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The New Frontier by Harold Shank

The New Frontier
We all know the problems of inner city residents. Poverty. Hunger. Discrimination. Crime. Drugs. Unemployment. Gangs. Illiteracy. Despair. Hopelessness. We know the common solutions. Welfare. Food stamps. More police patrols. Federal aid to dependent children. We also know that these solutions are just stop-gaps, doing nothing to address the one thing all people need most-God.
We recognize their need for God and long to do something about it. Sometimes we’ve expected them to come to our churches, to act like we do, to sing the songs we sing, to pray the same prayers, to smile the same smiles, to be on time, and to listen to our twenty-minute sermons. As a result, most evangelical churches in America, black or white, speak English, are middle-class, and have middle-class aspirations.
But consider these facts:
  • Los Angeles is the second largest Mexican, Armenian, Korean, Filipino, Salvadorian, and Guatemalan city in the world.
  • San Francisco is the most culturally diverse city in the United States.
  • New York City is the world’s second largest Puerto Rican city.
  • Over 32 million Americans speak a language other than English at home.
  • The U.S. has the largest black population of any country except Nigeria.
  • The U.S. has the third largest Hispanic population of any country.
  • One of every four Americans is from a sociologically distinct group.
  • Most of these people live in our cities.
It is fact that America has become home to millions of Asians, Latinos, Africans, and Middle Easterners. Most of them are urban poor, with each major city having a unique ethnic, racial, and cultural mix. The majority of them are unchurched, making up the largest unclaimed Christian mission frontier.
Our ministry to them must cross the barriers of culture, language, and race, making urban mission challenging. It’s not easy, but we are working to cross those barriers. Urban ministries like MUM and Hope Works in Memphis, Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City and IMPACT in Houston are critical to that effort.
In Memphis, MUM goes to the inner city to meet people in their homes, in their front yards, in their streets. Hope Works attacks the problem of unemployment through its Life Skill Labs. The Downtown Church shines its light through the inner city, offering hope and modeling a new way of life. In Oklahoma City, a multi-ethnic congregation serves its community. The Lighthouse Medical ministry, housed in the same building, offers health care services often unavailable to the people who live in the neighborhood.
The core of the American city is the new frontier providing fresh and abundant opportunities for service and ministry. God loves the city. Maybe he has put it so close to us so that we can rise up with the Gospel in hand to push out the borders of his kingdom into a new frontier.

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