The Beloved Community

But the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the beloved community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opposers into friends…It is an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. It is the love of God working in the lives of men. This is the love that may well be the salvation of our civilization.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“The Role of the Church in Facing the Nation's Chief Moral Dilemma,” 1957

St. Paul, like all cities, is a city with scars. There are events, moments and people that have shaped St. Paul. Some of them have been good, and some have left painful scars. In our neighborhood, one of the visible scars is I-94, the freeway that runs about ½ mile south of our home. When construction began in the 1960’s, nearly half of the residents of the Rondo community were displaced. The Rondo neighborhood, a vibrant African-American community in the heart of the city, was shattered, and I-94 was an ever-present reminder.

Just as the city of St. Paul bears its scars, the Church has also suffered its own fractures, and reconciliation and restoration are necessary if we are to reflect the Beloved Community of Christ. Therefore, in addition to working with young leaders and church planters, our CRM team, Launch, has been working to foster a spirit of collaboration and unity among the Body of Christ. For the Church is not called to simply tolerate one another, but rather to live and work together in unity – a powerful sign to a watching world.

Better Together

For the past year, I have served on the leadership team of a cooperative kingdom effort called Mission St. Paul. The thrust of Mission St. Paul is city-wide transformation as the whole church brings the whole gospel to the whole city. Groups of pastors gather weekly to pray for one another and for each other’s churches, and a wider group of Christians gather once a month to systematically pray through the city, precinct by precinct. And, occasionally throughout the year, Mission St. Paul will host an event to help nurture this spirit of collaboration and unity within the Body of Christ.

Mission St. Paul recently hosted a city-wide celebration at the Union Gospel Mission on Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend. The theme of the gathering was “Better Together: Becoming the Beloved Community,” where we celebrated the rich diversity of God’s people in St. Paul through worship, prayer, communion, God’s Word and personal testimonies of spiritual and racial reconciliation. Daleen and I were asked to coordinate the serving of communion to the group of more than 300. And, in the spirit of the evening, we asked eight pastors and their spouses from different ethnic and denominational backgrounds to serve communion alongside of us. What an encouraging, and powerful, evening.

As beautiful as events like this can be, the real beauty lies in the relationships that are forged and lived out day-to-day. So, just as there are currently several groups of pastors praying in various neighborhoods of St. Paul, we will soon begin gathering with pastors and leaders in Hamline-Midway, our neighborhood of 12,000 residents. Wherever these groups of pastors are gathered, we see healing and restoration of racial and denominational fractures in the Church. Competition also begins to diminish, and in its place, collaboration and kingdom initiatives take root. And, when the Church is living in this spirit of unity and commitment to prayer, we can expect to see our neighborhoods, and our city, transformed.