Reflecting Our Neighborhood

Planting churches in St. Paul

by Matt Bostrom

Back in the mid-1980s, when I was working patrol for the St. Paul, Minn., police department, there was a series of break-ins to former church buildings. As I would shine my light on the buildings and look in, I remember thinking: Here we are, constantly in a reactive position. The community was suffering from the effects of these crimes and others. But the real solution wasn’t more cops as much as more churches, because a vibrant community is anchored by strong neighborhood churches—sanctuaries within walking distance.

These thoughts about the lack of healthy neighborhood churches troubled me for a long time. In early 2001, a small group of us were living in St. Paul but attending church in the suburbs, and we asked ourselves, “Wouldn’t we like to have that walk-to neighborhood church again?”

We were interested in starting such a church, so we connected with ethnic ministry leaders in St. Paul to talk more about it. They advised us that if we wanted people in the neighborhood to attend, then our church needed to reflect the neighborhood in attendance and in leadership. So it couldn’t be all-Caucasian. “We need to see people in leadership positions who look like us,” they said. We were all Caucasian, so we prayed and waited on the Lord for whom He might bring. He answered our prayers in His perfect timing. CrossCultural Evangelical Free Church now has an African-American senior pastor, Mike Rice, and a Hmong associate pastor, Cher Moua. Our congregation is a mix of African American, Caucasian and Asian (primarily Hmong). We also sing and read Scripture in Spanish or Swahili, in case neighbors from those cultural backgrounds come in; they’ll sense our respect for their culture. For nearly 20 years the Lord was preparing me to contribute to His kingdom by participating in an urban neighborhood church. Now we’re trusting that CrossCultural EFC is a sanctuary for our community and that He is preparing us to plant similar churches in each of the eight legislative districts of St. Paul.

Matt Bostrom is assistant chief of the St. Paul Police Department and serves as an elder at CrossCultural EFC. He also directed security for the 2008 Republican National Convention, in St. Paul.