(One of us wrote this to a very good friend, who is a suburban pastor, in March 2009.)

Dear Seth,*

It’s sort of like a tree, this Kingdom we partake in.

There is a huge, steady, living trunk without much mobility. But it is rich in stability and resources. It’s rugged. It’s not going away without a fight.

Then there are strong but still swaying branches that already support the weight of thousands of smaller twigs, things just barely solidifying. Just-popped-out-last-spring tiny things. Easily snapped, reaching out, inexperienced.

And then there are leaves and buds, rapidly emerging into new space and territory. Always in danger of being blown off, of withering - and yet somehow they energize the whole organism.

And the leaf can look at the bark-covered branches and say, “Why can’t you move?”  And the branches can look at the wimpy buds and say, “Bah, you’ll come and go!”

But heaven forbid. They need each other so much. The leaves need the juice. The branches need the sugary energy that the direct exposure of the leaves can provide.

So the specific thrust of MoveIn is to encourage leaf action. And the specific and constant struggle is not to curse the trunk, the branches. For what can a soft supple, tender, tenuous  leaf and a huge mighty trunk have in common? The answer is everything.

So does your suburb need to be reached? Yes! Does MoveIn need to encourage people to ‘move in’ there?  Nope. YOU do. Every single one of the small groups at your church has the potential to be a prayerful, evangelistic, hospitable, witnessing firehouse. Seriously, it is so close. Just once a month, they invite all of their non-church friends to the small group and do something that they think is mutually meaningful and brings Christ in.

So we can’t expend any of our resources on that right now - not because it isn’t worth doing, but because it is the job of the suburban churches.

Who’s job is it to make sure that Christ is exalted and represented in the ethnic enclaves and ghettos of Toronto and other cities we are looking at? In Toronto, we are finding those with this calling are few.  It isn’t really on the agenda.  Perhaps 1% of the Christian workforce devoted to the task.

So the fact that your suburb is already on your agenda, and that you have a place of influence, means that you are already way ahead of us. You have more people to mobilize, a bigger budget, more established work, a longer history and on and on and on. You have the weapons, the soldiers, and the same Lord. Reach the town man, pastor it person by person. Energize even a few to help you. Pray for them. There is a huge chance that it’ll happen.

Dixon Park is different. If Christians don’t move in there, it’s not happening, it’s not foreseeable. They just continue on in the spiritual darkness already evidenced in our really feeble attempts to even see what is going on there.

So yes, I really hope that in understanding the challenge of MoveIn, you somehow also feel the love that is deserved by those who do what you do. We can’t make a MoveIn team in your suburb for the very reason that we have faith in the likelihood that you dear saints will start to reach your surrounding areas. We have to make them for places that we don’t see any foreseeable fruit in. Not profiling a neighbourhood in your suburb is not saying that it is lacks need. It is maintaining our focus on the places where there isn’t anything yet. If you guys weren’t there, hadn’t been there for 50 years, it would be different.

We confess that there has been some wrong attitudes on our part towards the existing churches, towards even the suburban Christians in general. We have, sadly, been guilty of that.  It’s the buds getting frustrated with the bark, and there’s no excuse for it. I apologize if that is the vibe you are getting.  We, the people involved with MoveIn, need to constantly repent.  Our work is frustrating for a lot of reasons and I don’t think it is fair to take that out on anyone or any entity.  We stand with you - thankful that you are part of the same great tree, doing things we can’t do, doing things we need, loved by the same God, being perfected into the same bride, the same great Oak.

Jesus years!

Love,

Your good friend

*Not his real name