Abstract:
This article sets out to describe the development of and engagement with a global training
collaborative around the formation of urban ministry leadership committed to the act of loving
cities and working for peace. The collaborative is an initiative of Street Psalms called the Urban
Training Collaborative and each urban training hub has agreed to be shaped and formed by an
Incarnational Training Framework (ITF). The ITF was constructed over a 20-year period in
the midst of a global missional community made up of leaders from cities all over the world.
The ITF is infused by an incarnational theology as interpreted from below and focused on
the message, method and manner as exemplified in the life and mission of Jesus Christ such
that messengers are free of fear and unleashed to love their cities and seek their peace.
The Incarnation of Jesus Christ animates faith-based engagement around the complex issues
of poverty, injustice, social inequity and violence, and shifts paradigms from scarcity to
abundance, theory to practice and rivalry to peacemaking. To shed light on the practical
outworking of an incarnational theology from below, we will critically reflect on Guatemala
City as a case study to illustrate how the formation of a city-wide missional community was
developed through engagement around the aforementioned ITF which led to the corresponding
paradigm shifts and then subsequently seeding a global training collaborative
