Location Location Location[1]

 This Part 2 in a series on Community Ministry in Church Hill,VA.

To read Part 1, click on "Committing to Community: Church Hill in Richmond, VA".

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My family is part of a community of people who have taken up residence together in a neighborhood in the inner city of Richmond, VA. If we had a set of values to guide our ministry here (which we don’t), surely at the top of the list would be “Local Embodiment,” which is really just a fancy way of saying we’re committed to a specific geographical location.

 We think this is what Jesus intended. In the story of salvation, God did not convey his love to the world in a general , generic way. Rather, “the Word became flesh…”, i.e., he embodied his love in Jesus Christ in a specific culture, time and place. God was not a commuter – he was a local. He was a Jewish male, a carpenter, had a family and friends, had real relationships with real people in a specific little town and region. In turn, the New Testament Epistles reveal that there were no generic churches, but rather communities of believers that were “of Corinth,” “of Ephesus”, or “of Rome.” The church is never generic. Nor are individual Christians. God’s redemption is worked out in particular places. You are a Christian of a place, an address, a community, called to a specific location, sent to embody the Kingdom of God to a particular locale.

This commitment has been transformative of our attitudes as we labor in this neighborhood. We are not just working to help that poor urban neighborhood on the other side of the city; we are embracing our own streets and neighborhood and bearing the problems of this community as our own. We are not just working to improve that distant underperforming elementary school; we are working to improve the very school our kids our zoned for. We’re not just upset about the rampant drug use and truancy among young African-American young men; our hearts break for our young men, the ones playing PS2 in our living rooms and drinking all the Coke in our fridges. These are our streets, our schools, our children, our sidewalks, our community. This has dramatically changed the way we think about mission. It has demanded that we think far less imperialistically and much more mutually, working towards common goals with our neighbors rather than simply for them.

But “local embodiment” is not just for the sake of effective ministry. It’s for us too. Ken Myers of Mars Hill audio often says that there are certain human behaviors and practices that more deeply embody what God intends for human beings than others. We think that being a local is one of those things. Committing to being God’s people with and for a particular place has not only given us a rich experience of community; it has also given us a richer taste of the gospel, the good news about an embodied God who made our neighborhood his own.