Earlier, Pastor Tim wrote about the scriptural bases for Christians to live, invest, and plant churches in the middle of cities. Today, he writes about how he leads the Downtown campus in loving and serving the city of Seattle. At the Downtown Seattle campus, our passion and heart is to bring the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the heart of the city, the city that has traditionally been one of the least-reached cities in America, the city that influences the Pacific Northwest region and other major cities in the world.

A Modern Exodus

The past few decades witnessed a massive Christian exodus from our nation’s large, urban areas. The church that had once spread like wildfire through the ancient metropolises of the Middle East now shrank from the urban sphere. Fearing the negative influences of the culture’s and society’s degeneration, Christians moved out of the city and into the suburbs, where they created and enjoyed comfortable, middle-class lifestyles in gated communities and self-pleasing, moralistic-therapeutic-deistic churches. We left our position on the battlefield behind enemy lines and instead retreated to set up fortresses. As a result, Christianity became increasingly irrelevant in the eyes of the culture at large.

Bringing It All Back Home

We want to turn this around, and that leads us to the critical question of how to reach the large, urban cities where we find ourselves as Christians, leaders, and missionaries. What are we to make of the urban context in which we find ourselves? How do we contextualize the Gospel for downtown Seattle? In order to do this, we need to ask ourselves: What does Gospel transformation and community look like in the downtown Seattle? What are the challenges, barriers, and bridges for the Gospel in our city? What makes our city "tick"? What does it look like to build bridges and love the city that is our home? We’ve seen recently in our sermon series on Luke is how Jesus not only used his words to bring the gospel but also, acts of service so that his words could be heard. As Christians sent into our respective cities, we are called to be the very best citizens of that city. We are to work for the peace, safety, security, vibrancy, and future of our city plus the common good of all of our neighbors. A Gospel-centered church is one that takes this mission seriously. We want to demonstrate the resources the Christian faith has for having hope in the future. We as a campus are actively working to build bridges and relationships with city and neighborhood leaders.  We want to find out what the needs and gaps are in our city and if at all possible, work towards a solution.

Meet Me in the City

We build bridges by understanding what our city values and value those things. Generally, the values of a city are good things but they turn into ultimate things. They become "god" things. Recently, the Seattle Foundation, led by former Seattle Mayor Norm Rice, did a large-scale study to determine what creates "A Healthy Community" in Seattle. It revealed Seattle values: the environment, basic needs, education, neighborhoods and communities, arts and culture, health and wellness, and the economy. We believe those are all good things, and we want to be involved in creating healthy community in our city, with our city, through those values in order to point to the goodness of God. Practically, this plays out through our leaders, members and attenders in various ways:

• Environment: ensuring that we steward God’s creation by being a "green" church, recycling properly, using sustainable resources, helping out at neighborhood clean-ups, etc.
• Basic Needs: As part of our Mercy Ministry and through the MicroMission fund at Mars Hill, MHDT community groups have completed over 40 MicroMission projects serving the poor and marginalized. We actively participate with Union Gospel Mission, where upwards of 50-60 men and women in the shelters attend MHDT. REST Ministry: MHDT is actively reaching out to girls on our streets involved in sex trafficking and loving them in the name of Jesus.
• Education: participating in bringing the first elementary school into downtown Seattle since 1926.
• Neighborhoods & Communities: At least 10 MHDT members sit on leadership boards of local community councils and I serve as Vice-President of the Belltown Business Association. Town Hall meetings with city leaders take place frequently. During these meetings, which are open to the whole Mars Hill body and community, we get a chance to talk about the needs of our community and how we can serve.
• Arts & Culture: Our church building turns into an art gallery space as part of the Belltown ArtWalk, additionally, other MHDT artists are part of the local music and art scene.
• Health & Wellness: Stewarding our bodies and pointing to Jesus is another bridge and this happens through a variety of fitness and dance classes hosted by MHDT members.
• Economy: MHDT’s Business ministry exists to engage with city business leaders and equip and train our working professionals to be examples of Jesus on the job.

In all our cities and communities, we’re called to be agents of God’s grace to showcase his beauty and why such things were created so that people would come to know Jesus for His glory and joy. Tim Gaydos is the Downtown campus pastor.