Blog Archives: June 2011

I remember my freshman year in college meeting a guy who, at the beginning of the school year, would watch incoming freshman and tell his friends what kind of school these freshman came from. "That dude's been homeschooled." "Oh that guy? Public school." Her? Definitely from a Christian school." Sure enough ... he was right most of the time. Funny, years later as a youth pastor I found that I could do the same ... which on a side note is why I'm all for sending our kids to public school (Maybe more on that topic someday and no disrespect to ...

Recently I was speaking to a group of pastors and leaders on the subject of the book of Nehemiah and community transformation / development. Admittedly, there are many angles in which to cover a topic like this. There's (1) the practitioner; someone who has been a leader and a pioneer in community transformation. We think of guys like John Perkins, Shane Claiborne, and a slew of others. Then there's (2) the academic types; people who've written extensively on this topic whether from a urban planning framework, a Christian development ...

I continue to revisit the topic of transportation over and over again. The more I do so and the more I spend time reflecting and reading on the topic the more convinced I am of a city's stamp, imprint, or impact that's its transportation system has on church planting efforts. To deny so would be would be missing out on some key elements that makes your city unique. For cities, transportation is quite significant in the present and most certainly their future. It has becomes a badge of honor for cities with the "right" kind of system in pl ...

"A complete street is defined as a street that works for motorists, bus riders, bicyclists, and pedestrians, including people with disabilities. A 'complete streets' policy is aimed at producing roads that are safe for users of all modes of transportation." (Planning for Place and Plexus, 245) Last week our boys were out on the street playing street hockey with a slew of other neighbourhood boys. This and longboarding is a regular occurence on this particular street by our house as it is very fitting since it is a dead-end street. Sometimes ...

"Ever since the early 1990s, there has remained considerable enthusiasm in the urban planning profession for a movement known as the New Urbanism (also referred to as Transit Oriented Development or Smart Growth, or Traditional Neighborhood Design). The doctrine largely promotes compact development, mixing land uses, relatively narrow storefronts, plus urban design changes (e.g. predominantly gridded streets and small blocks). (Planning for Place and Plexus, 231) For starters, New Urbanism can simply be defined as, "an urban design m ...

Today from my vantage point of where I sit is the "perfect storm" of all of the dynamics that I explored in Metrospiritual: The Geography of Church Planting. Perched at a high table next to a large window in Starbucks, I'm downtown in Gastown for the day to get some writing down for View From the Urban Loft. Not only is Starbucks bustling with activity with students, white collar workers, city road workers, and an abundance of the Creative Class, this is the perfect neighbourhood to look again at community transformation. God's mission in ...

"What places are appropriate to be exclusively automotive? What places should be exclusively pedestrian? Where might these travel modes co-exist peacefully? In the corner of auto-exclusivity we have freeways; in the corner of pedestrian-exclusivity, we have skyway networks, underground cities, shopping malls, airport terminals, houses, and office buildings. Are there streets where cars do not belong? These questions all evoke concerns about the overall design of land use and transportation systems." (Planning for Place and Plexus, 222) It's ...

The title of this blog post is rather tongue-in-cheek. Early on when I came to faith in Christ close to 20 years ago there was a Christian radio station by my college. As a new follower of Jesus I was encouraged to put away my "secular" music and to begin listening to the Christian stuff. Unfortunately at that time the Christian music was horrible compared to what I had been used to listening to. Since my new listening diet included this nearby radio station I began listening to other shows whether Chuck Swindoll or Focus on the Family. I ...

"Social divisions, lack of neighborly interaction, and the emergence of social outcasts are all outcomes of our existing built forms." (Planning for Place and Plexus, 209) I know what you might be thinking. Theology of the built environment? I mean, come on, are we to make a "theology" out of anything, right? Theology of the Smurfs. Theology of technology. Theology of hairbrushes. Theology of Mac computers. However, there is something about a city's built environment that is "more than meets the eye." Often times when we view our city; t ...

"Cities form because they concentrate goods, services, and ideas that can be exchanged in a manner that minimizes transportation costs." (Planning for Place and Plexus, 195.) Today's trek around the city brought me to Yaletown on the downtown peninsula. I was immediately reminded that I was no longer in Edmonds as soon as I got off the skytrain and began walking up Davie Street towards the JJ Bean. I think that Lululemon was the attire for most of the women walking around and the guys were dressed sharply for the most part as they hung ...

In reference to the early church ... The Spirit was the initiator of mission. The Spirit preceded those who carried the gospel to new centers, creating a hunger for truth within Gentiles who were losing their lives through immorality and ritual prostitution in the mystery cults. (God So Loves the City, 85) I know one of my greatest blind spots is failure to always keep at the forefront of my thinking that God is to originator of mission. Mission is central to who God is and the whole trajectory of Scripture is based upon that. In fact, ...

Last night I was up well past midnight cranking out another chapter for View from the Urban Loft: Developing a Theological Framework for Understanding the City. In the current chapter I'm working on it has been intriguing to look at and explore the life of Jesus and the early church in relation to the city. I think for most of my life I had somehow come to regard Jesus as a rural dweller always hanging out in the wilderness trekking from tiny village to tiny village. Entire ministries geared towards rural settings stem from this framework of ...

"Christians in urban centers today cannot afford to ignore the presence of people of other religious traditions whose perspectives lie outside the bounds of the experience and historically specific tradition of Christians, especially in North America." (For God So Loves the City, 58). Religious pluralism in our cities can look something like this ... I just had the conversation at my local Starbucks about sports with a couple of guys from eastern Europe. I call them my "Balkan Buddies" as most Europeans in my neighbourhood tend to be from ...

Chapter 9 in Planning for Place and Plexus: Metropolitan Land Use and Transport was intriguing on different fronts. The chapter started off talking about the plight and reinvention of the shopping mall and shopping districts in general. Further along in the chapter, as the authors traced the development of selling, they touched on a time in recent history where there was a proliferation of door-to-door salesmen. At a time in European and North American history it was commonplace for people to go door-to-door to sell anything from milk to ...

"The segregation of neighborhoods along ethnic, social or economic lines is often the enemy of the biblical concept of neighbor. Don't churches limit their ability to be a neighbor when they insist on moving to a more homogeneous area or on ministering to a traditional constituency? Churches that practice true equity can become a symbol to urban society of what it means to be a neighbor." (God So Loves the City, 42-43) In the book God So Loves the City: Seeking a Theology for Urban Mission (ed. Charles Van Engen and Jude Tiersma) J. Timothy ...

This morning I was thumbing through Karen Wilk's book entitled Don't Invite Them to Church: Moving From a Come and See to a Go and Be Church (Faith Alive Christian Resources, 2010). I came across a section called "Identifying Your Neighbourhood" and my eyes were drawn to the acrostic on the page. What is a neighbourhood? What is our neighbourhood in particular? What are the boundaries or parameters that define it? I live in Edmonds Town Centre in Burnaby and while there are not really any hard lines to define us you really get that sense of ...