The Emmanuel Gospel Center is a great friend and ministry partner of UniteBoston’s. Many people in Boston and around the country have benefited from their research about churches in Boston and their systems ministry approach. Their Executive Director, Jeff Bass, joined the staff at EGC in 1991 and is a member of River of Life Church in Jamaica Plain. In the article below, Jeff Bass offers insight for Christians for engaging well in the work in our neighborhoods.

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Many people have read the book, When Helping Hurts, (or a similar book to this), and I am often asked if EGC has any materials that could help people move from helping that hurts to helping that helps. In response, EGC has developed a 4-part class, based on our Living System Ministry approach, that we have taught recently at both Grace Chapel and Trinitarian Congregational Church in Wayland.  It’s been interesting taking material that we use with our staff and ministry partners and teach in seminary, and trying to effectively contextualize it for four hours of adult Sunday School. But it has been a worthwhile challenge, and it has helped me boil down some of the things EGC has been working on for years, to essential concepts that apply in every setting – missions, ministry, home and work.

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So how can we be helpful helpers? It starts with accepting that even our well-intentioned helping often does hurt, or in EGC terms, that what we do can be counterproductive. Much has been written on this, and it’s very well documented (1). So we need to be careful.

The first step in being careful is “embracing your own poverty.” We each need to come from a place of humility, not superiority. It’s an eminently Biblical concept (2) that causes us to recognize our material wealth is not what defines us, and we are just like the people we seek to serve (and they are just like us), having both significant assets and deep needs that require help.

The second step in being careful is taking the time to learn. Reality is complicated. It takes time to get to know the people, organizations, or communities we hope to help. Nothing fights hurting like real understanding and trusting relationships. Working this way always takes more time, but it is always worth it in the long run.

Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too. – Phil. 2:3-4

Finally, as we move from humble learning to more active engagement, the best simple principle to follow is, “Empower Others.” Do things with people, not for people. Give help that helps them do or be or solve or lead or move forward. Make them the heroes of the story.

One final note. This is not easy. Effective ministry is not “plug and play.” It takes real work, making mistakes, repentance, wrestling, stubborn grit. Embracing your own poverty, taking time to learn, and choosing to empower others need to happen over and over again. That’s OK. We serve a God of grace who walks with us and clearly calls us to keep trying.

If you or your church would like to learn more about Helping that Helps, please contact Jeff Bass, executive director, at jbass@egc.org. For further information on the Emmanuel Gospel Center visit egc.org.

1 See for example, When Helping Hurts, The Cat and the Toaster, or Toxic Charity

2 See for example Phil 2:3-11, Phil 3:3-11, and Rev. 3:15-19

Christian unity at its core is not an attempt to put all Christian faiths in a blender and hit “mix”. It is a movement to accept Christ’s call that we all may be one (John 17:21), and recognize, as Jesus said to his followers, that people who believe in Him and spread His Good News may not join us at our church, but they are not separate from us.

-Deacon Mike Curren

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Deacon Mike Curren is the featured blogger on UniteBoston this week. Deacon Mike was ordained in 2014 and serves at St. Augustine Parish in Andover. He holds an MA in Theology and Ministry, and an MS in Business Administration.  He also loves music, cooking and hiking.  Christian unity is meant to be a way of life rather than a program, and Deacon Mike offers some practical ways that he is living out Jesus’ desire for unity in his home and family.

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Easter is always a busy and exciting time for Christians. In our house, that gets multiplied times 3. This year my family came to my church Easter Sunday morning where I preached at the 11:30 Mass. The night before Easter Sunday, we attended a chorale celebration at my daughter’s protestant church. And this past weekend we all celebrated my son’s Pascha celebration at the parish where he is pastor, a Greek Orthodox church in New Hampshire. “Christos Anesti”!

For the last 10 years we have lived as a family across and within multiple Christian traditions. Yet, each person’s commitment to their own tradition is rock-solid. Some have wondered aloud whether that leads to heated debates, or worse. It certainly has led to interesting theological discussions, but never any hostility. I am proud of my children who have all found (or re-discovered) their love for Jesus Christ, and they have been 100% supportive of my work as a deacon in the Catholic Church. We attend each other’s ceremonies whenever we can. We sometimes will throw out a joke about our differences, but it is all good-natured. We joke that between my son and I, our grace before meals takes 45 minutes!

When I counsel parents around the fact that their children have left the faith that they grew up in, I suggest that they never give up hope, and most especially never give up praying. Christ makes all things new (Rev 21:5), sometimes in ways we can’t anticipate nor imagine. Many parents are less comfortable with attending other’s faith communities for services. They worry that they are being disloyal. But it’s something I think everyone should get more comfortable with. We may be counseled by our church to not “fully participate” in other’s liturgies, but that does not keep us from prayerfully joining in a universal call to holiness- together. Christian unity at its core is not an attempt to put all Christian faiths in a blender and hit “mix”. It is, I believe, a movement to accept Christ’s call that we all may be one (John 17:21), and recognize, as Jesus said to his followers, that people who believe in Him and spread His Good News may not join us at our church, but they are not separate from us (Luke 9).

⁴⁹ “Master,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us.”⁵⁰ “Do not stop him,” Jesus said, “for whoever is not against you is for you.”

In the Catholic tradition, our Vatican II documents call us to respect peoples of all world faiths and acknowledge the rays of truth in them. This was not always the posture of the Catholic Church, and I am glad we have, as my kids would say, “morphed” in that regard. We also participate in ecumenical and inter-religious events that are not meant so much to evangelize, as to express our solidarity in Christ – to acknowledge and celebrate our differences, not just what we share in common. I believe that there is something beyond the “Red Sox vs Yankees” approach to inter-faith dialogue.

In the words of those “early bluegrass fathers”, the Stanley Brothers:

“You go to your church and I’ll go to mine, but let’s walk along together. Our fathers built them side by side. So, let’s walk along together. The road is rough, and the way is long, but we’ll help each other over. You go to your church, and I’ll go to mine, but let’s walk along together!”

Deacon Mike Curren is an ordained minister of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, assigned to St. Augustine Parish in Andover, as well as to the RCAB Office of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs.

“Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.” (John 13:14-15)

“Jesus’ foot washing challenges me to consider my work and leadership differently. Servant leadership is fine, but servanthood doesn’t necessarily imply love. Leadership that manifests and concretizes love is harder.” – from Alaina Kleinbeck’s article, “Foot washing is about love, not just servanthood.”

The newly renovated Catholic Cathedral opened on Holy Week. During the Mass on Holy Thursday, Catholic Cardinal Sean O’Malley washes the feet of members of the congregation, following the example of Jesus Christ. More photos from Holy Week on Cardinal Sean’s Blog.

“What if we saw the places and people in our lives not as existing for our sake, but places and people to which God has called us for their sake?”

-Matt Owens

This week, we have Pastor Matt Owens as our guest blogger on UniteBoston. Matt has been involved in starting churches for the last nine years. He’s a native of Illinois, and has served in church plants in Ireland and Birmingham, AL, prior to coming to Boston. In the Boston area, he has interned with the Christ the King Presbyterian church plant in Jamaica Plain / Roxbury, served as Assistant Pastor at a church plant in Somerville, MA, and is now planting a new congregation in Quincy. In his blog, Pastor Matt shares some valuable insights about how all Christians can be intentional about seeing their neighborhood as their parish.

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Spirited Contextualization

“Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.” (Acts 17:16-17)

As Paul observes the idols in Athens, his spirit is provoked by the Holy Spirit for two reasons. First, because he loved the Lord, he long to see Jesus (not idols) worshipped and glorified. Second, out of a deep love for the people of the city, he wants them to worship only God who can give life.

Yet, this provocation doesn’t cause him to yell at the people of Athens (though he might take this approach elsewhere). Rather, he reasons…He knows the people of Athens are a reasoning people. So he reasons with them, and is then taken to the Areopagus to explain Jesus and the Resurrection (Acts 17:19).

He then preaches a beautifully compelling and contextualized sermon, beginning by noting the various idols of Athens and introducing the people to the unknown God, who has now made himself known in Jesus Christ. He uses a different starting point, different themes and different arguments than he would with a predominately Jewish audience, but proclaims the same gospel.

This passage is a good example of spirited contextualization. Tim Keller defines contextualization as, “giving the Bible’s answers…to questions about life that people in their particular time and place are asking, in language and forms they can comprehend, and through appeals and arguments with force they can feel, even if they reject them.”

The task of every Christian is to be a spirited contextualizer, contextualizing not as an intellectual exercise, but out of love for God and our city, provoked by the Spirit of God.

Theology of Place and Developing a Parish Mindset

A theology of place begins with the question, “What if we saw the places and people in our lives not as existing for our sake, but places and people to which God has called us for their sake?”

Our model in this mindset, of course, is Jesus, who “came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life” (Mark 10:44). We must also be certain that our sovereign God knows the name of the street you live on, and the park nearby, in all of the beauty and brokenness that it may represent to you. He knows the names of all your neighbors, whether you do or not. When we begin to see the people and places God has called us to as God sees them, then we realize that we don’t live on our particular street coincidentally or arbitrarily, but for such a time as this.

This is how I would define a parish: the people and places to which God has called you. I imagine a parish in concentric circles with one’s family (if applicable) at the center of the parish. (Pastoral ministry is perhaps the only job in which one’s responsibilities include caring well for their family. After all, your spouse and children are presumably members of your church.) The next circle out is one’s congregation, then one’s neighborhood, city, and finally the surrounding geographical region. Every Christian must love his/her parish, take pride in it, and hate (that is, be provoked by) the idols that harm it.

An example of a parish mindset is David Ortiz’s famous (short) speech at Fenway Park after the Boston Marathon Bombing. As a relative outsider to Boston, he revealed a deep sense of belonging and ownership when he passionately proclaimed, “This is our f@#*’in city!”

More recently, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, in the wake of the mosque attack in Christchurch, “Many of those who will have been directly affected by this shooting may be migrants to New Zealand; they may even be refugees here. They have chosen to make New Zealand their home, and it is their home. They are us.”

Four characteristics of neighborhood-focused church planting:

1. Presumes a post-Christendom culture

Churches who operate with a “Christendom” mindset are assuming that unchurched people are going to come walking through their front doors. A post-Christendom approach assumes that people will not come unless they’re engaged in some way (through relationships, service, etc.). Neighborhood-focused plants are incarnational. I recall one young man who had become a Christian at one of the CTK church plants reflect, “Can you believe God cared for me so much that he planted a church in my neighborhood?”

2. Equips Christians to be missional, not consumeristic

Neighborhood church planting steers existing Christians away from choosing a church based on whose product they like best, and directs them to live on mission in their parish.

3. Encourages multi-culturalism

If a church planter’s neighborhood is multi-cultural, that diversity should be reflected in the church. When an outsider looks in, he/she should see a group of people that don’t belong together on the surface, and may have nothing in common but a shared identity in Christ. When this is the case, the makeup of the congregation is a compelling apologetic of the gospel.

4. Requires Kingdom unity

If someone cares about their neighborhood, he/she should be happy to see other churches joining Jesus on his mission. We need many different kinds of churches to reach many different kinds of people. We are working together with a Brazilian congregation in Quincy, as we believe that we can reach a greater scope of the city together than either of us can on our own. We are collaborating with them in teaching in ESL at the Brazilian church each Wednesday evening. The Lord’s Kingdom will come through a movement of the Holy Spirit in and through a unified body of Christ.

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Matt and his wife Naomi have an almost-2 year old son, Liam. The Owens family moved to Quincy in June to plant a new congregation. You can track their progress or sign up to receive updates here: http://thequincyproject.com

Last, here is another great resource: check out David Leong’s article: “What is the Theological Meaning of the City?”

“Holy Week is a time to be with Jesus in his time of trial and betrayal. May we recognize that Jesus’ crucifixion was not a one-time event in history, but that he continues to be crucified each and every day alongside the poor, oppressed and marginalized of this world who die before their time as a consequence of human sinfulness. Let us accompany Jesus as he walks with the crucified people of history, offering his love, compassion and desire for justice to a world still so in need of redemption. For beyond Calvary lies Easter Sunday.” – From an e-newsletter this week from Reunion Church Boston

People frequently mention that their church’s service during Holy Week is one of their favorite in the year. We’ve put together a list of some of these services, with an intentional focus on the breadth of Christian backgrounds and traditions. This week, we encourage you to go somewhere new to remember the significance of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection and be enriched by different forms of Christian worship in our city!

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” (John 11:25)

*Note that this is only a few of the many amazing worship services taking place in the Greater Boston area this week – send yours to Kelly Fassett, kelly@uniteboston.com for consideration of your service to be added to this list!

Holy Week Resources

The Calvin Institute for Christian Worship has put together a great resource guide for planning your Holy Week Services, including planning resources, song resources, visual art resources, and devotions. Click on the link above to check it out!

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Maundy Thursday Service

Thursday 4/18, 6:00pm and 8:00pm at Old South Church, Boston

This service combines modern jazz music with ancient liturgy of Tenebrae, where the stories of Jesus’s passion are read, and after each reading a candle is extinguished. The service ends in darkness, and the congregation listens to the repetition of 39 dissonant chimes of low handbells, symbolizing the suffering of Jesus on the night of his arrest.

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Holy Thursday – Potluck & Foot Washing Service

Thursday 4/18, 6:00 to 7:30pm at Reservoir Church, Cambridge

Join us for a family potluck meal and service. Maundy Thursday, or Holy Thursday, gets its name from the Latin translation of John 13:34: “I give you a new commandment” (or, in Latin, “Mandatum novum“). It was as Jesus washed the feet of his friends and followers that he said these words. We’ll share a meal together. Then, Dan Archibald will tell the story of how Jesus washed his disciples’ feet before they shared their last meal together. Next, we’ll take part in a simple Communion: commemorating this last meal by sharing bread and wine at our tables. Following this, the children will lead the way in washing the feet of those in attendance. We’ll finish with a final prayer before ending our time together.

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Black Ministerial Alliance Good Friday Service

Friday 4/19 at 12:00pm at St John Missionary Baptist Church, Roxbury

You are invited to this year’s Good Friday Service to meditate on the Seven Last Words of Christ. There will be seven preachers from many different Christian traditions!

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Good Friday Service

7:00pm at 85 Bishop Allen Drive, Cambridge

Join Hilltop Church, Pentecostal Tabernacle and Aletheia Church for a combined Good Friday service at the Christian Life Center (85 Bishop Allen Drive), Cambridge, which is owned by St. Paul AME Church.

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Come and celebrate the Passover Seder from a Christian/Messianic perspective on Saturday April 20. Passover is the first of the Feasts of the Lord, as instructed in Leviticus 23 in the Bible. It is followed by the Feast of Unleavened bread and First fruits also in Leviticus 23 in the Bible. Yeshua (Yehoshua or Jesus) kept the Passover and a detailed account is provided in the Gospels (that many Christians know of as the Last Supper, before His crucifixion). During the Last Supper, Jesus said, “This do in remembrance of Me.” (Luke 22:19b). If you would like to know more, please join us to discover the richness of the scriptures and a deeper understanding of who Jesus is and what He did.

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The Great Vigil of Easter

Saturday 4/20 at 6:30pm at the Church of the Advent, 30 Brimmer Street, Boston

The most dramatic and moving service in the entire church year, a service of waiting — waiting in darkness for light to dawn, waiting in the tomb of death for life to be born — then receiving that life in baptism and the Holy Eucharist. Article about the Great Vigil from The Living Church, February 2010: Waiting for the Light

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The Church of the Cross Easter Vigil marks our passage from the darkness of the tomb to the brilliant light of Jesus’ resurrection. Filled with original art created for this night (poetry, music, visual art, dance, etc.) and congregational song, this is a celebration of grand proportions. The Anglican service features readings from scripture that highlight God’s great work throughout salvation history, beginning in the work of Creation and reaching its height in the resurrection of Christ. Come join us as we reflect, pray, and raise a joyful song to God!

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Good Friday Orthodox Service of Lamentations

Friday April 26 at 7:15pm at St Mary’s Parish in Cambridge

The beautiful hymns of this service express these feeling of grief and loss through a dialog of prayer between the Virgin Mary and Jesus. Ultimately, they show that the tomb of Christ is not a place of death and decay, but a source of life and hope. The sorrow of the crucifixion gradually transforms into joy as the faithful process around the Church with the eptitaphios (a symbolic tomb) and pass under it on the way back inside, symbolizing Jesus’ passover from death to life as He breaks the gates of Hades and frees the souls of the righteous trapped there. Join the St. Mary’s Orthodox community to celebrate this moving, joyful service which invites us to enter into the profound mystery of humanity’s redemption.

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Happening All Week

Sacred Spaces

Daily in Lexington and Wilmington

The conversations we need to have with Jesus.

Initiating a conversation is a commitment to someone—and a good conversation can change things. Whether it’s your first, or your thousandth, or your first-in-a-while conversation, our 2019 Sacred Spaces is designed to help you talk with Jesus. During Holy Week, rooms at our Lexington and Wilmington campuses will be transformed into spaces for guided meditation, prayer, and reflection. These spaces are designed to be experienced alone (rather than as a group activity) and as your own time allows. Everyone is welcome. You are invited.

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Reflective Art for This Week 

Artist for the Artwork Below: Adrian Johnston, Park Street Church