This month marks six months into my first pastorate. As I continue to settle into my new role as Co-Pastor at Harrisburg First Church of the Brethren and integrate myself into different aspects of the city, I am constantly reminded that there is never a dull moment in urban ministry. Oftentimes, ministry in the city feels like everything is moving a mile a minute. The hustle-bustle of the city does not stop at the footsteps of the church. Rather, it is the context that surrounds the life of the church. And as life moves and shifts at this speed, those of us who have answered a call to urban ministry know that this means we meet each day with a sense of openness and adaptability. Although I may fill my calendar with different meetings, visitations, time for sermon prep, or other church activities, I never fully know what the city has in store for me. As I encounter different situations and challenges as a co-pastor of an urban congregation, I have come to develop a kind of catch-phrase for myself. At least once a week someone will hear me say the phrase, “Well, they didn’t teach me that at seminary.” Although it is true that I recently completed my MDiv. and that I am still navigating the learning curve of my first call, this isn’t my first taste of urban ministry. Part of my vocational journey has taken me to places such as Philadelphia, Atlanta, Trenton, and now Harrisburg. It was in these urban settings that I first learned what it meant to accept God’s invitation and participate in God’s unfolding love story through ministry. However, although urban ministry may be my familiar context, in the larger Church oftentimes urban spaces are overlooked. Even in my seminary training, discussions about urban contexts were underrepresented. However, as I have lived and studied in these spaces of vibrant life, I am reminded of all the ways urban ministry can teach us more about God and serving with God’s people.
When we think about the city, it is easy to become overwhelmed and intimidated by these places. Oftentimes, the picture that is painted for us about these urban settings comes from a dominant narrative that seeks to sensationalize city life. The context in which my congregation, Harrisburg First Church of the Brethren, exists would at first glance appear to check many of the boxes of inner-city characterizations. It is a diverse neighborhood with a reputation for crime and violence. However, moving beyond these notions you can see that these challenges are more nuanced than these baseline assumptions might lead on.
One of our congregational community partners in the neighborhood of South Allison Hill is Tri-County Community Action. Their mission as an organization is to provide a comprehensive approach to individual, family, and neighborhood success through a myriad of programming. They are currently working towards the implementation of a neighborhood action plan that was designed and created by residents of the community. As part of this in-depth plan, they were able to gather important quantitative data of the neighborhood that highlights some of the particular challenges of our community. In our ministry as a church, we know that our neighborhood is represented by African-American families whose presence in the community goes back generations. We have seen the increase of white neighbors on our block and we also know that there are many families from Central America, West Africa, and the Caribbean because we see them every Friday during our Wellness Hub. Yet, being a community with many transient people, it is hard to determine the exact ethnic representation of the neighborhood. However, the best statistical estimates of the racial makeup of the neighborhood, as determined by Tri-County Community Action, shows that as many as 47% of Allison Hill residents identify as Black, 36% as white, 5% as Asian, 2% as Indigenous American and the remaining percentage identify themselves as either mixed or other.1 Within the neighborhood, 47% of residents ethnically identify themselves as Latinx.2 This particular statistic highlights the fact that almost half of the residents of Allison Hill have Hispanic ethnic identities and that there is a large Spanish-speaking population in our neighborhood. So already, it is clear that this one particular area is home to a vast array of cultures. Yet, housing all these different racial and ethnic groups is another difficulty.
Securing affordable and safe housing in the neighborhood is extremely difficult because of the overall safety of the neighbor and also the limited number of available properties. Although the overall crime rates over the period between 2012-2019 have decreased in the neighborhood, the Tri-County report noted that they remain the highest crime rates in the city of Harrisburg. Further, Tri-County found that if you were to combine all of the vacant land in the neighborhood together you would be able to fill 26.5 football fields, a space that has the potential to house up to 5,874 people. In this regard, the housing challenge is not about quantitative space but rather access to safe and structurally sound buildings. However, if a person were able to find an apartment or home that were to be safe, the chances of them being able to afford the cost of rent might be another obstacle to overcome. One such obstacle could be the fact that the majority of residents in Allison Hill, or 72% of individuals are below the age of 35.3 They have not had much time to build up their wealth. And it is even harder to build up wealth when the median household income in the neighborhood is $30, 861 compared to the city median income of $63,383.4 The statistical representation of the neighborhood outlines the unique and complex challenges of inner-city life and ministry. In many ways, it can seem that these 21st-century obstacles are too large and multi-faceted to be addressed by ministry. How can the scriptures of Ancient Near East civilizations, the teachings of Jesus, and the words of Paul mean anything to an inner-city neighborhood? When I start to wonder if ministry is still relevant for the city, I am reminded that it was an urban context that gave rise to many of the early Christians.
During my time at Princeton Theological Seminary, I had the opportunity to take a course focused on contexts and congregations. The course aimed to equip future church leaders to be able to navigate and contextualize the spaces in which they might find themselves doing ministry. The class was structured in a way that the material we covered in readings and lectures would be applied to two specific projects. The first project would be an in-depth analysis of a contemporary church congregation that we were unfamiliar with. For many of us, this meant choosing to study a congregation outside of our denominations and geographical locations. However, the second portion of the course was to apply these same anthropologic skills to study and become familiar with the congregational contexts of Paul’s epistles. In participating in this assignment, I was reminded of what I had learned from my New Testament teachers. Many of the early Christians and the communities that were formed through Paul’s ministry consisted of urban dwellers. Many early Christians depended on the city for their livelihoods. And like them, the city life was also central to Paul. This meant that not only Paul but the churches that formed through his ministry existed in spaces where they were surrounded by people of different ethnicities, religious practices, and social classes. Like the neighborhood of Allison Hill, many Greco-Roman cities were comprised of various cultural identities. In a context where we might have neighbors from Guatemala, Nigeria, and 3rd generation Pennsylvanians all living within the same block, the cities Paul visited consisted of Greeks, Jews, and Romans. And like our cities today, these ancient cities found other ways to divide people. There was also a class structure that operated in these Roman cities. In many of the Greco-Roman cities, educated aristocrats carried out the Roman law in these local communities, wielding power over lower classes. And the lowest class would be those enslaved. Of course, there were plenty of distinctions between these Roman cities and the contemporary post-industrial cities we are familiar with in an American context.
Although Roman cities may have been large and populous for their context, the size of these cities and the number of people living within the borders of the city would not even match the number of people living in South Allison Hill. Further, despite the fact that there was a class system in place, it would not be familiar to our contemporary sensibilities. As important as it is to note these distinctions, it can not be understated that early Christianity was experienced within the context of the city. Yet, noticing the role the city played within Paul’s ministry is a reminder to myself and the larger Church, that urban spaces are not to be overlooked or even feared. Rather, having the opportunity to partake in urban ministry has given me a different lens to understand and experience God through. This has been especially true when I think about the ways my theology has been shaped by these contexts.
During my second year of seminary, I was able to be placed with an organization called UrbanPromise in Trenton, New Jersey. UrbanPromise is a Christian organization that seeks to equip Trenton’s children and young adults with the skills necessary for academic achievement, life management, spiritual growth, and Christian leadership. They aim to do this through after-school and summer programs that include access to tutoring, mentoring, and employment for local teenagers. This organization works predominantly with low-income and racially minoritized students. As a seminary intern, I was tasked with teaching the Bible to students in grades 2nd- 8th during their summer camp programming. However, one of the components of the internship was not only the development of practical ministry tools such as lesson planning and scriptural exegesis but we were also expected to complete theological reflections with our site supervisor as a way to both discern our vocational call but also to process anything that may be challenging our preconceived theological notions. During one of our weekly chats, we somehow found ourselves talking about the story of Jonah. As we started to draw out the parallels between the story and our experience of ministry in the city of Trenton, it was clear to me that Jonah had a lot to teach me about my urban theology.
As the story parallels challenges that I have faced in my ministry there are several dimensions of the text that I believe highlight fundamental aspects of my ever-growing urban theology. One of the first parts of the Jonah narrative that catches my attention is that God calls and seeks out God’s power of transformation to be experienced in the city. In chapter one God tells Jonah to “Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.”5 The way that Nineveh has been described mirrors the way cities like Trenton and neighborhoods like South Allison Hill have been characterized. Like Jonah, the Church has a history of fleeing spaces where all that people see are things of wickedness. Again, even in my context, as I came to learn about the history of Harrisburg First, I realized that it was a difficult decision for the church to choose to remain in the city. During the 1950s, there were growing tensions being built up in the congregation of Harrisburg First Church of the Brethren. A sizable portion of the congregation had moved into the surrounding suburbs of the city. Whether they were seeking more space, newer homes, greater access to public goods, or following the trends of this era known as “White Flight” in which middle-class white families wanted to separate themselves from the diversifying cities, the congregation had to wrestle with the question of remaining in the city or relocating. And although Brethren heritage is rooted in rural history, a decision was made to continue worshipping in the urban context. Yet, this decision was not unanimous and ultimately caused the congregation to split with a little more than half of the members forming a separate church in Susquehanna Township, an affluent suburb of Harrisburg. So to simply choose to continue existing within the city is already a divisive point. Then, if a church can move forward from this decision, to stay in the city or answer the call like Jonah did to go into the city, once present in the space, more challenges arise.
In our contemporary context, remaining in the city or choosing to go into the city is a challenge because of the fast-paced energy and shifting currents of the landscape. To navigate these demands, one of the things that I have learned my ministry requires is a steadfastness that empowers the community to try things again and again. This orientation is something that I see highlighted in the Jonah narrative too. In chapter three, God gives Jonah another chance. The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. Just as God chose not to give up on the Ninevites God also did not give up on Jonah. As a pastor in the city, I am the receipt of such mercy and grace from both God and my congregants. When things do not work out, the trust my congregants have in me and in the God we all serve, empowers them to try things again. They are willing to take a second chance and make a change. Of course, this orientation was not something that always existed within the life of the congregation. From what I have experienced, the communities and churches that are willing to try things again have spent intentional time nourishing the spiritual life of the group. Again, as I have seen how my theology has been shaped by the urban contexts that I have been led into, what has been revealed to me is that trusting in God not only encourages us to try again, but sometimes it even encourages a steeper action, a change.
In chapter three of Jonah, it says that “when God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.”6 Commentaries of this scripture reflect a diverse range of interpretations of this text and present various arguments for the meaning of this particular verse. However, being presented with a picture of a God who possesses the ability to change is something that speaks to the context of urban ministry. This was the particular verse that my field education supervisor and I spent much time wrestling with. After serving six years with UrbanPromise in Trenton, my supervisor told me how often he found himself in need of this reminder. Again, one of the greatest challenges that urban congregations face is the physical reality of remaining in their locations. The social ills that are spoken of are made known in the faces of your neighbors, people walking down your block, and congregants of your church. In the city, there is very little room to hide from these realities. When this is the image that you see day-to-day, it can become easy to lose hope. Sometimes you might even be asking yourself, “Is this ministry here, making any kind of difference?” The transformation that is so desperately desired in urban ministry also feels so desperately impossible to achieve. However, when I remember the kind of God I serve, the impossibilities transform into potentialities.
We can be encouraged to partake in ministry that seeks to change the physical realities like places such as Trenton, North Philadelphia, and South Allison Hill in Harrisburg, even when the logic of the world tells us that social change is impossible, because we are in relation with a God who is willing to change and demonstrates transformative love. Remembering a story like Jonah, where God change’s God’s mind, then there is no impossibility that God would be able to transform places like Allison Hill. Yet, oftentimes we allow our human imagination to constrain the power of God. Choosing to do ministry in the city is choosing to believe that God is capable of anything. As much as I may talk about the challenges of urban ministry, there are even more joys to be shared. One such joy that I have been able to experience in urban ministry has been the ability to be a part of communities that orient themselves in such a way that openness allows them to try new and sometimes even unconventional things. Sometimes this has looked like holding Friday night block parties with Gospel music blasting through speakers rather than Friday night services in a sanctuary. Other times this has been the decision to move from models of service to models of partnerships in ministry by becoming a congregation that offers microloans to small businesses in the area. And as I write this article, there is a wave of change in my congregation as we discern how we can truly be an inclusive and empowering church for all of God’s children. In each decision that I have been a part of, that led to a change in the status quo, I saw that it was only made possible because the foundation had been built on a deep, cultivated, and nurtured sense of faith to try new things. The decisions were not made because suddenly the groups or congregations became brave enough. It wasn’t even always the result of well-planned education classes and events. What brought about the change was a decision to yield to the movement of the Spirit and respond yes to where the Spirit was leading.
Most days, if I can remember this much, I feel equipped enough to tackle the challenges that I know are present in ministry. And sometimes I start getting comfortable that things are going exactly the way that I had hoped they would. Yet, on the days and weeks that present even more difficulties, and thing after thing keeps coming up, or my expectations go unmet, it is the last part of the Jonah story that I find myself having to reflect on. The final part of Jonah, chapter four, helps me to better navigate the feelings of anger that arise in urban ministry. As swift and face-paced as the city may be, sometimes the change I hope to see moves at a glacial pace. More so, when change does come, oftentimes it doesn’t look like what I expected it to be. The mysteries of God still amaze me and also still frustrate me. Like Jonah, I too get caught up in what I expected of God. I too find myself angry because sometimes the who and the how of God’s transformative power is revealed in a way that just doesn’t make sense to me. Yet, amid my misunderstanding, what is made known to me is that because all has not been made known, that means that God is not yet done. And if God still wants to change and transform then I pray my response is a faithful yes.
Looking over these reflections, it is true that there are particularities that define the urban context. However, across the various urban settings that I have found myself in, there are elements that I believe can impact anyone who finds themselves participating in God’s ministry. The first is that God’s presence can always be felt, even in these spaces that everyone else may want to flee from or whose characterization is irredeemable, places like the city. The second constant that I have found while ministering in an urban context is that acknowledging God’s presence in these spaces also empowers ministry to be built solely upon a deep faith and trust in God. Of course, there is no one way of being a church in a city and that extends to ministry in general. Yet, working in my context I remind myself that the type of change I want to see is not just a secular idea of social change. Rather, I want to be a part of God’s unfolding, divine transformation. And although this may not make sense to me, and oftentimes it doesn’t, this is what helps me to keep going when things get tough. This is what helps me to see my block, my neighborhood, and my city as both a testament to and a space of potential for experiencing God’s Shalom.
Alexandra “Lexi” Aligarbes serves as co-pastor of Harrisburg First Church of the Brethren. A native New Mexican, she moved to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania by way of Princeton, New Jersey. She is also a contributor to The World Made Queer. Apart from ministry, Lexi is an accomplished tennis player.
- Tri-County Community Action, “Heart of the Hill: Neighborhood Action Plan,” 2019, 17. https://cactricounty.org/file_download/inline/f359b9aa-fe8f-4ec3-a71e-0dd54aa8f600.
- Tri-County “Heart of the Hill,” 17.
- Ibid.
- Ibid., 19.
- Jonah 1:2. All scripture references are to the New Revised Standard Version.
- Jonah 3:10.