98, 104, 112.
62. Leech, Prayer and Prophecy, 290; cf. his “Agenda for an Urban Spirituality” in Through Our Long Exile, Chapter 10.
63. See also the works and website offerings of the Franciscan Richard Rohr, the Jesuit John Dear, the Benedictine Joan Chittister and among Canadians, Ron Dart and Donald Grayston of The Thomas Merton Society (also, Canadian President Ross Labrie) and former United Church of Canada moderator and still a virtual circuit-rider, Bill Phipps.
64. See representatively with their instructive subtitles: Cities and Churches: Readings of the Urban Church, ed. Lee; Urban Theology: A Reader, ed. Northcott; Churches, Cities, and Human Community: Urban Ministry in the United States 1945–1985, ed. Green and Crossover City: Resources for Urban Mission and Transformation.
65. There are exceptions of course, especially within Canadian historical, denominational studies. The Presbyterian Church in Canada hosted a 1919 pre-General Assembly with a focus on city ministries, and John Moir draws due attention to the Presbyterian Church’s mandate (before splitting to form part of the United Church of Canada in 1925), to encourage an ecumenical cooperation in response especially to returning WW I veterans and immigrants, affirming that the only permanent cure for the evils of our time “requires an application of Christian principles to the whole conduct of life.” Enduring Witness, 213–14. For this reference, I am indebted to the Vancouver School of Theology’s Professor Richard Topping.
66. Shearer, “The Redemption of the City,” 194, cf. 191–96 for “Practical Christianity,” (italics added). I am indebted to VST’s Professor Richard Topping for this reference.
67. Green, Churches, Cities, and Human Community, 361.
68. Ibid., 362.
69. Ibid., Green, 363, citing H. Paul Douglas, The City’s Church. NY: Friendship Press, 1927.
70. This residency via the invitation of the CRC’s executive director, Michael Blair; see especially their concluding section “Hope, Home and Imagination” and opening reflections on cultural displacement so akin to Alexander’s “The Dislocation Theory of Addiction,” 57–84, (italics added). Elsewhere are the examples of Leech cited above and the experiences of the relationship of theological seminaries and “The Open Door Community,” both in Atlanta, Georgia as documented in A Work of Hospitality with its instructive subtitle: The Open Door Reader 1982–2003.
71. Crysdale, Churches Where Is, 110, 111.
72. Community Work in Canada, ed. Warf, Chapter 5 case study of “Just Society Movement.”
73. Blaikie, The Blaikie Report with its agenda subtitle: An Insider’s View of Faith and Politics, Bill having been was a New Democratic Party MP and United Church minister for 30+ years. See also Deb Cameron Fawkes, “There is a Power, Not Ourselves, That Makes for Righteousness” Tommy Douglas: Political Life as Religious Vocation for Douglas’ social gospel, influence of Christian realist theology, and his whole political career as a sustained vocation of ministry.
74. Fittingly “dedicated to all those good people who laboured in the vineyard but whose names are not recorded in these pages,” Batter My Heart. Sam’s father, Andrew Roddan, was a towering pastor, 1929–48, during the Depression, in and following the World War II era while with Vancouver’s First United Church. In addition to the latter’s The Church in the Modern City, see also Burrows, Hope Lives Here for specifics on Roddan, Chapter 3.
75. A Dream Not for the Drowsy, an undated, out of print United Church of Canada publication of the Task Group on the Church in the Metropolitan Core to the 1980 Division of Mission in Canada, 3, 5. Moves to re-issue this publication have thus far not succeeded due to alleged “budget cuts.”
76. Ibid.
77. Bendroth, and the agenda subtitle “Designing the City: Reflections on the New Urbanism,” 15, 19.
78. Jim Houston, e-mail comment to Morris (February 7, 2012) on the hindsight significance of this document to which he had been an original consultant and contributor along with the late Stuart Coles. (used with permission).
79. Edited by Christopher Lind and Joe Mihevc; therein, see lay Catholic Mary Boyd’s contributions on PLURA, a once catalytic seed funding source for anti-poverty groups, often associated with and encouraged by urban ministries.
80. For example there were the Catholic New Times, Practice of Ministry in Canada, The Grail, and
smaller publications such as Wheat & Chaff and Unitas.
81. Carse, “Beyond Atheism.”.
82. See Dart, The Beatitudes and further, his web site, http://www.ronsdart.blogspot.ca/. Similarly, see Rohr’s web site, https://cac.org/ and a link therein to daily meditations which consistently connect contemplation to action and vice versa.
83. Cf. Anderson, Walking the Way, “Budgets: A Test Case for Distributive Justice,” 57–61.
84. See Gustafson, Ethics from a Theocentric Perspective, Vol. II, “Ethics and Theology,” 146, passim.
Chapter 3—Urban Ministry Dynamics and Triad Intimations
We have for once learnt to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled—in short from the perspective of those who suffer [. . .] neither bitterness nor envy should have gnawed at the heart during this time, that we should have come to look with new eyes at matters great and small, sorrow and joy, strength and weakness, that our perception of generosity, humanity, justice and mercy should have become clearer, freer, less corruptible.85
When I ponder ways and levels to depict ministry in the city, these prepositions assist. “In” the city implies being involved where a ministry resides and beyond—beyond the immediate address to the surrounding area, district, and even city-wide region. When an urban ministry engages issues that cannot be addressed and redressed merely within its limited sphere of influence, the wider framework of decision-making comes into play. “With” the city implies an embodied or incarnate sensitivity as to what a ministry can possibly engage by walking and struggling with