Interesting view of 'loving the city' from an African American perspective. It challenged me on some approaches. Anthony Bradley is a thoughtful Reformed pastor in NY. Love to hear your feedback. Here is his conclusion:
"As such, one would expect that on Sunday a church that's really "loving the city" making claims about "renewing the city," and so on, would have pews filled with single black and Latino adults, single moms, pregnant women, ex-cons, neighborhood children, substance abusing addicts, HIV/AIDS patients, the unemployed, and so on, in addition to those elites who have the opposite providence in order to transfer human capital and demonstrate solidarity with those who are disadvantaged."
I like the challenge- how do we practically get there? It puts all parties out of their comfort zone or outside of our religious traditions/preferences-- and I think that's why it's hard to make it happen. My old church had all the congregants the blogger names (ex-cons, recovering alcoholics, neighborhood kids, single moms, educated and business elite, homeless, etc...), but the gospel was missing from the pulpit- and that's NO good.
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