Kingdom Building in the Slums

Fresh out of seminary armed with a vision and a heart for souls you hit the ground running in the community to which you are called. Hopefully, you build a pretty solid foundation over several years and before you know it, your church plant is growing.

Chances are, that's your dream. No fault in dreaming. I'm sure many, if not most, church planters have had a similar dream at some point. It's easy to dream that way. And that's certainly reality for a few. 

There's a segment of ministers, however, who dream differently.

This segment of planters and/or pastors long to reach the lowest of the low, the poorest of the poor. In other words, the least likely for astronomical growth and self-support segment.

I have some experience in this area. I serve in a church that my dad planted almost 20 years ago in what would be considered a bad part of town.

Our church is in that part of town where you catch someone breaking into a parishioners vehicle during a worship service. It's also that part of town where families turn up in droves to receive food assistance four times a week.

We're still there–offering emergency assistance and attempting to meet the spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional needs in one area of Chattanooga, Tennessee's inner-city.

There are ministries who are attempting to offer the same kind of aid in more desperate parts of the world.

Living Bread Ministries is one such group. Living Bread's mission is to plant missional churches among the global poor and equip them to care for their communities.

Specifically, Living Bread reaches out to the favelas or shanty towns of Brazil.

Ever heard of Brazilian shanty towns? The best favela in Brazil would make Chattanooga, Tennessee's worst housing project look like Beverly Hills. Take our most crime-ridden housing project and subtract running water, electricity, police presence, and basic building structure.

According to LBM's founder and president G. Patrick Hubbard, there is no organized vision to plant churches among the very poor. But, he continues on his blog, "there should be."

Rather than focus on what the global church isn't doing, however, let's focus on what Hubbard and Living Bread are doing.

Since 2004, LBM has planted eight missional churches among the urban poor in the least evangelized region of Brazil. According to its official website, however, one of LBM's goals is to spark a global movement for church planting among the poor and needy.

In other words, Hubbard and Living Bread are all about advancing the Kingdom of God in the farthest reaches of the earth.

There was someone in the Bible who had a similar purpose. His name was Jesus.

In one of the premier Messianic prophecies, Isaiah penned the words:

'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

In the book of Luke, Jesus took the pulpit of the local synagogue and read that very scripture to the religious crowd. The crowd promptly ran him out of town and would have killed him then and there had God's plan allowed.

While the crowd was ticked at Jesus' assertion that He was the fulfillment of that prophecy, outreach to the poor has never been popular among the overly religious.

True Kingdom building is an uphill battle and Living Bread is building the Kingdom in some of the least evangelized and most desperate parts of our world.

That's God's dream.



Visit livingbread.org. Look at, pray for, and consider supporting the work that Patrick and Barbara Hubbard are doing among the desperately poor. 

Celebrating a Church Milestone

I have been in church quite literally all of my life. Dedicated at 17 days old, nearly every childhood memory I have involves church and/or church family.

For much of the first 10 years of my life, my dad, James Barker, was an evangelist. We always had a home church where dad was a part of the leadership, but he also preached revivals and had his own television ministry.

After many years of ministry in various roles, my dad started a church in 1993.

I was 11 years old when he and a friend, Thomas Tallent, who we met at a seven week revival in 1989, rented a storefront building in Rossville, GA. At the time, I had no clue the ride that was awaiting my family and I.

While church planting has experienced a renaissance in recent years, starting a church from scratch has always been a huge undertaking. Regardless of how much money or how many people you may have to get the church launched, if it's not a God thing it won't last.

That is precisely why Sunday, May 19 was such a special day in the history of the Joyful Sound Church in Chattanooga, TN. Many church plants simply do not become thriving churches that last 20 years, so we celebrated this milestone.

Granted, our church has never really busted at the seams with congregants. We had a steady run in the late 90's with an average of just over 100 people at most services. For much of the last decade, however, we've seen steady decline from those numbers.

While there has been a decline in average attendance for some time now, much of the original leadership remains intact. On top of that, Joyful Sound has become a training ground of sorts for ministry.

Through various community outreach programs, Joyful Sound remains a vital ministry hub in Chattanooga's inner-city.

Four leadership teams of six people leads two afternoon services for the homeless and needy of our community, in addition to our three regular services, on a weekly basis.

Over the last 10 years, we've served nearly 20,000 hot meals to the homeless, elderly, and needy and we continue to provide emergency grocery assistance to more than 1,000 families each year.

Two of our leaders from the past 20 years are now pastors. One planted his own work in nearby East Ridge, TN in 2011 and the other turned an existing, formerly declining church into one of the largest Churches of God in the Chattanooga area.

Our current leadership consists of eight ministers who not only preach the word, but minister to the physical needs of our community as well. Those eight ministers are being developed and trained to one day become planters, pastors, and leaders within our city and beyond. I'm ecstatic to be a part of that group.

The harsh reality may be that church plants don't usually last 20 years–especially when the second half of those two decades has seen steady decline. Statistics prove many church plants close up shop within just a few years.

But the church plant I have attended for the last 20 years was and still is a God thing. I have a feeling that Joyful Sound being the hands and feet of God in the East Lake community of Chattanooga, TN may have something to do with that longevity.