George Todd died this week after having served over six decades in urban ministry. During those years he was involved one way or another with nearly every ground breaking development in urban ministry, literally around the world. His eclectic ministry began in the cutting edge East Harlem Protestant Parish, a decade in Taiwan, heading Urban Industrial Mission for the United Presbyterian Church, global urban ministry for the Word Council of Churches, funding social change for the Wiebold Foundation in Chicago and finally serving as Executive Presbyter for New York City Presbytery. In each position he would make a lasting contribution.
George always saw his role as a facilitator of ministry with no desire to be in the spotlight. He believed that if God is in the world, it is the Christian's obligation to go find God know what God is doing there. And that if God wants something to be done in the world, the probability is that it is already being done. And he saw his calling to identify and support those people who are engaged in creative and effective forms of church mission throughout the world.
For those who did not have the opportunity to know George personally, we have his recent memoir Exposure and Risk: the Great Coming Church. A Half Century of Urban Ministry, (with Trey Hammond.) The book follows through the various stops on George's journey.
The East Harlem Protestant Parish was a vitaL model of shared ministry that remains relevant today in a time of diminished presence of the old mainline churches. Those who made a commitment to this ministry took on four "disciplines": Religious (shared prayer, worship and study,) Economic (shared resources), Political (engagement in social action)and vocational (finding and staying with one's calling). One key principal...especially relevant today...was studied avoidance of church owned buildings ...and the institutionalization of congregations that inevitably requires. Tension over that issue would eventually contribute to his leaving the EHPP. That debate continues to be a major issue within urban ministry to this day.
With the Presbyterian Church, George would create a cadre of urban ministers. And help create new policy for the denomination's General Assembly. He would reach out for ecumenical partnership and provide training. And his true passion was supporting his friend Sol Alinsky and Church Based Community Organizing through the Joint Strategy and Action Committee.
In Taiwan, George would train a generation of leaders who would advance the struggle for democracy there. With the WCCC, he would help Kim Dae Jung of South Korea into and during his exile as Kim wrote what would become the constitution of a newly democratic South Korea.. He connected with Minjung(people's) theology in Korea and Dalit (untouchables) theology in India (Jesus was a dalit..) and worked with the churches from throughout the socialist bloc of nations as they would come to East Germany to meet.
He would finish his ministry in the most diverse Presbytery in the country, one which had no one group is in the majority and a long history of institutional racism.
The book is written in George's own unassuming voice. One in which he can casually speak of having had Reinhold Niebuhr
perform his marriage. He describes his influences of Albert Scweitzer and his mystical reverencefor all things to Sol Alinsy and his community organizing. From Barth's sense of the transcendent power of God throughout the earth to Gollwitzer's use of Marxist tools for social analysis and work for societal change.
He had a deep love of music and put together collections of "urban" hymns. He was close to Al Carmines and his creative Christian cabaret performances in the Village and his friendship with Taize's Jacques Berthier led to the much beloved refrain,Jesus remember me when you come onto you kingdom."
Jointly with his wife Kathy, he won the Presbyterian Health, Education and Welfare Association's John Park Lee Award for a lifetime of commitment to the struggle for a more just society as a person of faith. He saw a great coming church, one less institutional, one more grass roots, flexible and engaged in the struggle for justice.
Mainly he stood beside us. Cared for us. Helped us to keep going. Much of what is good, creative and effective in the urban church today George Todd was involved with bringing to life. I will miss him.
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