Part III listed the five “ministry fronts” necessary for effective city-center churches and concluded with a discussion of church planting as the fifth integral ministry front. In outlining the importance of an ongoing commitment to church planting, Tim Keller warned against creating cookie-cutter style churches in favor of planting churches that shared the same “theological DNA.” Concluding his article on ministry in city centers is his insight as to what constitutes the right reproducible theological DNA.

“Theological DNA” of City-Center Churches

1. The Depth-Proclamation of the Gospel. The gospel IS the dynamic for all heart change, life change and social change. Change won’t happen through “trying harder” but through a deep encounter with the radical grace of God.

• The Holiness-Love axis: the gospel of grace (cf. Luther). If I think of God as all or mainly holy and think of myself as saved because I am living morally according to his standards, then I am not moved to the depths when I think of my salvation. I earned it. There is no joy, amazement, tears. I am not galvanized and transformed from the inside. But if I think of God as all or mainly love and think of myself as saved because God just forgives and accepts everyone no matter how we live, then I am not moved to the depths when I think of my salvation. There is no joy, amazement, tears because God forgives—that’s his job. I am not galvanized and transformed from the inside.  Any effort to take away the idea of substitutionary atonement and replace it with a moralism (being moral, working for others, imitating Jesus) robs the gospel of its power to change lives.
  
  
• The Truth-Experience axis: the gift of the Spirit (cf. Edwards). When a Christian or a church stresses either the cognitive to the exclusion of the experiential, or the experiential to the exclusion of the cognitive, there will be a loss of renewal dynamics. They must both be stressed heavily, and they must not be pitted against each other but seen as complementary. It is truth that we experience! Yet our experience is what makes us hungry for more truth. Some people have sound doctrine but are threatened by the emphasis on experience and activity. Others are people who are concerned about real life and society but have rejected the idea of an authoritative Bible and the orthodox faith. One side will criticize revived churches as too radical, and the other as too primitive. Legalism/moralism is truth without grace (which is not real truth); relativism is grace without truth (which is not real grace). To the degree a ministry fails to do justice to both, it loses life-changing power. 
  
  
• The Individual-Corporate axis: the gospel of the Kingdom (cf. Ridderbos, N.T.Wright). Some conservative Christians think of the story of salvation like this: Fall, Redemption, Heaven. In this narrative, only saved people have anything of value (people in the world are simply blind and bad), and the purpose of redemption is escape from this world. But if the story of salvation is Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration, then things look different. Non-Christians, created in the image of God, have much wisdom and greatness within them, even though the image is defaced and fallen. Moreover, the purpose of redemption is not to escape the world but to renew it. The gospel then is not just about individual happiness and fulfillment. It is not just a wonderful plan for “my life” but a wonderful plan for the world; it is about the coming of God's kingdom to renew all things. The gospel creates a people with an alternate way of being human. Racial and class superiority, accrual of money and power at the expense of others, yearning for popularity and recognition--all these things are marks of living in the world, and are the opposite of the mindset of the kingdom (Luke 6:20-26). In summary, if you lose the emphasis on conversion (“My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose went forth and followed thee”), you lose the power of the gospel for personal transformation. You will not work sacrificially, joyfully, and non-paternalistically for justice. If you lose the emphasis on the corporate—on the kingdom—you lose the power of the gospel for cultural transformation.

2. The Theology and Importance of Cities. Also key to a healthy, reproducible theological DNA is the underlying theology of the city.

• The city and refuge. In ancient societies, the city wall represented the fact that cities were places of refuge and justice. The density of population and the city wall made it possible for city-zens to protect themselves from robbers and armies. God placed his judges in cities and directed that cities of refuge be built in Israel where cases could be tried. To this day cities are places where the weak—minorities, immigrants and poor—go to find a place to live (refuge).
  
  
• The city and culture. God told Adam and Eve to build a culture (“have dominion”) that honored him. They failed; but when Jesus, the second Adam, completes his work, the result will be a city (Revelation 21-22). Cities continue to be the main place where culture develops. As the city goes, so the arts, scholarship, communication, philosophy, and commerce go. People who don't live in cities are at a disadvantage; they are marginal to the centers, the places of "cultural forging."
  
  
• The city and witness. The ministry of the early Christians was remarkably city-centric. Paul's missionary journeys essentially ignored the countryside. When he entered a new region, he planted churches in the biggest city of that region, and then left. Why?

• Personal cruciality. In the village, people live in very stable environments. Thus they are suspicious of any major change.  Because of the diversity and intensity of the cities, urbanites are much more open to radically new ideas—like the gospel!
  
  
• Cultural cruciality. In the village, you might win one or two lawyers to Christ, but if you wanted to win the legal profession, you would need to go to the city where the law schools are located, where the law journals published, etc.
  
  
• Global cruciality. In the village, you can win only the single people group that is there. But if you want to spread the gospel to 10 or 20 new national groups at once, you would go to the city where they can all be reached through the one lingua franca of the place.

• The theology of the city is clearly illustrated in Jeremiah’s urban-centric prophetic mandate and in Paul’s urban-centric missionary strategy. “Seek the welfare of the city to which I called you” (Jeremiah 29:7). Settle down, live and work in it long term. Seek the good of the whole city in servanthood, yet in strong communities for themselves as well. Paul did church planting in the largest urban center of each region, because cities were (and are) the "culture-forming wombs" of the society. Whatever captures the cultural centers captures society. By 300 AD, 50 percent of the urban populations of the Roman Empire were Christian, while more than 90 percent of the countryside was still pagan. The very best way for Christians to win and serve our society is to live in very great numbers in cities—not despising them, assimilating to them, seeking control of them, or using them for career—but loving them and seeking their peace (Jim Boice).
  
  
• Now is a historic moment for Western cities. Cities in Western society are being flooded with people from the parts of the world (Africa, Latin America, and Asia) where Christianity is growing in credibility. The grassroots population of Western cities could become Christian to a greater extent than has been seen in 100 years. Over the next couple of generations those Christians will move into the city center, into the culture-forming institutions, and exert influence. In addition, the younger, more multiethnic generations in the U.S. show much more interest in spirituality in general and Christianity in particular.  In order to take advantage of this historic moment, two kinds of churches are needed. First, hundreds of grassroots Christian leaders coming into the urban centers must be supported to plant thousands of new churches among the new residents. Second, as resource churches, we must produce hundreds of city-center churches that would help all the new professionals coming in from outside the city and from the city’s grassroots learn how to operate as Christians in a secular, pluralistic culture. If we can realize our vision of a great movement of gospel-centered churches in a city as influential as NYC, we may literally see our world change.

3. The Nature of Contextualization. Contextualization is the incarnation of the gospel in a new culture. Each culture has a worldview or “world story” at its heart. To reach a new culture, the gospel must enter, challenge, and re-tell the story of the new culture. In so doing, there are two equal and opposite errors that can emerge. First, if the culture is not truly entered (that is, if the gospel communication comes in the undiluted cultural form of its sender), then the receptors will experience only a “cultural conversion.” They do not actually encounter God but simply adopt the culture of the sender. Second, if the culture is not truly challenged and re-worked (that is, if the basic idols of the culture are not really removed), then the receptors will experience only a “cultural conversion;” they will simply get a lightly Christianized version of their own culture.

Every expression and embodiment of Christianity is contextualized. There is no such thing as a universal, ahistorical expression of Christianity. Jesus didn’t come to earth as a generalized being; by his becoming human, he had to become a particular human. He was male, Jewish, and working class; he was a socially and culturally-situated person.

So the minute we begin to minister, we must “incarnate” even as Jesus did. Actual Christian practices must have both a Biblical form or shape and a cultural form or shape. For example, the Bible clearly directs us to use music to praise God, but as soon as we choose a specific music to use, we enter a culture. As soon as we choose a language, as soon as we choose a vocabulary, as soon as we choose a particular level of emotional expressiveness and intensity, as soon as we choose even an illustration as an example for a sermon, we move toward the social context of some people and away from the social context of others. At Pentecost, everyone heard the sermon in his or her own language and dialect. But since Pentecost, we can never be all things to all people at the very same time. Adaptation to culture is inevitable.

It is important to note that contextualization is not relativism! As D.A. Carson has said, “No truth which human beings may articulate can ever be articulated in a culture-transcending way—but that does not mean that the truth thus articulated does not transcend culture.” It is important to keep the balance of this statement. If you forget the first half, you will think there is only one true way to communicate the gospel. If you forget the second half, you’ll lose your grip on the fact that nonetheless there is only one true gospel. Either way you will be ineffective in ministry. Paul does not change the gospel, but he adapts it very heavily. This may open the door to abuses; but fear and refusal to adapt culturally open the door to abuses of the gospel just as much. The balance is to not succumb to relativism or to think contextualization is really avoidable. Both are gospel-eroding errors.  In summary:

• If we over-adapt to a culture we are trying to reach, it means we have bought in to that culture’s idols. We are allowing that culture too much authority. For example, we may take a good theme (e.g. the freedom of the individual in the West, which fits with the “priesthood of all believers”) and allow it to be an idol (e.g. the dominance of the individual which prevents pastoral accountability and discipline).
  
  
• If, on the other hand we under-adapt to a culture, it means we have accepted our own culture’s idols. We are forgetting that our own version of Christianity is in large part not Biblical but simply cultural.
  
  
• To the degree a ministry is over- or under-adapted, it loses culture-transforming power. It is, therefore, impossible to avoid the very real dangers of contextualization by simply holding on to the old, familiar ways. That would be as much of a cultural trap as to over-adapt.

City centers are dense and diverse and there are always a lot of new young residents who just moved in to town in order to make their own way. They are often culturally unlike the long-time residents (the corporate and cultural leaders).  It is quite easy to fail to contextualize to the city center, to simply offer up a suburban model of ministry (not tapping into the city’s cultural narratives, not speaking in the city’s voice) and still draw a crowd. The church must continually ask itself whether it is really reaching the longer-time residents or simply gathering the outsiders and the short-term newcomers.

4. The Necessity of Church Planting. Why is church planting so important?

• Evangelism is most effective in the context of a local church. People who are “evangelized” in the context of an ongoing worshipping and shepherding community are much more likely to come into vital, saving faith. 
  
  
• New churches are by far the best way to reach new generations, new residents, and new people groups.
  
  
• New churches best reach the unchurched, period. The average new church gains most of its new members from the ranks of people who are not attending any worshipping body, while churches more than 10 to 15 years old gain 80 to 90 percent of new members by transfer from other congregations. 
  
  
• New churches are the only ministries that become self-supporting and expand the base for all other ministries. 
  
  
• New churches are the best single way to revitalize older congregations in the area. New churches help the overall body of Christ by a) showcasing new ministry forms and ideas that would never have been adopted in older churches, b) creating an “it can be done” mindset in older churches, c) providing many new converts in the city that find their way to older churches, and d) supporting many new ministries that have city-wide benefits. 
  
  
• The only wide-scale way to bring in lots of new Christians to the body of Christ in a permanent way is to plant new churches. To throw this into relief, imagine Town A, Town B and Town C are the same size and they each have 100 churches of 100 persons each. But in Town A, all the churches are more than 15 years old and that the overall number of active Christian churchgoers in that town will be shrinking, even if four or five of the churches get very “hot” and double in attendance.  In Town B, five of the churches are under 15 years old, and they along with several older congregations are winning new people to Christ, but this only offsets the normal declines of the older churches. Thus the overall number of active Christian churchgoers in that town will be staying the same.  Finally, in Town C, 30 of the churches are under 15 years old. In this town, the overall number of active Christian churchgoers will be on a path to grow 50 percent in a generation. 

Continued on page 2