Suburban Ministry, Part 1

Todd Hiestand, in this paper as posted on his blog makes an excellent exposition of the challenge of the suburban environment for ministry. He first describes the concept of the “missional church”, and shows that a very important context for a missional church is suburbia. He notes (though maybe not this strongly) that several values of the suburban dream are antithetical to Christian beliefs, namely individualism, escapism, and especially consumerism. He details four of the major missions of the church in this environment: rejecting individualism, deconstructing comfort, confronting consumerism, and pursuing justice.

He pulled a few of his quotes from Albert Hsu, who blogs here.

I live very near a very large all-suburban area, and my church is situated within; I am looking into the ideas others have had to work to the benefit of this rather spiritually barren place, thus this interests me greatly. Any pointers to elsewhere are very welcome; as of now I know very little about this.

[edit: I mistakenly attributed the post to Alan Roxburgh instead of Todd Hiestand.]

[edit 2: I linked to Hiestand's blog instead of a repost by someone else.]

Tags: suburbia