Joining Jesus

Ordinary People at the Edges of the Church

Moses Chung, Christopher Meehan

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781725299115
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Inspired by an incarnational theology that emerges from a missional reading of Luke 10, Chung and Meehan went out to discover the stories of contemporary disciples who labor in the harvest fields of God's uncommon, upside down Kingdom. The stories that emerge describe the work and presence of the Spirit in communities across North America, where ordinary, faithful people and churches embrace the Spirit's invitation by sharing themselves with their neighbors. Our need to connect with neighbors seems more difficult now than ever but Chung and Meehan say we shouldn't be afraid of change and to listen to the Spirit's prodding. By sharing stories on how to 'go local' by remaining faithfully present the authors encourage us to embrace our neighborhoods and join Jesus by loving people in the tangible, ordinariness of life.

Part One

Traveling Lightly and Following Jesus into the Neighborhood

“Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals . . .” —Luke 10:3–4

1

“To Every Town and Place”

[or]

Ministering on the Crack Corner and Loving Kids in North Philadelphia

“After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go.” —Luke 10:1

A full-fledged Luke 10 congregation, Spirit and Truth Fellowship, was begun more than two decades ago by Manny Ortiz and Sue Baker, who were appointed by the Lord to go two by two to North Philadelphia—a place that is one of the poorest communities in the US. In this chapter, we meet people such as Taehoo Lee, who exemplifies being the stranger and receiving hospitality rather than being in control of all the resources. This is a major theme in Luke 10: living as a patient recipient—learning from what is in front of you, from your neighbor and neighborhood. The Spirit of God has been at work and remains alive in this area of Philadelphia. Besides a church, the ministry features a legal clinic, an arts program, a Christian school, church plants, a job training institute, and a health clinic. All of these grew out of faithfully responding to what God was already doing and joining God’s mission in their neighborhood. Neither Ortiz nor Baker came in with a preconceived vision of how their ministry would go; there was no packaged, how-to-do-it formula in their minds. Simply, they paid attention to ways they could respond and help their community become one that reflected God’s shalom—God’s peace.

In this chapter, we sketch a fairly complete Luke 10 vision. Subsequent chapters will focus more narrowly on verses in the story.

Spirit and Truth

We pulled into the North Philadelphia neighborhood around 6 pm and parked in front of a former factory being slowly transformed into a church; we would learn more about this later. For now we looked out at one of the neighborhoods in which we would be meeting and interviewing people over the next four days. A liquor store stood on one corner, a couple of men came out laughing and carrying paper bags. Swirls of graffiti decorated the facing of a nearby viaduct. Row houses stretched for blocks on our left. Above them, flanked by gray clouds, an orange sunset of soft beauty was slowly disappearing in the west. Looking at it, we thought of this being a transitional time—the time when day is turning to night, the dusk-draped period when one thing is ending and another is beginning. Given the focus of why we were here, we thought of this as the liminal time that, as stories in this book illustrate, older forms of church are dying and new ones emerging. This is a time of shift and change; it is a time of transition like that of Luke 10, when Jesus sent his disciples two by two from their familiar surroundings into an uncertain world to live out and proclaim the gospel in new ways.

Some history

A soft breeze moved in the air as we got out of the car. We were here to meet with Taehoo Lee, an assistant pastor at Spirit and Truth Fellowship, which has over the years made this part of Philadelphia home for ministry; this is a church led by Luke 10 people who came and stayed and have become a strong influence on their part of the city. On the way here, I (Moses) sketched part of the ministry’s history. From its start, the goal was to invite and make room for everyone in this mixed Puerto Rican/African American neighborhood. This was a congregation whose people have been touched and shaped by the gospel and which, supported by its leaders, have paid attention to the people of its struggling North Philadelphia community and found ways to respond to their needs. And without any in-depth strategic plan, it has intuitively grown in the power of prayer and simply tried to do the next right thing for those in this area known as Hunting Park. This is a congregation that reflects the move of the Holy Spirit in compelling, informative, and yet mysterious ways—and we wanted to know more, working as two ethnographers, to uncover how the Spirit is forming and reforming this place.

Meeting with Taehoo

Taehoo Lee held out a hand as we approached. A brush cut framing his strong, square-jawed face, Taehoo wore a T-shirt and jeans. Even in the dimming light, it was easy to see his smile. Over the next three busy days, we would meet many ministry leaders and church members and others who, like Taehoo, are part of Spirit and Truth Fellowship. Taehoo was the first person we met. As we stood outside Taehoo’s row house on Uber Street, he talked about Manny Ortiz, the church’s founding pastor who had died only a few weeks before, leaving many people feeling bereft. As Taehoo spoke, we looked up and down the street, comfortable and quiet on a Saturday evening. By now, the sun had gone down. Cars were parked along the curb; lights shone here and there in the row houses across Uber. Traffic hummed in the distance. But we knew this was a rough neighborhood in one of the poorest parts of Philadelphia, which was in 2017 the poorest large city in the United States. Unemployment is high, use of drugs is a problem, and crime is a constant issue. One night a year or so before, Taehoo heard gunshots and came out to find police swarming the neighborhood. At least thirty-two shots were fired in an execution-style shooting that left a man dead and sent a woman to the hospital. Also scary, and more personal, Taehoo had been robbed at gunpoint not long before in the neighborhood. Incidents of violence come with the territory and, although they shake you up, Taehoo has stayed here—he has dwelled in this neighborhood—for going on twenty years. Without a church, he serves as the neighborhood pastor. He sees his role as being a persistent presence. Not always evident, but always there, the Spirit has kept him where he is; commitment to a place and being known by the people is important. Manny Ortiz was the one who brought him there and told him this is where he should work. “He saw something in me that meant I needed to be here and work with the poor and the children,” said Taehoo, gesturing around the neighborhood with his hand.

Moving to Philadelphia

After Taehoo earned his Master of Divinity degree at a seminary in Korea, he came to Philadelphia and enrolled in classes in Westminster Theological Seminary, where he met Ortiz, who was professor of ministry and urban missions. Ortiz was a teacher and leader with a keen eye attuned to the capabilities and gifts of those he mentored. He encouraged them to follow the call God had given them and to serve and live among those who have very little and to be there to offer hope. He saw something in Taehoo—perhaps his reserved, monastic quality and his intelligence and passion for social justice—that inspired him to place him here. And Taehoo is grateful to Manny. As time has gone on, Taehoo has come to see the area and the people as his parish. “By being here,” he said, “I can truly be light and salt to the people.”

The Summer Camp

Being light and salt, elements needed to produce life, is what it is all about. And an example of this is the free Uber Street Summer Camp Taehoo has held nearly every year since 2006. The city blocks off the streets for three weeks and one hundred neighborhood kids or more come for games, races, painting, music, Bible study, lively worship, and other activities.

Taehoo sees his role as helping to bring hope and healing to part of Philadelphia. As a Luke 10 person, he pitches in, working to move the area forward. He shovels snow for the elderly in the winter, goes to court with those who need his support, prays in homes when asked, mentors students after school, and has helped turn graffiti on buildings into decorative art. With his own money, he purchased the nearby abandoned building, in front of which our car now sat, and plans to renovate and turn it into a community center for the children. It will also serve as a place for worship. “I had no idea what I was going to do when I came here. One thing led to another and things kept evolving. I’ve seen things happening, so many small things have gotten big. God has sure been up to something out here,” he said. The qualities we saw in Taehoo—good-natured humility, commitment to God and to the people on Uber Street—are those Jesus sought to shape and inspire in his disciples. He wanted them to pay attention to the small things, the ordinary stuff of life, that may or may not turn into something big.

Shane Claiborne, the social activist, author, and leader of a movement called the Red Letter Christians, lives in a community called the Simple Way, located about four miles from Taehoo’s home. The two are friends and Claiborne is familiar with the work of Spirit and Truth—the way it has planted itself in the neighborhood. “The tree is known for its fruit and you see beautiful fruit that smells and tastes like Jesus flowing out of Spirit and Truth,” he said in a phone conversation. “I’ve been there several times. They have an important theology of place.” Intentionally or not, Claiborne touched on an important Luke 10 theme—the practical theology of joining God at work in down-to-earth, defined places with ordinary people. Jesus sent his disciples two by two to every town and place. Place matters. Why does it matter? Because that is the context in which ministry is rooted. Place defines what is to happen as people like Taehoo demonstrate the dependable, ongoing love of Christ. It is in particular places that peace, shalom, can occur—a peace and shalom that the disciples of Jesus demonstrated by how they lived and showed love. And they must, as members of God’s church, always do this in a particular place or context. “To be faithful to its calling, the church must be contextual, that it is multiculturally relevant within a specific setting,” writes Craig Van Gelder in Missional Church. So instead of seeking to serve a large, prosperous church outside the gritty poverty of North Philadelphia, Taehoo has chosen to be God’s emissary right where he is—in a place where he knows the people and they know him. A place far from the American dream where comfort and affluence go hand in hand, this is the place to which Manny Ortiz appointed him to go. This is a practical theology, meaning it adapts and evolves, while staying true to the gospel, wherever it exists. It is a tool, a practice of bringing the things of God out from the temple and the church right into where people live—and finding creative methods to share the truth of Christ’s love with whomever you meet. It is not a theology emerging from brittle and dying institutions: it is a theology of purpose, of showing God in the flesh—a solid and persistent theology of incarnation.

Sent Two by Two to North Philly

Manny Ortiz was a compact man with a close-cropped white beard who loved riding his bike on the streets of the neighborhoods around his church. As he rode, he often got off to talk to people he came across. He had bright eyes, an easy smile, and a steady but commanding voice. His prayerful love for Christ, and his lively imagination for ministry in the city still lived in the ways in which people at Spirit and Truth spoke about him—but especially how they are serving in roles into which Ortiz placed them.

The next day, following our visit with Taehoo, was Sunday and time for weekly worship. As the sanctuary started to fill up, Sue Baker stood in the back. A small, gentle woman with gray hair and glasses, she greeted people, smiling softly, but she was subdued. It wasn’t hard to imagine how the death of Manny weighed heavily on her. Both she and her husband, Randy, had been a part of much of what Manny and his wife, Blanca, had done over the years, not just in church work but as friends who frequently visited one another’s homes and went to conventions and on vacations with each other. They were neighbors and close friends. Manny and Sue went two by two. “Losing Manny has been difficult. We’re all grieving in different ways,” she said. But trained by Ortiz, church leaders were moving on. Always, Ortiz made it clear a church cannot survive if it relies on one pastor, however capable that person is. At Spirit and Truth, working together was key: big egos had no place here. Despite the death of Manny, Sue’s attention was turned to today with an eye on tomorrow. “Our elders have stepped up and are offering the church, which deeply misses the pastor they loved, wisdom and leadership,” said Baker.

Ortiz was born in Puerto Rico and then moved with his family to Harlem. Other than occasionally attending a Catholic church, God wasn’t part of his family’s life. As a boy, he wanted to be a baseball player. He joined the Marines in his early twenties and then ran a bar and supper club in Harlem until he got into some unspecified trouble and had to skip town. His father sent him to Long Island and told his son to look up a pastor who helped Ortiz catch a glimpse of the light he would follow forever after. It is unclear exactly what happened, but something changed. Bolstered by his new faith, Manny moved himself and his growing family to Philadelphia so he could go to Bible school. Living in an African American housing project, Ortiz read widely and voraciously, learning as much as he could about this new life of Christianity as he attended Philadelphia College of Bible. Soon after he graduated, he was ordained in a Baptist church and received a call to serve a large Norwegian church in Chicago—an area quickly becoming Puerto Rican. From there, he didn’t turn back; church planting and seminary teaching became his focus. For a decade, Ortiz pastored and planted churches in Chicago, helped to start a school and other ministries, and joined the Christian Reformed Church. He and his wife also met and began working with the Bakers there.

In 1988, Manny moved with his family, along with the Bakers, to Philadelphia so he could finish his doctorate at Westminster Seminary. Starting a church in this new place was not in his plans. But it wasn’t long before he stepped in to help run a house church that had been organized by seminary students but kept struggling when the students moved on. Located in the home of the Bakers, this house church saw the need to connect with young people in the neig...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part One: Traveling Lightly and Following Jesus into the Neighborhood
• Part Two: Community of Peacemaking, Hospitality, and Compassion
• Part Three: Sent to Every Town and Place
• Epilogue
• Afterword
• Acknowledgments