WHAT’S THE BIBLICAL MOTIVATION FOR NEW HUMANITY’S APPROACH?
New Humanity is committed to the gospel of Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection from the dead, which offers us forgiveness of our sins and reconciles believers with God. But this “good news” (gospel) doesn’t end here. Receiving the good news of Jesus ushers each believer into being a participant in God’s kingdom here on earth, which the New Testament often calls “the gospel of the kingdom” (Matthew 4:23, 9:35, 24:14). Jesus teaches us to pray that our Father’s kingdom comes here to earth and that his will is done here the way it is done in heaven (Matthew 6:10). This mission has both spiritual and social implications. We see the spiritual & social implications of the gospel in the way Jesus introduces himself at the beginning of his ministry as being anointed by the Spirit to proclaim the good news (gospel) to the poor, proclaim freedom for prisoners, recover the sight of the blind, to set the oppressed free, and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4:18-19). These social acts are also given to John the Baptist as a validation that Jesus was indeed the Messiah (Matthew 11:2-4). As a part of bringing God’s will to this earth, the Bible also gives us numerous commands to help care for those living in poverty (Psalm 41:1, Proverbs 14:31; 19:17, Matthew 25:41-45, Luke 14:12-14, Galatians 2:10, James 2:14:17). We see the early Church living these kingdom principles out in Acts 2:42-47 and 4:32-35. We also see the spiritual and social implications of the gospel when believers are given the task of being God’s ambassadors and ministers of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18-20). Reconciliation means making right what sin tore apart. We are first to be made right with God, but we also see Scripture teaching time and time again that we are to “make right” what our sins broke apart, which is baked into what it means to repent of our sins. New Humanity seeks to reconcile what the corporate sin of racism has done to our culture and to individuals. A disproportionate number of People of Color are living in poverty because systemic racism deprived them and their ancestors of equal opportunity to resources like employment, education, and federally funded home mortgages, let alone what the atrocities of slavery, lynchings, and Jim Crow have stolen from African-Americans throughout history. We are following the example we see in Israel’s Old Testament history. Whenever Israel was neglecting or cheating the poor, God called them to make right what their nation’s sins had put in disarray (Micah 6, Isaiah 1, Amos 5). God wanted them not only to say they were sorry but to make things right with mercy and justice. We desire to see this mercy and justice, we desire to see lost souls come to believe in Jesus, we desire to see the gospel lived out, and we desire to see the Church be one, the way Ephesians 2:14-16 imagines it.
WHY “COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT”?
New Humanity wants to help lead the Church away from charity work toward the poor and toward sustainable development. Charity work provides for an immediate need, but doesn’t help with the long-term problem, and often creates a culture of dependency, which does more harm than good in the long run. We aren’t saying that all charity work is bad or harmful, and we see God’s mercy in it, but we see sustainable community development as a better long-term solution that needs to become more of a primary practice within the Church. Charity work usually involves an “us” and “them” / “have” and “have not” mentality, whereas community development brings everyone to the table together. It identifies and utilizes the assets already in a target community and seeks to provide access and opportunity that systemic sins of injustice have taken away. Sustainable development also creates a flywheel that sustains itself over time, paying back the seed money that started it, and creating more capital to invest in new community development projects. The person being helped gets out of their financially impoverished situation permanently and the process affirms their dignity because they are doing it themselves. Sustainable development aims to close the opportunity gap between racial groups that our history of racism created.
WHAT WILL NEW HUMANITY DO FOR COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT?
New Humanity aims to plant churches in urban core cities in Michigan and beyond, as God leads and opens doors. Every city and neighborhood is a unique missional context that needs to be exegeted by the planter. There is not a one-size-fits-all solution, but rather the needs and existing assets of an individual neighborhood must be assessed before a custom-made community development plan can be applied. With this said, here are some examples of the types of community development we will have in our toolbelt:
Renters-to-homeowners
Owning a home is one of the primary ways to accumulate capital and wealth in our society, and one of the primary ways to pass this wealth on to the next generation, setting them up well for success and stability. Federal and local housing discrimination is also one of the most clear-cut ways racist laws created massive equity and opportunity gap between Black and White Americans. While these laws are no longer on the books, their legacy lasts in powerful ways for African-American citizens in the urban core today, where the majority of Black citizens are renters. Homeownership not only provides generational wealth, but it also provides stability for a family that no longer has to face bouncing from lease to lease and rising rental rates that are out of their control. This stability contributes to mental health and wellbeing for adults and children in the home.
New Humanity will purchase a house in a church planter’s target neighborhood. We will target houses in the $70,000 price range and pay in cash. An individual or family that the church planter is already in a ministry relationship with will sign a land contract to purchase the home from New Humanity. Rent (land contract payments) will be determined based on what is affordable for the family and are interest-free. The tenant (future homeowner) will sign a contract that allows New Humanity to supervise certain aspects of the home (cleanliness, drug-free, no illegal activity, etc.) and that commits the tenant to a discipleship and mentoring relationship. The church plant will provide a financial mentor to help create and implement a budget. The church plant pastor and congregation will provide emotional and relational support to the tenant. New Humanity will contract out a Christian property manager who is not affiliated with the church plant who will supervise if the tenant is abiding by the contract and will conduct routine cleanliness checks as laid out in the contract. The activity of the property manager will become less frequent over time as the tenant shows responsibility for their end of the contract. The beauty of this process is that every rent payment the tenant pays is actually a house payment for them. Over time, once enough payments have been made to cover the purchase price of the house, this renter will become the official homeowner of the house. In addition, each of their rent payments is also replenishing New Humanity’s Flywheel Fund, allowing us to accumulate enough funds to purchase the next home for the next person. This will obviously be a slow process, but we are committed to this vision for the long haul. Our investments will bring a return that will create the opportunity for the next investment. The flywheel will pick up speed as time goes on and we have more houses and small business enterprises in our system paying back into the flywheel.
Starting Small Businesses
Another example of sustainable community development is starting small business enterprises in our target communities with people in the neighborhood at the helm. New Humanity will provide an interest-free start-up loan to the small business owner and will provide a contracted business supervisor who will mentor and supervise the new business owner until the loan is fully paid back. The business supervisor will be a Christian, but not affiliated with the church plant congregation. The church plant pastor and congregation will provide emotional and relational support to the business owner. The business owner will be someone the church planter already has a ministry relationship with. Discipleship will be incorporated into the business venture, both for the owner and the employees. A legal contract will be drawn up with a lawyer where the business will pay back a percentage of its income to New Humanity until their start-up loan has been paid back. New Humanity will then be able to use these funds for the next small business start-up.
Renters-to-homeowners
Owning a home is one of the primary ways to accumulate capital and wealth in our society, and one of the primary ways to pass this wealth on to the next generation, setting them up well for success and stability. Federal and local housing discrimination is also one of the most clear-cut ways racist laws created massive equity and opportunity gap between Black and White Americans. While these laws are no longer on the books, their legacy lasts in powerful ways for African-American citizens in the urban core today, where the majority of Black citizens are renters. Homeownership not only provides generational wealth, but it also provides stability for a family that no longer has to face bouncing from lease to lease and rising rental rates that are out of their control. This stability contributes to mental health and wellbeing for adults and children in the home.
New Humanity will purchase a house in a church planter’s target neighborhood. We will target houses in the $70,000 price range and pay in cash. An individual or family that the church planter is already in a ministry relationship with will sign a land contract to purchase the home from New Humanity. Rent (land contract payments) will be determined based on what is affordable for the family and are interest-free. The tenant (future homeowner) will sign a contract that allows New Humanity to supervise certain aspects of the home (cleanliness, drug-free, no illegal activity, etc.) and that commits the tenant to a discipleship and mentoring relationship. The church plant will provide a financial mentor to help create and implement a budget. The church plant pastor and congregation will provide emotional and relational support to the tenant. New Humanity will contract out a Christian property manager who is not affiliated with the church plant who will supervise if the tenant is abiding by the contract and will conduct routine cleanliness checks as laid out in the contract. The activity of the property manager will become less frequent over time as the tenant shows responsibility for their end of the contract. The beauty of this process is that every rent payment the tenant pays is actually a house payment for them. Over time, once enough payments have been made to cover the purchase price of the house, this renter will become the official homeowner of the house. In addition, each of their rent payments is also replenishing New Humanity’s Flywheel Fund, allowing us to accumulate enough funds to purchase the next home for the next person. This will obviously be a slow process, but we are committed to this vision for the long haul. Our investments will bring a return that will create the opportunity for the next investment. The flywheel will pick up speed as time goes on and we have more houses and small business enterprises in our system paying back into the flywheel.
Starting Small Businesses
Another example of sustainable community development is starting small business enterprises in our target communities with people in the neighborhood at the helm. New Humanity will provide an interest-free start-up loan to the small business owner and will provide a contracted business supervisor who will mentor and supervise the new business owner until the loan is fully paid back. The business supervisor will be a Christian, but not affiliated with the church plant congregation. The church plant pastor and congregation will provide emotional and relational support to the business owner. The business owner will be someone the church planter already has a ministry relationship with. Discipleship will be incorporated into the business venture, both for the owner and the employees. A legal contract will be drawn up with a lawyer where the business will pay back a percentage of its income to New Humanity until their start-up loan has been paid back. New Humanity will then be able to use these funds for the next small business start-up.
WHAT IS THE FLYWHEEL FUND?
What sets community development apart as sustainable is that the way it helps people (help themselves) pays back the initial financial investment so that the process can be replicated again and again. Over time, the community development projects themselves have created a flywheel of momentum where additional donations are no longer essential. But like a flywheel, an initial seed investment must be given to get the wheel going. This is our Flywheel Fund. We invite anyone to give to our Flywheel Fund, however, our target partner is an established local church that wants to invest the capital God has given it into the urban core, via the conduit of a gospel-centered multi-ethnic church plant. In so doing, we will be “righting the wrong” of the sin of racism. These will be small gains in the beginning, but we believe that with perseverance and patience, this model will move the needle for God’s kingdom and for equity in the urban core. We believe in the local church. We believe the local church is God’s agent for his redemption on earth.
WHO IS NEW HUMANITY?
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The founding New Humanity team consists of:
• Pastor Noah Filipiak, Mosaic Church, Grand Rapids, Evangelical Covenant denomination. • Pastor Chase Stancle, Unison Christian Church, Grand Rapids, Wesleyan denomination. • Pastor Darrell Delaney, Madison Square Church, Grand Rapids, Christian Reformed denomination. • Pastor Artie Lindsay, Tabernacle Community Church, Grand Rapids, non-denominational (church plant of Calvary Church, Grand Rapids). We are prayerfully planning to add non-profit leaders who specialize in housing and small business enterprise to fill out our team. |
We are inviting you to partner with our team. Partners will provide financial resources to our church plants and will be invited to sharing other resources with church plants like volunteers, networks, expertise, ministry resources, business connections, home repairs, materials, physical donations, transportation, workdays, and possibly launch team members. We are asking Partners to commit to sponsoring an annual portion of the $130,000 / year for a new church plant over 3 years, as outlined above.
WHERE WILL CHURCH PLANTERS COME FROM AND HOW WILL PLANTING WORK?
WHAT ARE THE DOCTRINAL DISTINCTIVES?
New Humanity is not an alternative or competitor to other church planting networks, denominations, and/or sending churches–it is designed to work with them. New Humanity aims to be an expert in the field of urban community development and multi-ethnic church planting. If a denomination or sending church has a planter who wants to plant urban and multi-ethnic, they can send them through us. The planter will receive financial and coaching support from both entities. We are an expert in this field so that the denomination or sending church doesn’t have to be. We will also provide the unique community, coaching, and fellowship a pastor who is planting urban and multi-ethnic will need as this context has many unique challenges and variables that do not crossover into the general area of church planting. We love the support a planter receives from a sending church or denomination, but we know they also need time with others who are in the same unique ministry context as they are.
A multi-ethic plant must have multi-ethnic staff from the start. Our planters will receive salary funding from New Humanity, from their denomination and/or sending church, and will do their own fundraising on a case-by-case basis to meet the part-time and full-time needs of their salary and potential multi-ethnic staff member(s). These numbers are subject to change for the unique needs of a plant and existing networks that a planter already has established.
New Humanity has macro-level doctrinal and ministry philosophy distinctions that all plants must be in alignment with; then we let the individual church plant finetune its micro-level doctrinal distinctions according to its denomination and/or sending church network. Our macro-level doctrinal and ministry philosophy distinctions are:
• Believing in salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ’s atoning death on the cross and resurrection from the dead.
• Believing in the Bible as “inspired by God and his authoritative instruction for today”. This includes affirming the Bible’s teaching that sex is reserved for a man and a woman within marriage.
• We are planting churches that are intentionally multi-ethnic and intentionally doing urban community development as methods of restoring the brokenness caused by racism.
In this early phase of New Humanity, our planters will emerge organically through our Team and Partner churches as our pastors actively raise up new planters. Our Team and Partner churches will pray and discern who in their congregations or networks God may be raising up to plant urban and multi-ethnic churches. In this young phase of New Humanity, we are planting one church at a time, as the funds and opportunities to do so arise. At this time, we do not need a systematic employment application and assessment process for a multitude of planters. We do not want to overpromise and underdeliver to a planting applicant and we are not trying to get ahead of God at the pace He chooses to grow New Humanity. At this time, assessment and coaching of a planter will come from within the New Humanity Team churches and existing plants.
We will accept inquiries from those interested in planting with us and potentially reach out to these inquiries when we have the opportunity and/or resources ready to plant. But there is no guarantee or immediate ability to plant a church when someone inquires, and we do not aim to be a network at this time that tries to plant a certain quota of churches in a given year.
Our first church plant will be in inner-city Grand Rapids (Mosaic Church). We do not know where our next plant will be but would like to see it in a nearby urban core city (e.g. Battle Creek, Kalamazoo, Muskegon, Lansing, etc.). We’d like to maintain geographic proximity to our Grand Rapids team for coaching and resourcing purposes, then expand our target area as our number of plants grows wider in its footprint. As we have more plants in a wider footprint, existing planters (whose locations are further away from Grand Rapids) will coach the new planter that is closest in proximity to them.
A multi-ethic plant must have multi-ethnic staff from the start. Our planters will receive salary funding from New Humanity, from their denomination and/or sending church, and will do their own fundraising on a case-by-case basis to meet the part-time and full-time needs of their salary and potential multi-ethnic staff member(s). These numbers are subject to change for the unique needs of a plant and existing networks that a planter already has established.
New Humanity has macro-level doctrinal and ministry philosophy distinctions that all plants must be in alignment with; then we let the individual church plant finetune its micro-level doctrinal distinctions according to its denomination and/or sending church network. Our macro-level doctrinal and ministry philosophy distinctions are:
• Believing in salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ’s atoning death on the cross and resurrection from the dead.
• Believing in the Bible as “inspired by God and his authoritative instruction for today”. This includes affirming the Bible’s teaching that sex is reserved for a man and a woman within marriage.
• We are planting churches that are intentionally multi-ethnic and intentionally doing urban community development as methods of restoring the brokenness caused by racism.
In this early phase of New Humanity, our planters will emerge organically through our Team and Partner churches as our pastors actively raise up new planters. Our Team and Partner churches will pray and discern who in their congregations or networks God may be raising up to plant urban and multi-ethnic churches. In this young phase of New Humanity, we are planting one church at a time, as the funds and opportunities to do so arise. At this time, we do not need a systematic employment application and assessment process for a multitude of planters. We do not want to overpromise and underdeliver to a planting applicant and we are not trying to get ahead of God at the pace He chooses to grow New Humanity. At this time, assessment and coaching of a planter will come from within the New Humanity Team churches and existing plants.
We will accept inquiries from those interested in planting with us and potentially reach out to these inquiries when we have the opportunity and/or resources ready to plant. But there is no guarantee or immediate ability to plant a church when someone inquires, and we do not aim to be a network at this time that tries to plant a certain quota of churches in a given year.
Our first church plant will be in inner-city Grand Rapids (Mosaic Church). We do not know where our next plant will be but would like to see it in a nearby urban core city (e.g. Battle Creek, Kalamazoo, Muskegon, Lansing, etc.). We’d like to maintain geographic proximity to our Grand Rapids team for coaching and resourcing purposes, then expand our target area as our number of plants grows wider in its footprint. As we have more plants in a wider footprint, existing planters (whose locations are further away from Grand Rapids) will coach the new planter that is closest in proximity to them.