City Core Initiative _____________ A Heart for the City

To infuse the city core with the gospel of Jesus Christ requires that there must first be a radical departure from typical city church ministry, i.e., ministry as usual. This departure is away from a mindset of church building toward one of community building – community transformation begins with transformational congregations. This departure also embraces the need for new transforming expressions of church starting. It builds on the biblical premise that God loves the city and that He scattered His churches throughout the cities of the world to manifest His incarnation and coming kingdom. It accepts that Jesus Christ came to redeem both human beings and human systems from the fallen-ness of sin to the abundance of life in God.

Community transformation embraces a functional knowledge of demographics, lifestyles, economic enterprise, cultural markers, social capital, and congregational strength present and emerging in city core communities.

Some core principles are:

• Change begins with new knowledge that engages the heart
• Transformational and multicultural collaboration is essential to success
• Church clusters that focus on the same geography generate synergistic potential for change
• Improved quality of life is the best social and economic measures of success
• Tides-of-worship is the best spiritual measure of success
• Economic enterprise and mutually enhancing relationships are the matrix for progress
• Community renewal focuses first on the capacities and assets within a community
• Churches must focus on such things as; the good of the city, social justice, economic equity, wealth generation, kingdom prayer, spiritual warfare, and prophetic worship
  
• The environment and relationships necessary to sustainable transformation presupposes a catalytic and synergistic dynamic