by Jean Sindab

About the author: Jean Sindab directs the U.S. National Council of Churches’ Environmental and Economic Justice Desk and cochairs The Things That Make for Peace, an antiviolence network of churches.

It was a shining moment—for the church, for racial solidarity, for living out a Christian witness. It occurred during the closing worship of the Congress on Urban Ministry, an event that brought together 800 pastors, lay people, and gang members (another term is street youth) to discuss urban problems of economic and environmental justice, gang violence, homelessness and racism.

It had been a long week, generating the kind of excitement and controversy such social justice issues tend to elicit at church meetings. Not everyone— pastors from 27 cities and seven foreign countries—felt so comfortable with the 25 gang members who...