Inner City Lessons

Pastor Jan Ruark receivied her B.A. in Religion from Mt. Vernon Nazarene University in 2002.  She and her husband served for seven years in the inner city of Columbus, OH.  Upon graduation from ATS, she plans on returning to the inner city with plans to prepare others for ministry.

While pastoring in the inner city and prisons of Columbus, Ohio, I learned a lot. I learned that there were things I loved and things I really hated about ministry to the marginalized in our society.  I learned to hate the empty blank look in the eyes of the children, the demonic nature of addiction, the endless noise, the ever-present filth, the sound of gunshots in the dark and countless other things.   Oh, but I learned to love raw honesty and lack of pretense, acceptance of brokenness in the other, laughter in the face of hopelessness, dignity in the face of failure, the abundant wealth of simplicity and the relentless generosity of poverty.

What I learned most of all is that my ministry forced me to seek out the truth of holiness, the essence of the Good News.  I would encourage anyone sensing a call to the “least of these” (and that should be in some way, all of us) to begin seeking this truth.  You cannot effectively minister without it.  In fact, you can’t effectively be a Christian without it, although many of us are trying valiantly.  I learned that a lot of the “rules” of holiness that I had embraced in my American middle-class church were more cultural than holy. I learned that we often conveniently bend these cultural rules to justify our sinful behavior; and I learned that crack addicts, prostitutes and thieves will call you on your insincerity every time.  They can smell a “fake” from a mile away, and yet, they are drawn to authentic holiness like moths to a flame.  So if you love them, you pursue holiness with a desperation that consumes you.  In loving them, I was saved; I was healed.  I suppose that's why Jesus insisted that the most important thing be that we love God with everything we have and love our neighbor as ourselves. 

But like the lawyer in the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10) - after Jesus confirms that loving God and neighbor is the most important thing - the church often seeks to justify herself by asking, “But who is my neighbor?”  His parable answers, “Those who are seen by you as socially, culturally and spiritually inferior (the Samaritans) already know the answer to that question.  They know the secret to binding up wounds and helping those left for dead by the religious elite. Go and do likewise.”  In the inner city, you will find the heart of the Good Samaritan in many; but you must remember that you will also find the often ignored characters in the parable, such as the “robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead.”   You must learn to love them all.   This brings us to the question that I believe the church really needs to be asking.  After “who is my neighbor,” we need to ask, “but, what is love?”  For our human love, just like our cultural holiness, will not do.  The truth of holiness, the essence of the Good News is holy love, love that ruthlessly seeks to make the beloved stronger, regardless of what it costs them or you.  This is love that draws the other towards the holiness of God and demands that our life do the same. This is where all that classroom stuff from seminary that sounded so theoretical becomes hard  weaponry in your trembling hands as you find yourself on the front lines of a spiritual war (always a shock for soldiers who thought they had signed up for desk duty).    May the prayer of our hearts always be, “Teach me your way O’ Lord” (Psalm 86:11), the more excellent way of holy love; and may we keep learning from the Teacher, whether His classroom is in the darkest inner city or the halls of Asbury Seminary.