A Look at UrbanSpirit and Who We Mean To Be

What kind of church has no members? UrbanSpirit is a different kind of church...

Our Mission

UrbanSpirit is a community. We began in 2001 with the awareness that the biggest need in this neighborhood wasn't another church to collect members. We rebelled against the notion that churches have to have members.

UrbanSpirit is a destination for groups searching for something more than a work camp or mission trip. As you live out your faithful desire to serve, we also help you live out God's call to learn.

UrbanSpirit is an attitude. As a Christian church with an interfaith understanding, we believe that poverty is an impediment to the common good and inconsistent with most faith traditions. And most people of faith don’t really want it to be that way. We believe that if you could see what we see here, you would agree.

UrbanSpirit is a lesson in faith and economics. Through a variety of retreats, simulations and leadership labs, mostly held here in our facility, we help well-meaning people of faith see the ugly roots of an American system that keeps people poor.

Our Vision

Imagine a place where people-of-faith and people-of-no-particular-faith-at-all work together to renew a community; where teachers are learners and learners are teachers; where people with little in common have radical conversations over coffee; where we challenge the systems and change the world. An urban village, where strangers are welcomed and anything is possible. It is Church for a new day, a new world...

That is UrbanSpirit: an urban village, built on partnership, justice and mutual care. We are a faith community where people from all kinds of circumstances come together -- for service, for study, for Sabbath.

Here's how we see it --

"Urban" is a hard thing to pin down. For some folks, it conjures up grand images of loft apartments, brand-name coffee shops below, groovy nightlife, designer boutiques within walking distance, and a light-rail train just waiting to whisk you off to your job on the 25th floor of a downtown tower. 

But for others, urban is harder core and less glamorous. It means two jobs at minimum wage just to keep paying rent and feed your family. It means watching the money run out before payday, trying to get groceries from a church or agency to tide you over. It means constantly worrying about your kids, wishing the schools were in better repair and the streets were safer. It means being surrounded by liquor stores, crack houses, pawn shops, check-cashing stores and lottery terminals, all trying to pry your last dollar from your hands. It frequently means being stuck in a cycle of  just getting by, of wondering if this is the month that your rent goes higher than whatever you can scrape together. It may mean staying in your car a few nights until you can find another place you can afford, and not being able to get a job because you don't have a permanent address. It can mean celebrating eighth grade graduation, because that's as far as you'll likely go.

UrbanSpirit is dedicated to understanding. There is a disconnect between God's people, and we want to build bridges of awareness. We want to help bring resources to this neighborhood in distress; to rely on the neighbors as teachers of what poverty can do; and to invite more well-off people of faith to encounter the Spirit of God in new ways, in a new place, then bring a new spirit to their own communities.

UrbanSpirit exists to help people -- especially people of faith -- take a fresh look at social realities. We engage people who are not poor in an experience and exploration what it means to be among the working poor in America, and to reflect on the experience in the context of faith. Then, armed with new awareness, we challenge our participants to seek  justice -- to create new relationships across economic class lines, and to advocate for changed attitudes and policies in their communities.

So, Our Mission then is

"Changing the World by Changing the Way We See the World"^TM

UrbanSpirit    PO Box 11434    Louisville, KY  40251    502-778-7211    Email Us