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Planting churches in the inner city |
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Written by John White
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Wednesday, 13 February 2008 |
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Bruce Duell is an urban missionary with the Evangelical Free Church and is also a DAWN Associate. A little over a year ago, the Lord led him to the simple church approach to reach folks in urban Denver, CO. See below for his reflections on this journey.
Planting churches in the inner city 11/2007
Fellow DAWN Associate, Bruce Duell is an urban missionary with the Evangelical Free Church and is also a DAWN Associate. A little over a year ago, the Lord led him to the simple church approach to reach folks in urban Denver, CO. See below for his reflections on this journey. (If you are working in a similar urban setting you might want to connect with Bruce.) Bruce is also part of an apostolic team that has a heart for all of Metro Denver. Emerging from this group are several things designed to connect and encourage the house churches in the city: 1. The first city-wide House Church Celebration held in October with over 20 house churches represented. 2. A website which posts articles about what God is doing in the city. http://www.coloradohousechurch.com/blog/ 3. A Google map that is beginning to be populated by the house churches across Denver. http://www.coloradohousechurch.com/blog/churches Very helpful for people who are looking for a church in a particular area. If you have a city-wide or regional website or house church map, please send me the links and I’ll forward them to all of the Associates. This is another of the ways that we can learn from each other. John John White
US Coordinator
Dawn Ministries
Bruce Duell, Denver, CO
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I have been an urban missionary for the past 19 years. Although I have been blessed to be involved in planting two (traditional) urban churches, I have always been frustrated that so much time went to raising money to pay for buildings. This left little to actually help meet the needs of the poor. One year ago we started a house church network to start churches in Denver's inner-city. We presently have 3 house churches with several more close to starting. The benefits of house church with the target of reaching the urban poor are: *The cost of house church is almost zero as we don't pay salaries or a mortgage. The money we receive goes to help those in need. We have been able to help our people with money for rent, food, gas, clothes and whatever the need may be. *As our house church is diverse racially, economically and intergenerationally we are able to see barriers broken to truly be a church where people from lots of backgrounds are experiencing being a vibrant family of Jesus in the midst of great diversity. House Church works great for accomplishing this as everything we do from going bowling, having picnics in the park, going to the mountains, etc is something we all do together and the poor don't get left out. House Church is a great model for urban church planting. |
