they are not. In that sense, he has modeled for all these years the realism of which he writes. Yet, he does so with hope—a hard-wrung hope that keeps working for the personal, corporate, and systemic transformation that the Biblical story calls us towards. And no doubt the reason that he persists in this mission journey is that he continues to pray and contemplate the divine. Without this practice he wouldn’t be here today. The three main writers whom he draws upon for his ministry and whose thought he elucidates in this book—Niebuhr, Moltmann and Merton—are not only his mentors, they have become companions in the work of urban ministry.
Another reason to read this book is that it gives new imagination for ways that we can partner with others in urban ministry. One of the strengths of the church Barry pastors, the Longhouse, is that it looks for common ground to build upon with others. On this path, both Barry and the Longhouse reflect these three mentors and companions. On a personal level, I believe it is part of the reason why he can pray monthly with the local Pentecostal, Charismatic, and Reformed pastors; why he can work for social change with Catholics, Baptists and trade unions; and why he can offer hope for those struggling with addiction by working alongside psychiatrists and counselors. What he offers in this book is a vision for how justice and love, the two-sided shape of Christ’s mission, can be integrated. Given that the groups he partners with have often separated them, this is good news for urban ministry today.
You don’t have to be with Barry long to see why this model of urban ministry that he espouses is compelling; it is nestled deeply within his life and ministry. Barry lives amid the stark realities of poverty, and often peppers his speech with gruff words depicting this reality, yet he does not forsake hope. Hope keeps seeping out of his speech too, like antibodies fighting disease. As he engages the world in the divine name, he continues reflecting, ruminating, and forgiving—he continues to pray. For almost three decades now, we have walked the streets of East Vancouver, he mostly along Hastings Street, I along Commercial Drive. I trust him. You can trust him too. And you can trust that his vision for ministry will give you courage to confront what is in front of you, hope to embrace God’s renewed future, and desire to bring all of this before the One who groans with us and leads us towards new life.
My proposal is this: Read this book, because if you do, I believe that you will wake up the next day ready to go back to work in the place and parish God has called you with a realistic, prayerful hope. . . .
. . . Tim Dickau
Preface and Acknowledgements
For years, then decades, and now generations, I have wondered what makes and keeps an urban ministry—any ministry, really—pastorally and prophetically faithful for the long hauls. How is it possible to discern in the service of ministry a comprehensive and compelling perspective? Thankfully there have been and are earnest contributions to this field of research. But the field and task remain incomplete and imperfect. Ministry in the city, which always includes more than merely the inner-city or urban core of the city given the pervasive pressures of “urbanism as a way of life”,1 has been engaged by practitioners, participant-observers, and academics for generations. The best models are likely those based on reflection and action—or action, then reflection on it—and finally, further revised reflections. I have long felt that urban ministry and theology models feel particularly helpful when both ministry and theology are combined—as with the 1948–1968 East Harlem Protestant Parish or the likes of an inter-generational urban theologian such as Kenneth Leech.
My work and writing has also been shaped by community-based initiatives—such as A Community Aware (ACA), the group noted in Chapter 7—which is effective at bridging the gap between the theoretical and the practical aspects of community, as they provide space for intellectual development in the context of one’s experiences and emotions. The following thoughts were expressed by Andrea Reid, a former First Nations Studies Program student who did research with the Longhouse Ministry. Her words speak to the importance of bridging the gap between the theoretical and personal in the practical aspects of urban ministry.
It is so easy to judge someone based on the way that they look or come across, without considering that person as a unique human being with an amazing set of experiences, struggles, and insights that you could not have previously imagined. Although this is something that I have always known on a theoretical level, I am now incorporating that realization into my life more fully and consciously. I am truly humbled and amazed by people and their struggles. Often, people do not realize how much they have to share and offer based on their unique life experiences. Through our relations with others, we have the possibility to open up to so much more than is possible in isolation. Together, we can work to realize a world that is rich in diversity, creativity, and compassion.2
Even though there have been many earnest contributions, the interpretive task to provide a compelling perspective on urban ministry remains incomplete and imperfect. This book is a reflection on the biblical and classical virtues of justice, hope, and prayer, considering how they might assist an urban ministry to be both faithfully public and prophetic over the long haul. For we need a disciplined commitment that extends beyond the initial and enthusiastic inspiration to get involved and moves towards long-term dedication. Such discipline is not a ready-made roadmap, but rather comes as we live out our convictions.3 As we share those convictions with others along the way, seeking both encouragement and revision, we also need to discover resources of renewal and bold modesty for when weariness sets in and we are tempted by self-righteousness and despair.
As an urban minister in several center and inner-city zones for forty years, I have wondered how urban ministry might be grounded in both comprehensive theory and compelling and realistic practice that acknowledges the formidable limits, vulnerabilities, and fragilities of the human condition and the struggles of urban core city living.4 I began inner-city ministry with the simple thrill of just hearing the varied sounds of life on the streets and in backyards (for those who have them) and came to appreciate on tenement roof-tops cooler summer breezes amid sizzling, humid weather. As I got to work within the city core areas, I became acutely aware of churches that had followed their parishioners to the suburbs. But I also became aware of the East Harlem influence on the Toronto Christian Resource Centre. These ministries returned to the inner-city before and even as professionals moved back, seeking the convenience of proximity to work or studies and perhaps recently to exercise a semblance of climate responsibility. Alas, such migration has brought with it mixed blessings: dilapidated or even abandoned housing units were retrieved and restored, at high prices, while the resident welfare and working poor scrambled for any kind of remaining rental stock. Living where I work has been a central motif of my privilege to work in urban ministry and hence engage in a lot of hopefully consistent ways and means of being available—easier said than done, despite the witness of others. Sensing an ending that is sooner rather than later—ending as both finis and as telos, as one’s mortality and yet as a purposeful completion—I felt nudged to reflect on the years and places, and now the decades. I have always longed for my predecessors to actually reflect and pass on their memoirs as encouraging legacies, though few have been able. The Word on the Street: An Invitation to Community Ministry in Canada marked a welcome exception, as eighteen of us gathered for a solid week in mid-country Winnipeg for disciplinary sharing, recording and writing, followed by a year of further culling and editing. Other examples are duly noted in later chapters.
My modest efforts to date consist of:
a. wrestling with “radicalism as a way of life” via a Chicago Theological Seminary B.D. (now, MDiv.) thesis;
b. The Word on the Street (1990) anthology by practicing community or urban ministers who represented a dozen Canadian cities at the time. These professionals, several of us full-time at part-time pay, engaged for a week and earnestly shared via their nudging, creative writing coach (the late Don Bailey) with plenty of follow-up editing;
c. a Master of Theology thesis which endeavored to analyze several case studies by engaging grounded theory in a perspective