DETROIT, MI (January 28, 2013) – The work of Citadel of Faith Covenant Church to transform this city is among those highlighted in a lengthy featured published by Christianity Today.
In her article, “Faith in a Fallen Empire,” writer Katelyn Beaty interviewed Harvey Carey, Citadel’s senior pastor, and Mark Van Andel, pastor of discipleship.
The Central Detroit Christian (CDC) Community Development Group, which has worked closely with Citadel, also is featured. Its founder and executive director, Lisa Johanon, also was a founding member of the church.
Detroit was once a city of promise. “Detroit was one of the few U.S. cities where African Americans could become wealthy as blue-collar workers,” Carey says. “When the auto industry began to boom, people flooded from the South and were able to build an unbelievable lifestyle here.”
Racist policies that eventually led to riots as well as the collapse of the auto industry left much of the city in virtual ruin, however, Carey notes. He tells of watching Detropia, a new documentary about Detroit. “One interviewee said, ‘I’m an artist and could never afford to live like this anywhere else; if this doesn’t work out, we don’t lose anything because we’re at the bottom.’ When he said that, it was like a knife went through me. This is ‘the bottom’? You can’t imagine the grief a person feels when this is the place that is home.”
The Covenant continues to expand the number of church plants and expand ministries that range from planting urban gardens to developing a multi-site medical clinic that has become a national model. Detroit still is a city of promise.
That is why the Evangelical Covenant Church will hold its 2013 Annual Meeting here June 27-30. Covenanters also will have more than a dozen outreaches from which to choose during the two-day mission plunge “Covenant Mission Detroit,” which takes place June 25-27 just prior to the start of the Annual Meeting.
“It is fitting that the Annual Meeting of our denomination, which at its core is a celebration of new life in Christ, will take place in the ‘Renaissance Center’ of a city that is coming back to life,” says Garth McGrath, Great Lakes Conference superintendent. “How equally fitting it will be for representatives of Covenant churches all over North America to play a part in the spiritual aspect of that renewal.”
Click here to read a story on an innovative educational ministry that meets at a Covenant church in Detroit.
