Churches need to touch hurts, pastor maintains

By Rachel L. Toalson
Staff Writer
Pressing against wounds of the world is the only way for today’s church to reach out and hope to continue as a viable institution.
That’s to be the message from Pastor Rudy Rasmus of St. John’s UMC in downtown Houston to the third session of the Holy Boldness Urban Ministry Academy March 28-30 at Travis Park UMC, San Antonio.
Rasmus plans to preach from his newest book, Touch.
“The only way we can begin to minister to the wounds of a broken world is to be willing to touch those wounds,” Rasmus said. “The wounds aren’t the kind of wounds that we can speak to from a safe distance in any shape or fashion.”
The Holy Boldness Urban Ministry Academy is a two-year training program sponsored by the Office of New Church Development and Transformation. Sessions are designed to show clergy and laity leaders how to transform congregational life in cities.
Next month’s theme is how the church can missionally engage the community, said the Rev. Mike Lowry, executive director of new church development and transformation.
Rasmus said he traveled more than 90,000 miles last year to discover “a church that is dissipating all over the world.” He visited Northern Europe, where church buildings have become museums because less than 1 percent of the population attends church regularly.
He visited Africa, where, he said, the church has a presence more among the historically privileged than the historically oppressed.
Rasmus lives in Houston, where, he said, less than 10 percent of 5 million people go to church. The 4.5 million who stay away have wounds, he added.
During his speech, Rasmus said he would elaborate on four points he learned from trips to the grocery store as a young child—points that could help the church know how to approach its Samaria (the wounded places):
> We must engage people before judging.
> We must love before leaving.
> We must learn from each other’s pain.
> Real love requires defending the helpless.
“Those four points will really frame how we approach Samaria in the days to come,” Rasmus said. “In the church of America, we are rapidly becoming an extinct experience, and we have the answer to the pain in the world.
“The church is in trouble. We must begin to acknowledge with honesty and openness that we are in trouble as an institution. If we don’t make it a priority to reach people who don’t think we have an answer, we will be out of business.”
Lowry said the first two academy sessions have had a “fantastic response.”
“(The academies) are coaching churches in how to become missionally engaged in their community in the name of Christ,” Lowry said. “You can’t overstate the critical importance of that. These (churches) are places that have gone from nonengagement in the community to becoming champions.
“Churches are waking up to the possibilities of life and the healthy change that goes on where you rediscover Christ again in the neighbor, in the person. They are going from being focused inward and dying to being focused outward in mission.”
The next two or three years will show the “full import” of the academies, Lowry said.
Rasmus said it’s important for churches in an urban setting to examine their outreach and practices.
“The feet of power is in the city,” Rasmus said. “The location for government is in the city. People migrate to the city for economic enterprise. They travel out to suburbs to go to sleep. If we are going to be a viable institution in the days ahead, we’re going to have to prioritize the city.
“The growth opportunity for us as a church will happen in the urban landscape. If we keep prioritizing the suburbs, we’re going to leave the city to something else.”
The academy covers seven Holy Boldness themes the first year. Themes are offered in three sessions. Earlier sessions were Sept. 28-30 and Jan. 18-20.
Cost for the Holy Boldness event is $30 per session for individuals. For churches sending four or more, the cost is $25 per individual.
Childcare is available for a fee.
For information about the academy, visit www.thetransformedchurch.org/holyboldness.html, or contact the Office of New Church Development and Transformation.