Pastor Doug Logan, an associate director for Acts 29, plans to activate and equip church leaders to minister boldly in the inner-city context. Logan spearheads a new Acts 29 initiative intended to train and assist under-resourced pastors in urban areas—ministers who often lead with limited access to financial resources, theological training, and coaching.
Acts 29 Urban and Acts 29 Español aims to bolster support and education for ministers leading gospel-centered churches in lower socio-economic and inner city areas.
In these urban centers, pastors often minister in the face of overwhelming needs, including violence and lack of employment opportunities. Many churches in and around these metro areas fail to “reach the grime and grit in the inner city core,” said Logan, who has been working in urban ministry for over 25 years. It’s time, in other words, to get inside on a deeper level.
Many pastors in these areas, Logan noted, lack access to theological education. Because many leaders are bivocational, the lack of assets and time also indicates that additional spiritual and theological support is vital. Pastors in any setting are acutely stressed and overworked, and those facing daily, inner city turmoil are especially so.
Acts 29 has also partnered with Grimke Seminary to provide support. Logan founded Grimke in 2019 when he saw the need for low-cost access to theological training. The seminary specifically focuses on theology, culture, and mission in the most challenging settings. Students receive training from a diverse staff team and cover required reading by ethnic minorities—two core components of the program.
The vast majority of classes are online, while students fly in for three-day intensives several times a year to complete the remaining portion. Through theological, leadership, and cultural training, pastors graduate with renewed confidence in their local mission—one that fulfills a desperate need in the inner city.
“Brokenness, murder, and poverty move people to church,” said Logan. Acts 29 Urban and Español initiatives aim to fill the gaps for pastors in these contexts through distinctive curriculum, coaching, content, and conferences.
“We want to strengthen these guys who are already on mission,” said Logan. “We are there to bleed with them, to love and support them.”
Logan’s heart and mission could be summed up in 2 Timothy 2:2 when Paul urges Timothy to help “entrust faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.” It’s part of why Logan founded Grimke, named after Dr. Francis Grimke, a freed slave who became a pastor and civil rights leader. Grimke was ultimately offered lofty positions in academia but opted to serve his local church as pastor for nearly six decades. That kind of long-term, faithful commitment is essential, but it takes sustenance from outside sources to maintain.
In places where vulnerable and impoverished people struggle the most, the effort to come alongside those laboring to provide spiritual nourishment fulfills this need.
“We aren’t here to rescue,” said Logan, “but to be brothers and sisters in the struggle to get the message to those who need it.”
