Center Church: The Gospel in New York

Center Church: The Gospel in New York

New York City has been the scene of much effective urban mission over centuries. Some of America’s earliest and most creative city ministries began there. In its great complexity, New York to this day offers varied examples of redemptive urban mission, ranging from creative church multiplication to specialized ministries of many sorts.

One of the most creative and comprehensive is Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, led by senior pastor Timothy Keller. Founded in 1989 without a building, the Redeemer Church has grown rapidly. Today it attracts some 5,000 people to multiple services at three different sites, though much of its emphasis is on discipleship and church multiplication. Its conception of discipleship is serious but broad, for the church aims “to renew the city socially, spiritually, and culturally.” Redeemer has helped plant over a hundred other congregations throughout the metropolitan area.

In his book Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City, Keller sets out a strategy for reaching cities multidimensionally, using ecological models. Keller outlines a vision embodying three core commitments: gospel-centered, city-centered, and movement-centered. He understands this vision ecologically.

Keller argues that cities can be transformed when a tipping point is reached— “when the number of gospel-shaped Christians in a city becomes so large that Christian influence on the civic and social life of the city—and on the very culture—is

Feature Howard A. Snyder

59 recognizable and acknowledged.” Keller writes,

There is no scientific way to precisely determine a city’s tipping point—the point at which the gospel begins to have a visible impact on the city life and culture. In New York City, we pray for and work toward the time when 10 percent of the center city population is involved in a gospel-centered church. In Manhattan, this would amount to about 100,000 people. 4

Keller’s proposals breathe the spirit of gospel optimism—based not on human ingenuity, but in the power of God working through Christians who are savvy both about the gospel and about urban dynamics.

There is nothing unrealistic or outlandish about this vision. The gospel is powerful enough. Where sin abounds, grace can visibly abound yet more.

Keller’s vision and proposals are worth considering, particularly in light of Redeemer Church’s impact and given Keller’s sensitivity to the dynamic of movements and of ecological realities. The book is a good resource in developing an ecological conception of urban mission.

Keller’s approach is limited in some respects; people from other theological traditions may not be comfortable with aspects of the church’s conservative Reformed perspective. Keller’s emphasis on the ecology of church, city, and movements, however, acknowledges the complexity of urban mission and the fact that God works through various church forms and traditions.

I celebrate Keller’s ecological approach, but would press it further. Keller uses the concept of ecology only analogically. “Likening a gospel city movement to a biological ecosystem is an analogy,” he writes. The church and gospel ministry are different from “a biological ecosystem.” Yet he notes that “the image of the ecosystem conveys how different organisms are interdependent, how the flourishing of one group helps the other groups flourish.” 5

True, but we can push the ecological paradigm further, beyond analogy. Effective urban mission requires that we break through to a real ecological awareness of

4 Timothy Keller, Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012), 376.

5 Ibid., 378.

NEW URBAN WORLD

church, city, and mission.

Much of the dynamic of Viv Grigg’s prophetic ministry among the world’s urban poor, highlighted in his article “Hovering Spirit, Creative Voice, Empowered Transformation:

A Retrospective,” in the first issue of the New Urban World journal, springs from his large-scale ecological sensitivity and models. Though Grigg does not generally use the term ecology in the sense I mean here, his ministry in its comprehensiveness can best

be understood by viewing it through an ecological lens.