Our Mission:

On January 6, 2023, the Street Psalms’ board made the decision to incorporate as a religious order of the Church. We are officially recognized as a dispersed, global community in mission who share a common call to free others to love and serve.  

We trace our roots to Philadelphia, where we began as an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trust in 1995, serving urban youth workers. We came together as a like-hearted but diverse group of leaders with a shared love for those at the margins where God’s love became real to us. In our efforts to call forth that love in a wide variety of churches and their youth workers, deep friendships were forged that continue to this day. In order to provide ongoing formation for urban leaders who found themselves increasingly marginalized by religious institutions we founded Street Psalms in 1999 (then called MUD Inc.). The work soon grew to include leaders in cities around the U.S. and internationally. 

It wasn’t until 2006 that we could see the faint outlines of an order emerging. That’s when a few of us gathered in the basement of Iglesia del Barrio in North Philadelphia. It was there that we acknowledged that we had been given a gift – the gift of seeing and celebrating Good News in hard places. Like the prophet Isaiah, we desired “the tongue of a teacher to sustain the weary with a word” (Is. 50:4) and that desire was being fulfilled. We wanted to see leaders from all walks of life freed up to love and serve as modeled by Jesus. We sensed that both the gift and the call were too potent to be left unaccountable, and too vulnerable not to be cared for. Doubtful of our own motives, some of us timidly expressed a desire for some kind of ecclesial body to recognize the gift, lay hands on us, and ordain those of us called to the vocation of freeing others.  

We spent three years searching for ecclesial bodies who would recognize our gift and bless the call of our diverse and dispersed community. This included sustained conversations with partners in the broader movement of urban ministry at the time. In 2009, we finally admitted to ourselves that we were that body, fully authorized to do the very thing we desired. At a retreat in Tacoma, we made the decision that Street Psalms would ordain leaders in the network who embodied the call and the charism of the community. It would take another 14 years for us to officially incorporate as a religious order with the IRS. 

And so, in 2010, we ordained the first cohort of leaders at Mt. Angel Abbey, in Mt. Angel, Oregon. In 2013 we ordained the second cohort of leaders in Tacoma, WA, in the chapel at Urban Grace. Between 2013 and 2021 we paused ordinations to clarify the purpose of the order and create the conditions for a more inclusive community, especially for women. In 2021 we ordained the third and fourth cohort at the Street Psalms Institute. Notably, and out of our desire to make good on our sense of leading, the third cohort was all women. In 2022 we ordained the fifth cohort. In 2023 we ordained the sixth cohort bringing the total to 34 ordained  leaders.   

To be clear, Street Psalms is not a clerical order. We do not ordain leaders to pastor local churches. Rather, we are a sodal community in mission that serves local faith leaders and communities of all kinds who seek the common good of their city. 

As a sodal community we are called to nurture life-giving perspectives and practices guided by a common framework that sustains those who live and breathe good news in hard places. We seek peace and the underlying unity of all things. We do this within the rich and sometimes challenging diversity of our own community, as well as the diversity of our urban contexts. We are urban peacemakers who seek the peace of the cities we are called to serve. We welcome all who are called to this vocation regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, theological, denominational, ideological or political affiliation. 

There are no special privileges conferred to ordained members of the community except the responsibility to embody the gift and live out the call. As ordained, our vocation is to free others to love and serve according to the unique shape of our lives and context. We serve as professional clergy, organizational leaders, activists, spiritual directors, teachers, health care workers and vocations from all walks of life. What’s important is that we share a common call to develop incarnational leaders, empowered by our gift. You can read more about Ordination with Street Psalms here.

What started as an initiative in Philadelphia, has become a community in mission that serves a network of more than 100 cities.  

Timeline

• 1996: Began as Initiative of the Pew Charitable Trust, in Philadelphia. 
• 1999: Incorporated as 501c3. 
• 2006: Desire for ordination was expressed in the basement of Iglesia Del Barrio.
• 2006-2009: A group was formed to discern the creation of an order. 
• 2009: The decision was made to begin ordaining leaders. 
• 2010: First cohort ordained at Mt. Angel Abbey in Oregon. 
• 2013: Second Cohort ordained at Urban Grace Chapel in Tacoma, WA.
• 2021: Third and Fourth Cohorts ordained at SP Institute.
• 2022: Fifth Cohort ordained at SP Institute. 
• 2023: SP Board votes to incorporate as an order with the IRS. 
• 2023: Sixth Cohort ordained. 

Shared Identity
Our statement of faith begins with what we hold in common. It’s what we hold in common that allows us to recognize, honor, and bridge difference. We celebrate and affirm our shared identity as beloved of God. Relaxing into this identity is how we undergo our lifelong, baptismal journey of becoming human and participate in the ongoing act of Creation. Our deepest identity in Christ calls forth unity not uniformity and frees us to be a life-giving sacrament of liberating love. Such identity formation is essential in our volatile world so prone to fragmentation. It is also essential within Street Psalms’ dispersed and diverse community that provides a vocational home to all leaders worldwide who are called to our shared vocation. It is only when our deepest identity is in Christ’s all inclusive love that a community like Street Psalms can represent the possibility of real, sustainable mutual kinship and belonging. And so we pray…

Lord of Life…by your power made perfect in weakness, awaken us to the mystery of life. Speak to us again the truth of our deepest identity hidden in you: "You are my child whom I love, with you I am well pleased."
Excerpt from the Prayer of Vocation 

Shared Vocation
In addition to our most sacred vocation of becoming human that is common to all people, our community shares a particular call: to free people from all walks of life to create cities of peace for all people where everyone belongs, especially the most vulnerable. We recognize that freeing individuals and institutions to create cities of peace for all people is highly contextual work. Freedom in one context can be experienced as bondage in another. Therefore, as a globally dispersed community that represents and welcomes the diversity of the cities we serve, we provide a vocational home that puts the city and the most vulnerable at the center of our concern. This centered set approach creates a big table that holds a wide variety of beliefs, doctrinal views and spiritual practices. And so we pray…

Gracious God, Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of Life, have mercy on us. Reveal yourself in all things, to all things, and through all things. Grant us the gift of becoming a community of the Incarnation – mystery of Word made flesh – who sees and celebrates Good News in hard places. Give us the tongue of a teacher to sustain the weary with a word, and free leaders from all walks of life to love their city and seek its peace with the Gospel of Jesus.
Excerpt from the Prayer of Vocation

Shared Belonging
Like all followers of Christ, we belong to “one, holy, catholic and apostolic church” (Nicene Creed 325-381). Together, we undergo the love of God in Christ. As such, we are a sign and sacrament of the Spirit who is poured out on all flesh. We are the poured-out-ones. The shape of our poured-out-ness takes the form of the mystical Body of Christ in all its fullness. Because we are one, we reconcile. Because we are holy, we sanctify. Because we are catholic, we unify. Because we are apostolic we send each other in the way we were sent – in the way of Jesus.  And so we pray…

Lord Jesus, make us into instruments of your peace and a sign of your unity in the world that we might act, reflect, and discern like you. May our wounds and the wounds of this world become wombs of new creation, bearing seeds of new life. Free us, O Lord, to be midwives to the holy in all things.
Excerpt from the Prayer of Vocation

Shared Practice
We celebrate the shared practice of communion as instructed by Jesus at the Last Supper. Participating in this meal is how we are re-membered in Christ and, as St. Augustine insisted, “become what we receive.” What matters most to us is not our doctrinal or theological convictions about how this happens at the meal. What matters most is our presence and participation in the mystery. It’s the place where all of who we are is welcome. It’s the place where we undergo the love of God in Christ, and the possibility that all things are held together in love. We trust the eucharistic shape of that love. In the same way that Jesus took, blessed, broke, and gave the bread/cup saying, “This is my body/blood, do this in remembrance of me,” we too (along with all creation) are being taken, blessed, broken, and given in love that we might become the spoken word of God’s love in a hurting world. This is the shape of God’s love in Christ. Therefore, as often as we gather we celebrate the meal of our salvation. This is how we “become what we receive.” And so we pray…

Jesus, like the disciples who were blind to your presence until they dined with you in the resurrection, we too are blind until you dine with us. You are the stranger among us, revealed as the loving Host of the meal of our reconciliation. Open our eyes, Lord. We want to see and celebrate you at work in the world, especially in the hard places, creating, sustaining and reconciling all of creation in your love.
Excerpt from the Communion Liturgy

Shared Framework
Our community is guided by a common framework which functions as our rule of life. It is not an answer book. It asks a series of questions concerning ways of seeing, doing and being modeled by Jesus that frees us to love and serve for the sake of the common good. We are a community that lives into these questions which get worked out, on the ground, in local contexts, according to the shape of that context. Each of our contexts become learning labs of reflection for the broader community on how the Spirit is moving in our respective contexts. 

See: How does Jesus' way of seeing call us out of scarcity into the liturgy of abundance? 

Do: How does Jesus’ way of doing that call us out of theory into embodied practice? 

Be: How does Jesus’ way of being that call us out of rivalry into peacemaking? 

Free: How does Jesus’ way of seeing, doing and being free us to love and serve?

Learn more about the Incarnational Framework

Shared Hermeneutic
Our community reads and applies Scripture through the eyes of the crucified/risen one who is the Word of God made flesh, and reveals to us the heart of God made flesh. Jesus is our living hermeneutic. Like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, when we read the sacred texts through the eyes of Jesus, it makes our hearts burn within and we see the crucified/risen one at work in all things, especially the most vulnerable. We sometimes call this “doing theology from below”. Therefore, we are learning how to read Scripture not “to”, not “for”, but “with” those at the margins and with what one author calls “the intelligence of the victim.” This is how Scripture comes alive for us. 

So, the fundamental question we bring to Scripture is not, “What does the text say?” but rather, “Through whose eyes do we read the text?”

Shared Methodology
We are committed to an incarnational method of formation as modeled by Jesus. The Incarnation provides for us the spiritual technology necessary for human flourishing. Jesus’ primary methodology of formation is one of induction. He inducts us into our shared humanity. Big ideas and rational insights have their place, but Jesus recognizes that we are first and foremost relational beings and he comes to us relationally. Therefore, he practices a relational method of formation and so do we. 

As relational beings we are inducted into our humanity in community, over time and in context. 

Shared Gift
Our community is animated by a shared gift. The gift of seeing and celebrating Good News in hard places. This is our core charism that we are called to nurture and give as freely as it is given. 

If there is a secret sauce, this is it.

What’s the difference between a religious order and a local church?
There are two main structures of the Church in history: its modal and sodal forms. The most common form is the modal form of Church. Modal communities, such as local churches, gather around a shared geography (parish community) and the call that is common to all followers of Jesus. Participation and membership is open to all from  cradle to grave. Sodal communities function differently. Sodal communities (sometimes called orders or mission societies) gather around a shared mission, and often share a rule of life. Participation in sodal communities is usually limited to adults who have discerned a call to the particular mission of that community, and undergo a process of formation to become a member. Street Psalms is a sodal community that serves modal communities. For an introduction to the sodal and modal forms of the Church, see Ralph Winter’s The Two Structures of God's Redemptive Mission). 

If Street Psalms is a religious order why does it often refer to itself as a Community in Mission?
Street Psalms uses the term “Community in Mission” as a way to describe the kind of community that Jesus missions into being in the resurrection. A Community in Mission can take many forms. Many take the form of a local church. Ours takes the form of an order. However, not all orders function as a Community in Mission, and neither do all churches or faith communities.
Learn more about what it means to be a Community in Mission. 

Does Street Psalms ordained leaders to pastor local churches?
No. We do not ordain leaders to pastor local congregations. We are not a clerical order in that sense. We are a community in mission with a specific vocation to free others to love and serve in the shape of their own vocation and call. We should note that several ordained members of the Street Psalms community also serve as pastors through their denominational affiliations and a separate ordination process. In recognition of the priesthood of all believers, ordained members of the Street Psalms community are free to participate in the ministry of Word and Sacrament, including serve the Lord’s table and officiate religious ceremonies as our respective traditions and our conscience allows.
Learn more about ordination >

Why does Street Psalms talk so much about the virtue of “freedom?”
Gospel freedom is not to be confused with the shallow images of individualistic freedom of Western pop culture. Gospel freedom is, for many of the mothers and fathers of the Church, the highest virtue. Without freedom, all other virtues (even the big ones like faith, hope and love) are reduced to transactional tactics. Virtues aren’t strategies we use to get what we want. It’s how we remain human. The litmus test of Gospel freedom is the capacity to act without reacting, to engage (or not engage) a given situation, opportunity or crisis without compulsion and to do so according to the Spirit’s leading. To act freely without being compulsively driven by how that action impacts us personally is true freedom and acting in true freedom sets in motion the virtuous cycle of love by which Creation comes into being.