Take for example the shopping center 1.2 miles from my home where we do all of our grocery shopping. There is a Target, Barnes and Noble, Kroger, Carribou Coffee, Best Buy, Lowes, Rue Sans(Sushi), Wachovia (Bank), and a Smoothie King, not to mention several upscale ($200 or more a pair)shoe stores, shops, and boutiques. It possesses all of the qualities of the “rough” areas of Seattle, so by my general definition, it is no longer a depressed area…except, because of gentrification and trend changes, for this situation, my definition is blown…why? The liquor store three blocks from this shopping center was robbed, and the clerk was shot to death just two month’s ago. Just this past Sunday, a shoot out between two vehicles occurred in that same shopping center just a few hours after my family and I finished buying groceries there.

The point to this discourse is that the dividing lines between rich and poor, safe and dangerous, ‘hood and hip are no longer so clear. This is a changing landscape that as a Pastor to this city I am going to have to carefully examine to understand, so that we can most effectively and faithfully engage and reach this entire area that does not in anyway lend itself to homogeneous ministry, if we are being true to engaging the whole of the community. How we will reconcile our culture clashes, I do not fully have an answer to yet, but for anyone else seeking to move into and work for the welfare of any major city through Gospel transformation, this is a question that has to be answered.

I went to Seattle recently to visit my boy’s at Mars Hill and get my retrain on, and me and Mike Anderson had an interesting conversation. We were talking about crime, impoverished neighborhoods, and the gospel. He then told me about the “ghetto” in Seattle, and some of what are considered the “rough” areas. You may notice that I have placed both ghetto and rough in quotations, it is indeed to show sarcasm, because what I discovered in seeing these areas made me come to the conclusion that if these were the rough areas of Seattle, then Seattle truly had no ghetto.

You see, in true ‘hood areas, there are things you find and things you don’t. Banks, Grocery Stores, Coffee shops, Sushi Bars, Target, Barnes and Noble etc. you do not find in the ghetto…why? Because these businesses generally do not feel they can be profitable in depressed area’s of the city. What you do find in depressed areas of metropolitan cities are Liquor Stores, Pawn Shops, Corner Stores (that charge 80 cents for one pack of Kool Aid, true story, a couple blocks from my house), Burned out or Abandoned Buildings, and masses of people standing on street corners. The “rough” area’s of Seattle had all of the former and none of the latter.

Something interesting seems to be taking place in recent years though in some major cities. As Young Professionals, and Urban Hipster’s are moving back into cities, and gentrification is happening in once depressed area’s, we are starting to see some light and some severe culture clash. Example…I live in Grant Park (Downtown Atlanta) Atlanta’s oldest and most historic neighborhood. I live off of MLK, and everyone I know who doesn’t live here or isn’t familiar with what has taken place here always asks me, “you living in the hood now?” Well technically, yes, but conventionally, no. I live in what was once an abandoned warehouse turned chic overpriced loft space, with gated parking. More directly, I am living in what I would consider a mostly gentrified neighborhood. And it is diverse by race, ethnicity, culture and class. It is amazing to me to see $40,000 BMW’s drive past homeless guys pissing in the street, and yet, I see it everyday. We have what is now a culture clash, and it is starting to spill over in more severe ways.

to be continued