Urban Poor Workers Multiply

Greetings to old friends of Urban Leadership and the Servants Networks. This is the first general letter in the US for some time as we have been concentrating ministry resources in other countries and cities. And the fruit of the work continues to multiply.

In the US: 25 people are standing at a mountain retreat in response to a call to give two years of their lives to live and serve among the urban poor. We anoint them and send them.

For the last two years I have been encouraging a leader in Intervarsity in the US in his desire to put six teams into the slums of six cities for six weeks. This retreat is their debriefing. What an amazing work of God in hearts. The night before they were joined by another 60 who have spent their summer in the slums of LA.

In Brazil: Almost every day in Brazil, I stumbled across someone who had been moved by God to initiate a work in the favelas because of the prophetic impact of our work.

Back in 1988, when I first went to Brazil, I went to live in the favelas and model the call. Companion to the Poor and Cry of the Urban Poor were then published in Portuguese. One day I arrived at a school and a brother from East Germany approached me and told of how my book in German had impacted him to come to Brazil and start a ministry to street children in one favela. The next day a Brazilian Baptist churchplanter explained how he had left a nice pastorate to go among the poor. Your involvement in prayer and support have born good fruit.

Globally: I had the privilege of serving in the orientation of 25 urban poor workers en route for the first time to the field long-term with Kairos. These join their existing 150 workers on the field in the slums of 11 cities.

As I was speaking of our years in the battle for Calcutta, my translator stopped and turned to me and told me of the years since childhood that he also had been praying for Calcutta. He is one of the key leaders, having pioneered the training base in Lima, Manila and now in Bangladesh. In each place a denomination has formed among the poor. We worked on the ongoing strategy for Calcutta together. There are now a good number of workers in this city, as a result of the work of Urban Leadership through these and other missions.

I continue to seek the formation of a Korean urban poor mission thrust. Do pray that God would identify the right leader.

Multiplied Giving: Your support for this work has released increasing waves of work of the Holy Spirit. A few dollars given to the prophetic work of Urban Leadership have multiplied literally into hundreds of workers and hundreds of thousands of dollars yearly for the establishing of churches among the poor and transformation of their poverty, as the prophetic has birthed and encouraged these works.

While these works are now large operational missions, at this point Urban Leadership, as the prophetic catalyst, is at a low point as we get set up for the next prophetic phase. Would you consider your ongoing involvement as a monthly team supporter or in a one off gift to meet the present need.

Viv Grigg

International Director

City Leadership Dynamics

The second major focus of Urban Leadership Foundation has been creating, or connecting city leadership teams. Several years ago, Urban Leadership catalysed the AD2000 network of city leaders.

Relocation to LA

Viv and Ieda have just relocated to LA. There are three main objectives for this time in LA:

Modeling Urban Poor and City-wide Transformational Leadership

As life experiences multiply, the nature of the Fatherhood of God becomes an increasingly important motivator. There are now 8 NZ cities with city leadership teams at various levels of functionality - this has been God's work, our role has been small. This has involved bringing together the Auckland city leaders' team and Vision for Auckland process, the ethnic leaders' network, and envisioning and seeking to encourage others in leading the transformation networks, and prayer network.

There are some wonderful successes and glowing failures, and all the stress of fatherhood, for these roles are those of helping birth a council of fathers in a city. It has been our privilege to work with some very humble men of the cross at the core of this city. You can see the main frameworks for this transformational and reconciliation process on the website. We particularly have been out in the forefront for the last ten years in developing processes for urban transformation. These we laid out, along with Sam Kamaleson as goals for the cities network back in 1991. Creating an Auckland Business Theology has been a recent publication.

The Lord is the one bringing a great interlinking of the Church across the networked megalopolises and the multiplying "wanna-be" mega-cities. From these relationships he is building a purity, a holiness and a cleansing wave among Christian leaders in secular leadership roles in the midst of the tinsel, the oppressions of power, and smoke of production and consumerism.

Training Urban Workers

A third focus of Urban Leadership is in areas of training urban poor workers.

The Holy Spirit has ministered to many as Viv has taught courses on Theology of Urban Ministry, Practice of Urban Poor Church-Planting, Church and Transforming Society, City-wide Strategies for Evangelizing and Transforming Cities and others in seven different Bible Colleges and Seminaries, along with various revival meetings. Currently, Viv is completing his doctorate on Theologies of Transformative Revival.

News from Viv & Ieda

. We have seen the Lord's hand at each step as we have relocated to LA: provision of airfares, gift of car, housing, partial scholarship for Ieda, and some office furniture. But the great task of fully setting up a new operational office, and getting the networks and ministry up and running are daunting. If the Lord had not spoken paradisely, it would be a foolish thing to attempt.

Setting Up Meetings

We are available during this next year for:

A Time of Need: Small gifts by ordinary people have enabled us to carry on in mobilising people and missions to the poor. Due to the high cost of the US$ and 1/3 decline of the NZ$, we arrived in LA without the necessary set-up funding we had presumed on.

So we would covet your prayers at this time of transition. You may wish to

Viv Grigg

Viv Grigg

FAMILY NEWS FROM IEDA

Dear friends,

After six years in New Zealand it has been good for me and the family to have had some time back in Brazil. It was in many ways a very hectic time of speaking engagements and some meetings, yet in the other hand it was very refreshing to be with family and friends (some of them from my childhood days). The kids got along very well with the Brazilian children and their Portuguese has definitely improved greatly. The Lord provided wonderfully for all the cost of our travelling and here I want to say thank you very much for your part in it.

During our time there I was able to be speaking to many of the Free Methodist Churches (the denomination to which I have belonged since my childhood).

Now back in LA, I am about to complete my third intensive course for this summer at Fuller Theological Seminary. Although I have enjoyed it, it has been quite a challenge when trying to juggle family life and the heavy load of work involved in each of those courses. Hence my lack of letters to you...

The kids are really enjoying their time here. So much so, that Leonardo just broke his arm when roller skating with friends downstairs in the playground area .The boy should be fine soon. Monique and Bianca also have been making many new friends.

All and all we have been enjoying our time here despite of the many challenges that life in America poses.

Ieda Grigg

Ieda Grigg

Volunteer Workers Needed

Database Coordinator (8 hrs/wk)

Keeping up to date lists of 6500 cities globally, city leaders globally. Developing the website.

Prayer Letter Coordinator (8 hrs/mth)

This newsletter needs a co-ordinator of a team of volunteers to get out mailouts every 4 months.

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MULTIPLYING YOUR $ IN EXPANDING THE KINGDOM

The following projects are opportunities to use your tithes or more for the church of God in its global advance in the cities and among the poor.

Urban Poor Transformation

Setup Costs for Urban Leadership in LA

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Last modified: 05/06/07