By Stuart Mann

Colin McCartney tells audience that churches have to go where the needs are, not to hope for people to come to them. Photos by Michael Hudson

There are about 350 children and teenagers in Colin McCartney’s church. The mothers meet every Monday night for Bible study. The worship services often last for hours, with lots of music, dancing and food. He has a staff of 18, many of whom come from other countries to help out.

Mr. McCartney’s church building is impossible to find on a map, because it doesn’t exist. His church is in the homes, schools and recreation centres of its members.

“My vision of a church is that you go out and do mission,” he says. “You don’t even think about planting a church. You think about where the needs are. If the need is there, you go out and love those people. That’s what Jesus did. The next thing you’ll know, you’ll have a church on your hands.”

Mr. McCartney is the executive director of UrbanPromise Toronto, a Christian organization which works in some of the most troubled neighbourhoods in the city. He was speaking at a conference at Trinity, Streetsville, on how to build missional communities.

He said creating churches all begins with Jesus Christ. “If you know Jesus and you know how he operated and you really understand his ways, then you try to work out your life through his method – his way – and you will do mission. When you do mission, a natural result of that will be a church.”

Just don’t expect the people you are helping to come to your church on Sunday morning, he adds. You have to go where the people are – and stay there.

It took him a long time to understand and accept this. As an ordained minister at Parkway Bible Church in Scarborough, he had a “burn” for the youth in that community. “A lot of them were from the government housing community just down the road. There was no way they would step foot in our church. So I thought to myself, ‘How do I reach these people?’”

He began to volunteer as a basketball coach at the local high school. He got to know the players and their friends. They began to trust him. Some of boys were in trouble with the law and had to do community service. They asked him for help, so he started up a program for young offenders back at the church.

He got to know their girlfriends, some of whom were pregnant, so they started up a program to teach teen mothers how to cook on a limited budget. He says this is where the value of the church building came in. They used the kitchen for cooking classes and the gym for basketball.

“I kind of changed the church into a drop-in for these youth. I learned that they’ll come to a drop-in, but they won’t come to a Sunday morning service.”

At first, this bothered him. Then he started to see things in a new way. Although the kids and their parents weren’t coming to church on Sunday morning, they were starting to ask questions about God and faith. A Christian community was forming.

“Eventually we stopped trying to be this church that is way up here saying, ‘Come join us.’ No, we left that church-service thing behind and joined them right in the community. As it says in the Bible, Jesus Emmanuel, God with us. He left heaven and joined us.”

When Mr. McCartney founded UrbanPromise Toronto nine years ago, he embraced that idea completely. All the activities that he and his staff run – the after-school tutoring classes, the Bible studies and worship services, the sports and arts programs, the summer camps – take place in homes, recreation centres, schools and rented space where the people live.

Conference participants gather for a picture. About 100 people attended the conference.

“We’re the body of Christ, a community of people. What makes us think that church happens at 11 a.m. on Sunday? Why can’t it happen Monday night in an apartment building or Friday night in the basement of a community centre with a bunch of youth over for dinner? Why can’t it happen in different places and in different ways?

“Why can’t the church be like a big river instead of being stuck in a holy location? It’s liquid, not static. It’s not stuck in a building. It flows in and out of all the nooks and crannies of Toronto.”

His version of the eucharist is eating a meal with people and worship is the very act of mission itself. In fact, he says a church should organize itself for mission, not worship. “Jesus says to go into the world and make disciples. God became flesh and moved into the neighbourhood. He said, don’t separate me from anything.”

He says people who want to do mission have to be prepared to end up with a church that doesn’t look anything like the church they came from. “You’re going to get a baby church, and babies are messy. You could have a church full of strippers or gangsters. Different tribes worship in different ways. That’s a good thing. Churches shouldn’t all look the same.”

Churches that want to send out people to do mission should send them out in groups of two or more, he says. Ideally, the group should include an apostle, a prophet, an evangelist, a pastor and a teacher. He says every Christian is one of these five.

“You need an apostle at your church to say, ‘Let’s go out and plant some churches.’ You need the prophet to say to the church that is being planted, ‘There are things going wrong here.’ You need the evangelist because they’re going to win people to God. You need the pastor to care for those people who are hurting. And you need the teacher to teach them in the ways of the faith.”

Most of all, he says, you need to instil in people a love for the mission field. “A philosopher once said that if you want to teach people how to build a boat, don’t give them hammers and nails and blueprints. Give them a love for the vast ocean. If they have a love for the ocean, they’ll build boats. That’s what we’ve got to do: give our Christian people and churches a love for the mission and the people out there.”

The audience heard from other speakers how churches are moving into their surrounding communities. Marie Green said the Downsview Youth Covenant, which operates out of St. Stephen’s, Downsview, has made a difference in the lives of at-risk youth through after-school and summer programs. Many of the children are now in the church choir.

Joining Ms. Green during a panel discussion was Rob Shearer, a staff member of the Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund. Mr. Shearer lived for five years in a Catholic Worker “house of hospitality” in Toronto’s Parkdale neighbourhood. He is currently involved in forming a new monastic community tentatively called Community of the Reconciliation. Also on the panel were Matt Wilkinson, youth pastor for The Meeting House, and Jamie Jones, ministry director for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship Canada for the GTA.

Shane Claiborne talks about the work of The Simple Way, a Christian community in inner-city Philadelphia.

The evening speaker was Shane Claiborne, a founding partner of The Simple Way, a faith community in inner-city Philadelphia that has helped create and connect radical faith communities around the world. These communities seek to follow Jesus and rediscover the spirit of the early church as described in the Book of Acts.

Members of The Simple Way feed the hungry, run arts programs for youth, operate a community store and reclaim garbage-strewn lots by planting gardens.

“Each of us is created for community, and in the image of community,” said Mr. Claiborne. “And yet everything in the world tries to rob us of this divine gift. People just want to be loved and to belong.”