Urban Ministry

No. 3 in the Academy of Parish Clergy Top Ten Books of the Year
The city presents serious challenges that cry out for answers: poverty, racism, human exploitation and government corruption. How can the church move ahead in the midst of these demands with the gospel of hope?
Here, in one comprehensive volume, Harvie Conn and Manuel Ortiz, two noted scholars and proven practitioners of urban ministry, address the vital work of the church in the city. Their dual goal: to understand the city and God's work in it.
Through four great waves of development, Conn and Ortiz trace the history of the city around the world. Then they tackle the critical issue of a biblical basis for urban mission. How does the Bible view the city? Are we closer to God in the country than the city? Does the Bible have an anti-urban bias? These questions are given a thorough analysis that unveils God's urban mandate as reflected in both Old and New Testaments.
From this foundation the authors unpack the multifaceted nature of the city as place, as process, as center, as power, and as a place of change and stability. They move us beyond fragmented stereotypes to a new way of seeing that is holistic enough for a fully biblical ministry to develop.
In addition, Conn and Ortiz lay out what the social sciences have to offer urban mission, including ethnographic and demographic studies and they focus on the particular issues and needs of urban leadership, including a plan for developing and mentoring leaders while equipping the laity for ministry in the city.
This is the essential text for bringing God's kingdom to the city through the people of God.

Manuel Ortiz (1938-2017) was professor of ministry and urban mission and director of the urban program at Westminster Theological Seminary. His books include The Hispanic Challenge: Opportunities Confronting the Church, One New People: Models for Developing a Multiethnic Church, and Urban Ministry: The Kingdom, the City and the People of God (coauthored with Harvie Conn). Ortiz was passionate about integrating urban ministry, education, and the gospel, and he spoke and consulted around the nation. For fourteen years he ministered to Hispanics in Chicago, founding five urban congregations, two elementary schools, and an extension school for theological education. He was also the founder and senior pastor of Spirit and Truth Fellowship (Christian Reformed Church), a multiethnic congregation in Philadelphia, and the codirector of the CRC Philadelphia Initiative for Church Planting.
Harvie M. Conn was emeritus professor of missions at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, before his death in 1999. He was for ten years editor of Urban Mission. He also wrote Evangelism: Doing Justice and Preaching Grace and Eternal Word and Changing Worlds.