Wipf & Stock: Eugene: Oregon, 2020
Barry Morris
Barry Morris is one of those rare yet needful ministers who not only have been faithful to urban and community ministries, but, equally significant and importantly so, he has judiciously wed substantive theology to such a vision and lived out such a knitting in inner-city urban and community ministries. This, the most recent book by Barry, fleshes out in greater depth and detail, his ongoing reflections on these multilayered issues.
A Faithful Public-Prophetic Witness begins with a thoughtful and engaged meditation on the challenges that will confront those who dwell in the midst of such a commitment. Then, true to form, Barry ponders three possible areas worth the turning to for wisdom and insights: “The Toronto Christian Resource Centre”, “Victoria BC” and “Vancouver BC’s Streams of Justice”. This timely and timeless book of sorts concludes, rightly so, with lessons learned from such in the trenches of urban life and an anatomy of “What Constitutes Success in an Urban Ministry?” The answer, needless to say, does hold before the reader and those in the thick of urban ministry a legitimate and perennial question mark. How, indeed, is such success to be measured within such a lived reality and is the notion of success a word worth using in such a context?
The three sites that Barry visits (Toronto, Victoria, Vancouver), although different in many ways, share certain affinities in their obvious challenges and each of these chapters does significant dives into the more demanding details of such lived communal realities (ideals held high but never easy to maintain over the longer journey).
Chapter four is particularly pertinent to the Lower Mainland and Vancouver area. There can be no doubt that Grandview Calvary Baptist Church (GCBC) has been at the forefront of being a public-prophetic witness at a variety of levels: educational and activist. The Streams of Justice (SoJ) group that has faithfully attempted to embody grassroots activism has, in many ways, significant affinities, as a Baptist congregation, with Tommy Douglass and Martin Luther King. Jr. Barry, to his credit, reveals to the interested reader, the journey of GCBC-SoJ as they have, in their faithful way and manner, lived an honest yet imperfect witness in the inner city of Vancouver (downtown Eastside a focus).
The title of the book speaks much as does the subtitle. The urban church (particularly the urban church that works with those on the margins) is meant to be faithful but faithful in a way that is both public and prophetic—certainly not an easy vocation. And, the subtitle, rightly so, sums up such a reality---being dynamic, ongoing challenges and multiple ambiguities, success always, in many ways, protean and ambiguous, transient and fragile. There are, of course, many successful churches (if success is measured by numbers), but to be a successful public and prophetic church is yet a deeper challenge---much more maturity needed indeed. When success is measured not by numbers but by ethical and prophetic integrity, the numbers do dwindle to the faithful few (who are so often tempted by the demon of failure---a consistent tempter).
A Faithful Public-Prophetic Witness is a fine and needful companion read to Barry’s earlier must-read books: The Word on the Street (1991) and Hopeful Realism in Urban Ministry (2016). As mentioned above, Barry is one of those rare yet needful people who both are in the centre of the demanding fray yet also have the wits to reflect and ponder what makes for a meaningful exegetical and theological way to journey forward and onward. There are activists who tend not to think too deeply and intellectuals who never play chess games with ideas but rarely enter the fray. Barry, to his credit, has lived such a trying tension, and, in many ways, A Faithful Public-Prophetic Witness reflects such a tightrope walk well done.
Ron Dart
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