Churches Join the Hottest New Business Trend: The 'Sharing Economy'
Photo Credit: Chris Lawrence
By Chris Lawrence
Chris and Naomi Lawrence moved to East Harlem New York City in 2014 from England UK. They launched InnerCHANGE East Harlem NYC in January 2019. Naomi is a fiber artist working in the local community and Chris focuses on befriending and being creative with local seniors. Both Chris and Naomi are committed to supporting under-documented migrants. They have four children and a large dog.
In earlier centuries, thousands of Christians took it upon themselves to become friars “on the move” so as to be found around neighborhoods where Christian community was weak or non-existent. Nowadays it feels as though Christian ministry professionals head downtown to the big box churches or else out to the suburbs.
At the moment in East Harlem we have quite shallow examples of Christian community functioning within storefront churches open a couple of hours per week. Churches characterized by the worshipers commuting from outside into the neighborhood for a few hours is not cutting it. A few congregations are busy with community engagement often running programs with next-to-no resources. We all agree we need to have more intentional community here, more people living with generosity and simplicity following rhythms of hospitality and prayer for Jesus’s sake. This daily presence alongside people on the margins, where we don’t take over people’s lives but seek to be companions on their journeys, is a rarity.
The Celtic movement, which was largely a missionary movement to reach people on the margins has provided me with my personal inspiration for over thirty years. I have been on Iona and Lindisfarne, where natural wildness and an eco-spirituality have combined forces with political engagement. The Iona Community (in its contemporary form) connects to the city of Glasgow. In the case of the monks of Lindisfarne, their connection to political power was through the coracle “rapid transit” ten miles across the short stretch of sea followed by (presumably) running down the beach with their robes pulled up to their knees to remonstrate with the Northumbria kings holding court at Bamburgh Castle!
I love the relationship which treasures engagement with wildness, wilderness, and naturalness but also is deeply embedded somewhere hyper-urban such as our beloved East Harlem, NYC, or Hackney, London, England. InnerCHANGE East Harlem is looking for friends who will support our vision to equip Christians (and those who don’t yet call themselves Christians) to live here in a ten block neighborhood in New York, with something evoking Celtic community life and rhythms, or something which we could say was inspired by movements of Friars in previous generations.
InnerCHANGE is a Missional Order, not a church-planting outfit, and we live our lives alongside and with people without the pressure to open a church that looks and feels like a normal church. We derive a lot of solace from the arrival of church plants and the survival of congregations who do all they can to keep their doors open Sunday by Sunday. But missional movements have a different pace and prioritize commitments to authentic relationships without much of a tie to the attendance at any particular Sunday worship service. The relationships out here on the street need time to grow. We appreciate not being put under pressure to deliver congregational growth.
How many church planters are spending considerable energy hanging out with the 70-80 year old seniors, living high up in public housing projects especially if the elevators are broken? On my time walking up the stairs in these buildings I have imagined this to be in the tradition of the followers of Aiden and Cuthbert, who used to walk—unlike those who rode to their Cathedrals and meeting places astride their fast horses. Monks walk, they don’t ride. East Harlem needs more people who travel unhurried at street level and spend time high up in Housing Projects where time goes slowly.
The Lawrence family, East Harlem, in front of Naomi Lawrence’s fiber-art installation #migrationisbeautiful For further information email Chris at chris.lawrence@innerchange.org or visit iceastharlem.novo.org
Note Cards, Prints, Journals using urban artwork from InnerCHANGE East Harlem is available from here bit.ly/dreamagarden
InnerCHANGE has nearly 100 workers in 16 cities
www.innerchange.org