Former Gang Member Talks About Church Planting

Troy Evans,  pastor of a hip-hop congregation in Grand Rapids, Mich., wore a T-shirt that said “Make Urban Disciples” as he walked animately around the classroom, speaking about the importance of starting new churches.

“The most effective way to reach lost people is to plant new churches. If we don’t do this, we are failing,” said Evans during one of the sessions at this week’s “Leadership Training Event 2015: Remain in My Love.”

“In planting a church, you need to create a ministry that is unique to the group you are trying to reach. Otherwise you won’t be effective.”

The annual event, sponsored by Christian Reformed Home Missions and Volunteers in Service, drew more than 300 church leaders from across West Michigan for an opening worship service and a range of presentations. It was held on the campus of Calvin College in Grand Rapids.

Dr. Steven Timmermans, executive director of the CRC, set the tone and focus of event when he spoke during worship.

“True leadership is not about surrounding a leader with admiration and benefits,” he said.

“True leaders are those who follow the commands Jesus gave to his disciples to think always about living for others so you are willing to lay down your life for them.”

True leaders, he said, develop an intimacy with others and do what Jesus did. “Jesus invested his all in his disciples. We, too, should invest our all in those we lead. That type of leadership is a marathon and not a sprint.”

Sessions at the training event addressed such topics as “Say What? How to Have Conversations during Care Visits with
Congregational Members,” “Synod Votes to Expand the Role of Deacons — What Does it Mean?,” and “Prayer, Evangelism and Community Engagement.”

In his session, titled “Urban Urgency: Urban Church Planting,” Troy Evans sketched his own background of growing up in Grand Rapids. The grandson of a preacher, he only attended school through the seventh grade, but excelled in hip-hop street dancing, he said.

He also joined a gang, spent time in jail, fled for his life from Grand Rapids to Atlanta, Ga., left there and eventually ended up in Detroit, where he and his wife became deeply involved in the life of the church.

“God allowed me to do a lot,” he said. “When he gave me the calling in Detroit, I responded to be an urban missionary and came back to Grand Rapids.”

Today, he travels all over the world, talking about the significance of starting new churches and of new churches starting new churches and so on. In doing this, a fire and spirit is created that is healthy and spreads, said Evans.

“If we don’t do this, the church will die,” he said. “We have to ask ourselves, ‘Do we want to be a church for today or tomorrow?’”

Crucial, he said, is to bring young people into the church, focusing on their needs and interests, and especially giving them leadership positions.

“I’m gone between ten to fifteen days a month and when I’m gone the young people run things,” he said.

Called the Edge, his church is connected to the Wesleyan denomination and is located in a poor neighborhood near downtown Grand Rapids. The worship center includes an 11-by-30-foot graffiti piece that says, “Christ in your hood.”

Some 500 people attend services on the weekend, many coming from all over Grand Rapids.

To his surprise when they launched the church in 2009, more than 250 people showed up, he said. “All ages. colors and walks of life were represented,” he writes in his autobiography titled The Edge of Redemption.

“Youth from all over the city were present. Prostitutes, pimps, drug dealers, and gangbangers came to hear the good news of Jesus. People travel as far as an hour to be part of our community. And we were, and still are,  completely blown away by what God is doing.”

He told those attending his workshop that estimates are some 160 million people living in U.S. cities “do not confess Jesus is Lord.” Another 40 million reside in the suburbs.

“We need to find ways to reach these people and we’re not going to do it by forcing churches planters to go through lots of red tape,” he said.

Denominations, he said, need to be much more open to innovation. They need to support church planters willing to take risks

Most of all, they need to find church planters who have a heart for the core cities and the people they want to serve.

“We want people who realize that the walls of our cities are burning.” he said. “We want people who weep over this.

Because if we don’t feel what is happening, I don’t know if we as a church are going to be able to do anything about it.”