting in new communities of faith. We believe that the movemental dynamic of disciples who make disciples who plant churches that plant churches is part of the multiplication vision that Jesus gave His disciples in Matthew 28:19–20 and in Acts. 1:8.”

The Color of Compromise and How to Fight Racism

by Jemar Tisby In the first of these two books, Tisby enlightens readers on the roots of racism and injustice in the American church since the nation’s founding, up to the present day when some people of faith still work against racial justice. The book is painful as well as inspirational, as Tisby offers concrete solutions for improved race relations and a racially inclusive church. The second book builds a practical framework for confronting racism in our relationships and everyday life, using the ARC of racial justice (awareness, relationships, commitment).

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The WI+H movement includes a confluence of ideas such as the uniqueness of urban ministry, church-formation movements, disciple making, racial reconciliation, apostleship, and leadership development. Here are some of the best books we can recommend on these topics (in alphabetical order by title).

The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating Apostolic Movements

by Alan Hirsch Hirsch, an Australian author and thought leader in the missional church movement, explores the factors that come together to generate high-impact, exponentially explosive, spiritually vibrant Jesus movements in any time and context. He offers the concept of apostolic genius, a unique energy and force saturating Jesus movements. The core of apostolic genius is the idea that Jesus is Lord. The remaining five elements are disciple making, missional-incarnational impulse, community, organic systems, and apostolic environment (a recognition of apostolic ministry).

Hero Maker: Five Essential Practices for Leaders to Multiply Leaders

by Dave Ferguson Ferguson, a church planter in Chicago, presents five powerful practices found in the ministry of Jesus: multiplication thinking, permission giving, disciple multiplying, gift activating, and kingdom building. Incorporating these steps will enable ministry leaders to activate the gifts of those around them, help others take ownership of their mission, and develop ways to measure kingdom-building progress.

Making Disciples: Developing Lifelong Followers of Jesus

by Ralph Moore Moore, a longtime pastor, offers a model of church ministry that sees every member as a minister and as discipleship as more than just another program of the church. This practical, Bible-based handbook will guide churches of any size or context to focus their ministries around Jesus’ command to make disciples of all nations.

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Multiply and Letters to the Church

by Francis Chan We were made, Chan writes, to make disciples. In Multiply, he shows how that happens, covering topics such as living as a disciple maker, living as the church, and how to study the Bible. In Letters, he further challenges the church to live as God intends. He writes, “We’ve strayed so far from what God calls church. We all know it. We know that what we’re experiencing is radically different from the church of Scripture. For decades, church leaders like myself have lost sight of the inherent mystery of the church... It’s time for that to change.”

Ordinary People, Extraordinary Power

by John Eckhardt The book’s subtitle says it all: “Be activated to heal, deliver, prophesy, preach, and demonstrate God’s kingdom.” Eckhart looks back to the early church as the perfect example of how a small group of committed believers can affect their communities. The early apostles transformed culture wherever they went, and this book helps its readers to understand the purpose and function of spiritual apostles now. Eckhart looks at the characteristics and roles of apostles and how God uses this gift in today’s world.

The Starfish and the Spirit: Unleashing the Leadership Potential of Churches and Organizations

by Lance Ford, Rob Wegner, and Alan Hirsch The authors use the metaphor of the starfish to propose a model of the church that can function without a rigid central authority and is able to quickly and nimbly react to external forces. They advocate for placing starfish networks within existing church structures, enabling both agility and accountability. This model encourages church leaders to view themselves as curators of a community on mission rather than the source of certainty for every question and project, and as being in the middle of the church, not at the top.

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The WI+H movement includes a confluence of ideas such as the uniqueness of urban ministry, church-formation movements, disciple making, racial reconciliation, apostleship, and leadership development. Here are some of the best books we can recommend on these topics (in alphabetical order by title).

T4T: A Discipleship Re-Revolution

by Steve Smith and Ying Kai T4T tells the story of a church-planting movement in Asia that resulted in 1.7 million baptisms and 150,000 new church starts within a decade. One of the missionaries who was instrumental in the movement, Ying Kai, developed a resource to train multiplying generations of national partners who in turn would train generations more. That resource, called Training for Trainers (T4T), is the basis of this book. It integrates evangelism, discipleship, church planting, and leadership development in a seamless process that has proven effective in diverse contexts.

Transformed: A New Way of Being Christian

by Caesar Kalinowski Kalinowski asks, “What if Christianity was less about doing and more about being?”

He encourages believers to recognize their new identity based on who Jesus is and to understand they are “now part of God’s family of missionary servants.” This identity changes everything about God’s people, setting us free from a performance-driven spirituality and allowing Him to change the rhythms and patterns of our lives and bring transformation to our relationships from the inside out.

Urban Apologetics: Restoring Black Dignity with the Gospel

by Eric Mason Many young African-Americans are disinterested in Christianity, and others are leaving the church to pursue false religious ideas that appear to offer a spirituality that is more indigenous to their ethnicity. Mason and his lineup of contributors offer the first book focused entirely on cults, religious groups, and ethnocentric ideologies prevalent in the Black community. It educates the church on legitimate issues Black people have with Western Christianity and ultimately shows that Jesus is the only one who can restore our identity.

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FAQs What does WI+H stand for? Is it an acronym?

No, it is not an acronym. WI+H is a disciple-making movement inviting Christ followers to be with Jesus in the urban pain points, to be with other believers in relational accountability, and to do life with the people who are most marginalized by societal issues.

Do you have church planters of color (ethnic minorities) that you could send to us so we could plant a campus of our church in an urban pain point?

No, we are not structured to staff churches and organizations. There are organizations that specialize in staffing. Our focus is on mobilizing people to come to or assist those already indigenous to an area in disciple making and community transformation.

The American church has adopted the vision of world missions—to send missionaries around the globe to proclaim the Good News and make disciples. How can we connect this passion of the church with the needs and opportunities in America’s inner cities?

World missions is a big and global vision. People feel so small personally within the context of the entire world; as a result, they realize this is a task we can only accomplish by linking arms and working together with the whole church. World missions also includes a sense of adventure and the appeal of exotic experiences. WI+H offers both of these and more. It is a massive vision that is beyond any one person or location (our goal is to see every urban pain point transformed), and it is an invitation to the adventure of being with Jesus and other Christ followers and people in these places, doing life with those who live there, transforming these spaces from the inside out.

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How is the racial divide addressed by the WI+H movement?

WI+H is highly relational, and a key to relational success is listening.

WI+H offers listening studios and hands-on, practical exposure to people and places in urban context.

WI+H is a disciple-making movement emphasizing creative and simple expressions of faith communities, including micro-churches. Does this mean you ignore more traditional models of church and church planting?

WI+H does not compete with or criticize any church-planting model.

We need all models of the church to reach our cities, yet we must realize that some people will not be reached with traditional approaches. So we celebrate all methods to make disciples for Christ.

How do businesses plug into WI+H? We are always looking for business partners with a passion to see holistic transformation in the urban centers of America. If you have an interest in investing in this movement or sharing your business expertise, visit WITH.CITY.

Do you offer coaching for traditional-church pastors who want to learn more about how WI+H can help them and their churches shift their mindset and strategies to reach the inner cities of America?

Yes, we have coaches available who are ready and able to walk with pastors and churches through this process. For more information, visit WITH.CITY.

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With the devastation, unemployment, violence, sexism, and racism that exists, this could be the Church’s finest hour in America. We can give people a reason to fight for hope again.

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Take action & start creating change TODAY. To us, you’re not a name and email address in a database. We actually want to connect with you.

Go online to with.city to sign up for our next WI+H Philosophy of Change online gathering. We meet regularly! You’ll get to go deep with us and meet the WI+H team.

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MISSION STATEMENT We inspire faith leaders to imagine new possibilities, take action, & lead change that transforms communities from the inside out.

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VISION STATEMENT Every community transformed by an active faith community, doing life with and improving the lives of people there.

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Connect with us online at WITH.CITY

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