This past month 22 students graduated with a masters degree in Global Urban Leadership and one with a doctorate through CTM’s partnership with Bakke Graduate University.

This celebration was the fruit of much labor and much love. Each student read nearly 15,000 pages, written more than 300 pages and completed at least 10 projects in which they translated principles into practice. These students underwent a demanding process of learning how to do theology from below –  learning how to read Scripture with and for the communities they serve. This was no ivory tower experience. This was theology done in the context in which the leader’s serve. All of their classes were held in informal settlements like Kibera and Mathare.

As graduates they join a very exclusive club. Less than 1% of the world’s population holds a masters degree and a fraction of 1% holds a doctorate. A very rare and seductive kind of power was conferred upon them along with their degrees and they will be called to steward it on behalf of those they serve. They will be tempted, as all people with power are tempted, to use their gift for their own ends, thereby excluding others.

Stewarding power and using one’s voice on behalf of the voiceless is not without its risks. That is why Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggemann, said that if we want to teach and preach a subversive Gospel, “The key is not to be detected too soon.” Why? Because theology from below is often experienced as a threat by those from above. This should not surprise us. Even Jesus’ first sermon ended badly. The crowd became enraged and filled with vengeance when Jesus began to teach about the expansive movement of grace throughout history that made room for the excluded (See Luke 4:16-30).

Many times over the years, my urban mentors have reminded me that the poor don’t need me. Rather, I need the poor.

I was reminded of this truth rather powerfully last week when none of the gringos (except for me) were able to come to the Spanish speaking bible study that meets at our house, so our group consisted of only myself and four of my undocumented Mexican friends. One of the families (Felipe and Monica) lives five blocks north of us and has been splitting time between Juarez (their home) and Denver. They were in Juarez in April when gunfire between warring drug lords broke out in front of their trailer. Everyone hit the deck and waited for the shooting to stop. When silence finally returned, they walked outside of their home to see five corpses, one of which was that of their 9 year old son. Another woman at the study was Ana, an undocumented mother of three who lives in an apartment a few blocks from us. The fourth person was an undocumented Mexican woman who now lives in Houston but was visiting for a couple weeks.

I started our time by asking how everyone was doing. Felipe and Monica said that it had been an exceptionally hard week, as the waves of grief around the loss of their son had been especially intense. They began to sob. Ana broke into a mini-sermon to remind them that God loves them and that he disciplines those he cares about. She sited both the life of Job and her own. I’ve known Ana for four years, but learned for the first time that her first child had died at 6 months of age. Ana talked about the extreme grief that she has known that comes with the loss of a child, but that for some reason God wants to take some of us home early, which she stated is what he had done with the son of Felipe and Monica. Felipe and Monica continued to weep; Ana continued to preach and comfort. We eventually laid hands on them and prayed. Afterwards, we opened our bibles to James 5:10-11 and moved forward with what we had previously planned to study:

Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.

 Felipe and Monica are homeless and – for the moment – living with Monica’s family. They are looking for a low-rent place to stay. As they were leaving they saw a For Rent sign in front of the apartment across the street. I explained that the reason it is for rent is that it was vacated the previous Saturday after an intruder broke into the neighboring house, tied up the man, and attempted to rape the woman. When she resisted, the intruder pistol whipped her and then shot (and missed) as she ran in terror from the house. We don’t have to worry, I explained, because the police ended up shooting and killing the intruder after a high-speed chase through our neighborhood. Ana replied that we don’t have to worry because God loves us and protects us. Felipe said at least this is a safer place than Juarez, which has the highest per capita murder rate in the world, higher even than Mogadishu, Somalia.

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It was a long day at the church office, which started with an insurance company refusing to provide coverage for our church building because of its “high-risk” location.  I also had to complete a proposal for our after-school program, play host to a group of seminarians who came to see the ‘hood’, and finish my outline for Sunday’s sermon.  Ten hours later we had secured property and liability insurance, procured additional funding for our after-school program, impressed awe-struck seminarians with two hours of ‘hood’ experience, but there was still no sermon outline for Sunday.  Late for dinner, I started to leave, hoping to find no one on the way to my car.

Five steps away from the exit doors Guapo (the tough one) appeared and got close to my face yelling “I’m gonna f#*@% him up!”  Now in his mid 30’s, Guapo was kicked out of his house by his father, and raised in the streets since the age of 15.  Trying to calm him down, I asked “What’s going on man?”  “I’m gonna f#*@% that m*** f*** b*** up, that’s what’s going on Pastor!” he reiterated.  Over the years, I’ve learned to give room to some heat and listen before dishing out any advice.  That “m*** f*** b***” was Dough-boy, who had disrespected or ‘dissed’ Guapo in front of his boys.  Dough-boy was a father of two, new to the neighborhood, and was toying with bringing his drug clique to the block.  Guapo knew that if he let someone like Dough-boy get away with dissin’ him, he would lose his reputation on the street and end up being dissed by others, considered a coward, or maybe get killed.  Guapo who had literally gotten away with murder before, was waiting for Dough-boy to come out of his house so he could beat him down or shoot him.

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Editor’s note: This week is the six month anniversary of the devastating January earthquake in Haiti. There will once again be media coverage of what is and what is not happening in Haiti. Here is a viewpoint from Mario Matos, CTM – Estrategia de Transformacion Caribbean Director.

Last month CTM training associates, Scott Dewey and Jeff Johnsen (from Denver) spent a week in Nairobi. They were teaching a class for the masters program that Center for Transforming Mission offers in partnership with Bakke Graduate University. There are 23 students in the program. Here is a reflection from Scott…

Having just returned home to the USA from time with friends in Kenya, I want to offer just a few verbal and visual snapshots of the fruit of CTM and the Street Psalms Community. Namely, that grassroots leadership is flourishing in challenging contexts, in a dynamic process of theological reflection and social action.

The setting for this shutter-click is the Inspiration Center in Mathare. Mathare is an “informal settlement” in Nairobi, sometimes called Nairobi’s oldest slum community. It’s basically a ravine with a river at the bottom and a half-million people making a go at life together, crammed into shacks perched all the way from the top rim down to the chocolate-colored stream. One companion’s comment was that it looks like a big hole in the ground–a mudhole teeming with people. Of course there are layers and layers of description and meaning to any place, including this vibrant place of resourcefulness, exuberant beauty, and great struggle. Jeff Johnsen and I peeled back just a few layers in our time there with Kenyan friends, and it helped us listen together with them for what good news might look like in the very hard places of our world.
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The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come. Hebrews 13:11-14

At the Center for Transforming Mission we use this text from Hebrews in conversations with grassroots leaders located within the street culture to ask meaningful questions about posture and place. The text reveals an invitation from the author that suggests a posture of humility and a place outside of what is known as the camp. We use this text in an attempt to explore parallels that grassroots leaders can identify with in their own stories and to place their endeavors in context. Once amplified, we begin to ask about the location of Jesus and about the camp. It does not take long for these leaders to see from within their context that they themselves, and Jesus, are located outside of the camp. They then quickly identify the camp as the church. This becomes the perfect place for grassroots leaders to hear good news about their posture and place either already present, or yearning to be present in life outside the gates of the camp. I am one of those leaders.

I learned a lot about faith growing up as the son of Mexican pastors who had committed their lives to serving predominately undocumented communities on the streets of Southern California. I learned even more about love when I began rejecting their religion, giving myself to a life of street culture at the early age of nine. Keep those two statements close as I invite you to peer through a small window of my journey back into the street culture of Denver, Colorado and why I am beginning to understand the choices made by many in the Hispanic Church.

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Each Sunday for the last year or so I have been attending a breakfast for low income and homeless residents of Tacoma at our church, Urban Grace where I serve as a parish associate. One of the great saints of Tacoma and a member of our congregation, Willie Stewart, has coordinated this breakfast now for more than five years. Anywhere from 150 to 300 people attend the breakfast. The tables are clean, the place is safe and warm, the volunteers are great and the food ain’t bad either.

Recently a few of us started a conversation called “Word On The Street” (after a great book with the same title) for those who attend the breakfast. Our conversation is not a “best practice” by any means. In fact, sometimes it’s more like a bad skit than a real conversation. Two weeks ago a guy wandered into the middle of the circle wearing a fake leopard skin coat announcing all of his addictions to the group. We were grateful that that’s all he announced. That same week a lady abruptly left the circle in a huff, clearly preoccupied with another conversation happening somewhere in her head. With a few of these colorful exceptions noted, most participants come to the conversation remarkably engaged and respectful of each other. It is really quite amazing.

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Dedicated to John Kappler

Shakespeare asked, “What’s in a name?”
A valid question, I think.
My name means “full of grace, mercy and prayer” -
or so my mother liked to say, and I welcomed the thought of it.
My mother raised me well, and in the faith and all.
I learned my commandments all by heart and rarely sinned against them.
At least, so I thought, until you came along.
“Don’t take the name of the Lord in vain.”
That was an easy one, but “Oh, my God! Oh my God!”
Oh my God, I did it again.
Every time you look at me, John, my skin begins to crawl under your creepy leer,
You come up so close with your warm breath and uncomfortable compliments.
I can’t help it.

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I am moved to pause for reflection and praise as I recount the story of El Pueblito.

The town of El Pueblito, located just 30 minutes from the core of Guatemala City, was one of the places our Arts N’ The Hood team were privileged to visit. Actually, it was the place where we went to gather for Sunday service. As mentioned in my previous post, our guides had been inviting us to see the work God had been doing on the margins. However, when we got to this city, we found ourselves in a church that appeared to be anything but. To our surprise, about an hour later we were asked to leave the main building and gather with street youth in an old dingy facility where they had been allowed to claim it for themselves. And indeed they did so by redecorating it into a full-out hip-hop church.

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“The Gospels are full of lost, isolated, alienated and fragmented people: people without an awareness of the glory of being human. To such people Jesus brings his story of atonement—as we are charged to do.”
Alan Mann

A few weeks ago while I was sitting in church, I noticed a young man slide out of his seat, put his hand to his face, and rush out the side door. My first thought was “nosebleed.” Ok, they happen in awkward places. But I know this person pretty well, and something prompted me to slip out after him. Checked the bathroom, no luck. Out the door. I finally found him in his car, hands over his face, slumped against the dashboard.

I tapped on the window, and he pushed the door ajar. He let out a groan. Somewhat to my relief, I figured out it wasn’t from physical pain. Through his hands he exclaimed, “I can’t get away from it. I’m dirty! I’m ugly! I’m so sick inside. I can’t even be pure in church. Brother Scott, you have no idea what a mess I am.”

I think I fumbled out something about God knowing, which wasn’t exactly the healing word for the moment. Another groan. “That’s what scares me… I just want to hide.”

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