Pastoring the Poor
Pacing holiness for new converts

Reference: Grigg, V. (2005). Cry of the Urban Poor. GA, USA: Authentic Media in partnership with World Vision.

There is much sin among new converts. The pastor must exercise strong discipline over them, while at the same time being “tender like a nursing mother taking care of her children” (1 Thessalonians 2:7). There needs to be a sensitive oscillating between judgment and mercy.
    Because of these patterns of sin, the first generation of converts often will not survive, just as the first generation in the Exodus did not survive. They lacked models who walked in obedience to God. Their children in the faith, see­ing how their parents are handled, learn alternative models from the leader. They watch as the first converts go through their tragic backslidings. Because the younger generation learns these lessons, it frequently forms the long–term nu­cleus of the ministry.
    As leaders emerge in the new congregation, it is norma­tive for them to come into confrontation with the authori­tarian leader. This is partly because the poor often fear immediate authorities. Partly it is because of the overly au­thoritarian styles of leaders—styles that may be necessary during the birth of a church.
    Skillful training is needed to help the church planter move from a tightly-knit training model to a model of collegiality with other leaders while still maintaining final au­thority. Part of the solution to this problem is a good structure that provides levels of autonomy as new leaders emerge, yet offers clear lines of authority. Another part of the solution is a concept of ministry that helps churches grow by freeing people into ministry.

The centrality of the home
    The home is the center of ministry in many cases of ef­fective church planting among the poor. Where ministry is focused around the home there is a strong transferal of life patterns, of character, of values and of the Word.
    Heartbeat City Ministries in Auckland, New Zealand, has effectively been reaching poorer migrant teenagers coming into the city, because of a home that is a constant center of ministry. Today, over one thousand teenagers are involved because of the combination of love shown through the home mixed with an attractive, lively program.
    Jackie Pullinger in Hong Kong has had no room of her own for many years as she has had many needy people coming to live with her. Again the transferal of life and val­ues, coupled with a dynamic public worship time, has brought forth fruit in hundreds of lives.

Practical hints for pastors

1.  Build momentum

It is important to reach enough people to establish and maintain social momentum. As a means of doing this, keep constant charts and records. Stay on the edge of relationships. By that I mean, know where you are with every relationship in the community or church, and keep them constantly in prayer so you will be sensitive to the next step. Constantly be developing new groups.

2.  Break down social barriers

Draw the people together in social activities before call­ing them together in the religious activities. McGavran’s big theme is that the barriers are social, not religious. Seek out people in each segment of the community. Allow time for community–wide discussion of major moves.

3.  Celebrate

If you use a fast approach with evangelism, the phases of group dynamics move immediately from an initial mass of converted people to regular worship. In a non-receptive culture where the growth is slower, and a slow approach to evangelism is used, there is apt to be move­ment from the development of Bible studies to some form of integrating people socially.

At first, this is generally not best developed as worship, but more as social and relational activities. This should be the case until new believers develop some degree of security with each other. These activities, however, should definitely include some elements of worship, such as singing and Bible reading, along with outings, birthday parties, camps and so on.

The third phase is to integrate the newly forming rela­tionships Into a worshipping congregation. Chuck Hufstetler, a church planter in Manila who taught me a great deal, used to talk of contacts, converts, cells, con­gregation, and celebration.

The culture of poverty indicates small churches will most probably emerge among the poor, due to lack of management skills. Thus, worship patterns should be developed primarily for this size of congregation. Make the management decisions on most issues in such a way that they can be reproduced. Set patterns of wor­ship. Make large gatherings occasions for people in tra­ditional societies to enjoy event-oriented and relationship-oriented celebrations, rather than performance-oriented celebrations as can often happen in Western worship.

4. Maintain a good public reputation

It is good to aim to become the social and spiritual leader of a community. Work, therefore, for a good name in the community by avoiding confrontation as much as possible, and by working with people of good will in those areas where collaboration is possible.

The squatter area will be reached when the leaders of the community are reached. It is a good idea, as you reach out to the poorer people, constantly to be drawing the natural leaders of the community into your confi­dence and discussions on issues. This will establish trust and lay a foundation for their conversion.

Leaders will generally wait until others make commit­ments before they themselves take a stand—particu­larly elected officials, who have vested interests in their position in the community. Do not waste a lot of time on appointed officials except to maintain good relation­ships. Look instead for the natural leaders, those to whom the people go for advice in emergencies.

Establishing a legal structure
    It is Ideal to enter a community with legal documents for the emergence of a church in order. This is not difficult if the new congregation is a healthy daughter of another church. The eldership of a mother church provides the ini­tial legitimizing authority and appoints the church planter. Ideally, the mother church evaluates with the church planter those whom he or she draws into the team, while leaving sufficient freedom for the church planter to recruit and build that team.
    As ^a church planting team develops, the “parent” elders should release appropriate aspects of this authority, but re­main as an outside reference and advisory board. This is important since there are continual changes in roles and power relationships between members of a church planting team as the ministry unfolds. There are often disputes that are the result of learning how to work together with other highly motivated and often strong-willed pioneers. The leader’s authority is often challenged, and a good outside board can sometimes help resolve such conflicts.
    Maintaining integrity before the public requires book­keeping and legal papers. If these are submitted initially through the mother church, it gives the pioneers freedom to concentrate on ministry. If there is no mother church, the papers should be obtained at the outset of the work, and books and an accounting system set up as in any small business.

When a diaconate and eldership begin to emerge, it is essential that they take over formal responsibilities from the pioneering team and the pastor for the legal and accounting aspects of the fellowship. The sooner this happens, the better. Yet we are commanded also to “lay hands on no one suddenly” (1 Timothy 5:22).

Inadequate legal structure

One of the mistakes in my first years of ministry among the poor was that I did not initiate the legalization of our first church. Partly, this was because the extra paperwork would have consumed more than the church’s income. We did not have a clear daughter relationship with what is now the mother church, because there were doctrinal changes and ministry strategy changes necessary to work with the poor. They were not understood at that time by the churches. The result was inadequate bookkeeping. This was rectified.
The next thing that happened was that foreign mission­aries arrived. Because of a lack of clear legal definitions, they took over several areas of church life. After some time they moved on. Since doctrine and strategy had been dem­onstrated, the church became a daughter church of the middle-class church, still without legalizing any structure in the slum.
    Then another mission came in to assist in development. It essentially took over responsibility for the church. The pastor found himself in a difficult role—having no legal status, yet still the pastor of the church he had pioneered through all this time. It was ultimately recommended that the church be legalized independently of the outside devel­opment program.

It is always wise to incorporate before too many people are involved in a church-planting venture.

Pastoral issues

1. The family

Modernization and urbanization produce changes in family structures. There are also changes in role struc­ture, in decision-making patterns, in socialization of the young, and in ways of relating to complex, non-family organizations.

For example, a family back in the rural area may have been a complete productive unit, working the land. In the city, adults work in organizations outside the family. Meanwhile, children attend schools with other children from a wide variety of backgrounds—not just the vil­lage context. While the home was originally a homoge­nous unit that was functionally comprehensive, the home and workplace now become divorced, often with both husband and wife working outside the home and facing changed roles.

The church and the church planter must address the question: How do you facilitate this adaptation?

The pastor can help greatly. Such help will involve as­sistance in the assumption of roles outside family, in developing new patterns of socialization and social con­trol, in enabling competency to meet external social and work requirements and choices, and in helping families define loyalties in this new context.¹

2. Psychological problems

The marginalized poor often seem to be so deprived that they are only half people, devastated by twin catastro­phes—rapid social change, with its breakdown in fam­ily structures, and poverty itself.

There are many resulting issues of oppression, deser­tion, sexual molestation, and guilt that affect almost all squatters deeply. The primary processes of healing are not psychotherapy or counseling, which often have poor linkages to the Scriptures and a misplaced lack of focus on the role of the church, the Spirit, and worship. The primary process is the church—ministering together and to each other weekly in the presence of the Spirit of God, gathered around the Word of God.

The poor are not healed instantaneously. For many, there will be no healing, but only a place of acceptance in the midst of others with great unhealed areas. The weekly altar call in most poor people’s churches is a place of healing, week by week, that little by little ad­vances the healing process through the years.

Some aspects of healing are also cultural, for the poor in the slums have largely lost their cultural roots. Karl Schmidt tells of a simple proverb used for aiding the migrant poor in the South Pacific:

Love your own culture;

Regain it where lost;

Enrich it where possible.²

Social and cultural factors in church life are a great healer.

3. An oppressed people

The poor have been oppressed for centuries, first as rural peasants and now in the city. The result is a deep pain in their spirits. There is bitterness and resentment in their hearts, but all is submerged behind a smiling, graceful exterior. Central to the worldview change in­volved in becoming a Christian is a new pattern of re­sponse to oppression.

Marxists affirm the bitterness-oppression struggle, in­creasing its intensity. This brings no healing, only darkness. Christians, however, overcome evil with good, hatred with love, bitterness with forgiveness. The result is healing in the inner spirit, and a growing ability to handle conflicts in such a way that healthy consensus between opposing parties may be attained.

In my experience, an understanding of forgiveness is the central teaching priority in discipling the poor. It is built from stories in the Old Testament that tell of the sover­eignty of God in dealing with oppressed peoples. An experience of God’s forgiveness equips the poor convert to cope with the reality of oppression—even when it con­tinues while standing up for rights and dignity.

Envy, envy—cockroaches in the heart!

It is ten years later in Tatalon, a squatter community, now with 48,000 people in upgraded two-story and three-story homes.

Before me are a sea of faces—faces I have loved from the days when they were marked by sin. Today I see ten years of the work of the Spirit of God. There is a maturity there now, a softness, a graciousness one to the other. But not all sins disappear overnight.

I preach again of the dark world of the inner soul, the world full of envy, jealousy, bitterness—those cockroaches that come out from the heart. And the people laugh and smile. They know, they identify. This is their life. And they feel my words are spoken as one of them because I sat for years in their midst, hearing, feeling the inner darkness of those centuries of oppression from which they are emerging.

And once again this week, brothers are reconciled and light replaces darkness in the scarred souls of the maturing poor.

Exercising discipline

As a Baptist, I ask why most Baptist churches do not grow among the poor. The major reason seems to be that the democratic authority structure of Baptist churches is inappropriate to the situation of the poor. The poor prefer forceful authoritarian leaders who love them, yet exercise strong discipline over them. This is particularly true among squatters, where a broken social structure must be combatted with discipline in church life.
    Churches and movements tend to be initiated around stalwart charismatic leaders who create strong patterns of doing things and delegate authority to others.
    Paul’s leadership defense in 2 Corinthians 10–12 is an excellent model. He raised up his own churches, not laboring where others had labored, and the realm of his author­ity was clearly demarcated. He rejected those who came into his churches from other types of Christianity, for they had a different spirit that was divisive. He rejected false apostles and identified their characteristics—ministering for financial gain, speaking with misleading rhetoric, acting deceitfully, critiquing the apostolic authority of the original founder, seeking position.
    These same characteristics are seen today. In a sense, seminaries are set up to produce those who minister for fi­nancial gain—their graduates expect to be paid for their services. The characteristics of a false apostle are also found among those who would use the poor to make a name for themselves, or a living. This is easy to do through involvement in giving aid. I know of men who like to tell stories of the poor without ever having spent a night among them. Read the stories of Nobili or Assisi. In their time, church leaders loved power, took control of effective minis­tries to the poor, and eliminated the pioneering source of effectiveness. It is well for pastors among the poor to guard their flocks tenderly and to be cautious of those bearing gifts.
    Paul, in contrast, suffered with his people as he birthed his congregations—he held them in his heart. This was the basis of his authority. He did not seek reconciliation with false apostles. To seek such reconciliation may hinder a movement’s growth. The pastor in the slums, or the one who would see a movement developed, must be careful to delegate only to those whose loyalty and faithfulness to his authority are integral to their obedience to the Lord.

What of the attrition rate?
    Attrition means death in battle. When related to churches it refers to those who are converted and then fall away. Proverbs tells us to “know well the condition of our flocks.” Jesus reports to the Father at the end of his minis­try that “not one of them is missing except the son of perdi­tion.” There is a divine responsibility to protect the flock as it grows.
    A number of factors in the development of poor people’s churches cause a high attrition rate. The first appears im­mediately at conversion as the new Christian faces the changes from an old lifestyle. The primary difficulty here is for the convert to enter the kingdom and church without losing relationships with worldly associates—for example, a drinking man and his drinking friends. If the group dy­namics are not healthy, or the ability of the pastor to dis­cipline with grace is not great, many will be lost.
    This applies at each phase. Planting churches is an art. Failure to develop the right atmosphere, the right focus on structure, or the right teaching at each phase will lose peo­ple. So will a failure to exercise appropriate leadership styles at each stage of development. But there are special problems within the broken social structure of the urban poor.

Jealousy causes loss

It was a church I had helped found. An early convert talked to me of the natural jealousies of the poor: “Now we are faithful to the Lord. My life has changed, thanks to you. But we have been separated from the church. It is because of jealousy—so much talk.”

Another told me of frustration with physical facilities: The church building is so small we can’t even stand to sing. So I went to the church out on the highway.”

Yet another with strong evangelistic and leadership gifts: “The church should be evangelizing among the people. It will never grow in this area. So I went to the big church in the city center.”

A woman shared her insecurities: The leader told me I should be a teacher, but I am not gifted to teach, so I do not go . . ..”

All of the above are expressions of the fragility of rela­tionships among the poor; of how easily security can be damaged; of the complexity of factors needed to keep the flock together. They require gentle, patient and firm leader­ship. The pastor and his wife in this church had stood firm through all these testings, and God had honored their min­istry.

Economic factors and church growth

1. Redemption and lift

This phrase refers to the fact that as people are re­deemed they automatically move upwards economically and socially. As a consequence, they lose touch with their non-Christian friends. Many squatter communi­ties, however, are relatively stable. The poor do not move out of the community as their situation improves. Rather, the community is upgraded, legalized, and be­comes part of the middle-class city in many cases. There are exceptions to this, such as in Sao Paulo, where favelas are limited to land under control of the politicians, and cheap housing is available. In Sao Paulo, as people move up, they move out.

Redemption and lift does not necessarily isolate the church from the people. Indeed McGavran’s analysis of this issue did not focus on it as a negative phenomenon, but on the speed and manner of its occurrence and on its impact on relationships with the non-Christian com­munity.

2. Support of pastors

In Latin American countries, it is normal for the squat­ter pastor to be self-supporting, working in a demanding job during the day and in the ministry at night. In other cultures, such as in Manila, squatter ministries are often linked to a middle-class congregation or denomi­nation or to a foreign organization.

It is not clear whether this is a result of cultural or eco­nomic factors. It may be due to the emphasis placed upon dependent relationships between rich and poor, or to Westernized patterns of the church still dominant within the Philippine culture. This Westernization is evi­dent in the pattern of Filipino seminary training that moves the poor into a middle-class status, often sup­ported from overseas. On the other hand, it may be a factor determined by the availability of jobs and the pos­sibilities of employment.

3. Emotional and physical disability

Oppression of the poor, while creating an environment for them to be rich in faith, also limits their develop­ment and the development of the church. Among the poor, new believers or church leaders are often sickly or die young because of bad water, the constant presence of garbage, or relocation because of disputes over land. In this situation, of what value is spiritual ministry? These reasons alone are sufficient for us to turn to the fight against poverty as a major aspect of our desire to see the church grow among the poor.

4. Breaking the property barrier

Weld and McGavran talk of keys to the cities.³ They challenge the church planter to resolve the barrier of property. In some situations, it is better not to set up church buildings, as they are costly and may create barriers. They may also focus the attention, time and energy of new converts on the wrong issues. Often when we talk of developing a cell–structured church, we un­derstand that a building would not be helpful. This is true particularly in movements among professionals in Western cities.

Among the poor, however, house churches often do not grow but tend to die because people become disap­pointed at worshipping in unsatisfactory conditions. Bible studies and family devotional patterns tend to have a longer life. House churches, Bible studies and family devotions are a beginning, but since it is hard to find a home that is big enough for a church, the people should buy a lot and erect a simple building or rent a warehouse.

Usually squatter pastors erect churches with their own hands, helped by their flock. There is enough evidence from the cities I have visited to indicate that the rapid erection of a simple building using the materials of the people is a critical factor in the growth of the church, rather than a hindrance to its growth. It is also cheaper to get land for this when the squatter area is just begin­ning than after the church and community are fully formed.

This is an area where foreign funding is non-destructive and can be used for great effect in the initial phases of buying land. Foreign money can provide for part of the cost of the initial building in numerous squatter areas throughout a city.

5. Securing land

It is also important to be seeking justice for the poor. The central element in this is usually land rights, a subject that needs to be covered thoroughly in a separate book. Suffice it to say that half the people of the world do not have rights to the land on which they live. And that the ob­taining of those rights brings about a dramatic change al­most overnight in their ethics and spiritual receptivity. The issue of land rights is perhaps one of the most critical theo­logical issues of our day. It most certainly is a central issue in planting churches among the poor.

I was sitting with a development worker discussing the lack of Bengali churches in Calcutta.

In passing, he mentioned that perhaps the reason for a lack of churches in the bustees of India is the lack of available land—not necessarily land for churches, but land for burial. Hindus, who cremate their dead, do not want burial grounds near their homes. In discussions he had with a group ready for baptism, this had become their primary question.

Notes

© Viv Grigg & Urban Leadership Foundationand other materials © by various contributors & Urban Leadership Foundation,  for The Encarnacao Training Commission.  Last modified: July 2010