To be equipped for urban ministry, there are tangible areas that you need to grow to be effective. Missing any of these three areas will lead to burnout, frustration, and even harm to the people you want to reach with the gospel. Let’s start by defining these three areas.
What Are the Competencies?
Theological Intelligence
The ability to understand, interpret, and apply God’s Word and teachings in ways that are faithful to Scripture and relevant to the challenges of urban life. It involves seeing the world through a biblical lens and discerning how theology addresses real-world issues in the city.
Emotional Intelligence
The capacity to understand and manage your emotions while being sensitive to the feelings of others. For urban theologians, this means responding with Christlike empathy, patience, and wisdom in diverse and often high-pressure environments.
Cultural Intelligence
The skill of recognizing, respecting, and navigating cultural differences in urban settings. This includes understanding how different backgrounds shape people’s beliefs, behaviors, and experiences and finding ways to share the gospel and engage communities in culturally meaningful ways.
What Happens When You Are Missing a Competency?
The importance of all three is evident in what happens when any of the competencies are missing.
Without TQ
When theological intelligence is not included in discipleship in the urban context, you end up with pragmatism. Pragmatism is doing whatever the world considers to be a best practice. Instead of raising people who look to the word of God to be a light to their feet, they trust what makes sense in man’s eyes. In the urban context, this is where you get mercy ministries that give food to the poor but never share the gospel. It’s how churches have given more clothes away than Bible verses because their work no longer stems from the gospel.
Hebrews 4:12: “The word of God is living and active, and can pierce the soul and spirit.”
Without EQ
Without emotional intelligence, people do urban ministry quite easily. As soon as there is a sign of violence, or someone yells at you, misunderstands, or calls you racist, you quit and never return. You may have a good understanding of the Bible and the ability to relate to people, but you can’t hang in there when times get hard. When conversation requires deep compassion, people with low EQ want to get out of that conversation as quickly as possible. When someone comes in and yells at you for no reason because they are having a horrible day, a person with low EQ quits.
1 Peter 5:10: “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.”
Without CQ
Without cultural intelligence, you become weird to the people you minister to. You have a lot of Bible and can hang in for challenging ministry, but you can’t contextualize anything in people’s lives. You can’t understand them and they don’t understand you. People like this can still lead people to Jesus, but they often have difficulty making disciples because of the cultural disconnect. When global missionaries are sent overseas, one of the big things they get trained on is the culture. What are their fears, idols, and barriers to hearing the gospel?
1 Corinthians 9:19-23 – “For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews, I became a Jew to win Jews. To those under the law I became one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law, I became one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) so that I might win over those outside the law. To the weak, I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might win those outside the law. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.”
How Do These Competencies Work Together?
The goal of ministry in the urban context is the same as doing ministry anywhere: to help people be more like Jesus. God has chosen to reveal himself to us through the Bible. Christians use it as a guide for all wisdom and life, and we trust that the Holy Spirit will lead us to all truth, which points back to the Word. The TQ is the basis for all ministry, ensuring that one is living like Christ and helping others to do the same. In the Western world, the problem is people often stop there. In America, where neighborhoods and people are so divided, most people go to church with people like themselves, but they also live their whole lives with people like them. What this does is confirm that all you need to know is the Bible, but you never are made aware of where your culture misses things in the Bible. For example, most churches in the West tend to look for elders and run their elder team more like a business board room than what the Bible prescribes for elders. People are more impressed with the CEO than the dude who is a 1 Timothy 3 man.
All of sudden these churches decide that they don’t want to be only a white church and they try to reach the diversity around their building. The problem is they are not equipped to do so because they have never had to grow in EQ and CQ. They go out into the neighborhood and try to talk to people of different races and countries, relying on their knowledge of the Bible to pull them through. By God’s grace, they lead a man in poverty to Christ and expect his life to look like their own after coming to Christ. He will have a job, get a house, and live a nice middle-class life because everyone else they have gone to church with has lived that way. They do not know that their cultural expectations are overshadowing their TQ. They then go to address this man and call him to a higher standard of life, and this dude, who is trying as hard as he can, screams at them and calls them some very foul names out of anger. In shock, they decide urban ministry is a waste of time because people don’t want to change, and they go back to what is comfortable and what they know.
To reach and disciple people in the urban context, TQ- EQ -CQ must all work together harmoniously. When you apply the gospel, and it offends someone, EQ kicks in and allows you to take the hits from upsetting someone. When people feel misunderstood or like no one cares, deep CQ will enable you to understand how to speak and use words they can relate to. When you have a great relationship and have stood in tough times to build trust, TQ allows you to speak God’s truth boldly. The apostle Paul made the church’s foundation because he knew God’s word well, could take all types of beatings, and was willing to become whatever he needed to, apart from sin, to share the gospel.
How Can I Grow in These Competencies?
If you recognize where you are lacking, discipline needs to grow in these areas. Here are some things you can do:
Growing TQ
- Go through or lead studies through different books of the Bible or different biblical themes
- Seek out in-person or online courses you can learn from individually or collectively with others
- Read books on biblical doctrine
- Begin attending or auditing seminary classes
Growing EQ
- Commit to stick in challenging situations
- Walk with people long enough for them to open up about the hard things
- Be content even when people are disrespectful to you
Growing CQ
- Put yourself in positions where you are the minority
- Learn how different cultures do ministry
- Let someone who has grown up culturally different from you lead you
- Do a short or long-term mission trip
- Study the people you are trying to reach with the gospel
