Who BIMM is

Bresee Institute for Metro Ministries (BIMM) is a 501c(3) qualified charitable, nonprofit institution with educational purposes, located in downtown Kansas City, MO, that organizes and promotes training opportunities for those called by God to minister to the urban context in practical, community-enhancing and compassionate ways.

To do so, it is, or seeks, to be engaged:

• In partnership with formal accredited academic programs from the seminary through bible college levels.
• In creative opportunities at the non-formal certificate level, with workshops, seminars, urban immersions and internships.
• In the creation and development of informal training, including resourcing, data collection, mentoring, networking, curriculum development, articles and books, both in-house and through internet communication.

Our Task

To Prepare people for urban/compassionate ministries.
To Resource pastoral and lay leaders.
To Facilitate creative missional thinking and planning.

The Name "Bresee"

Bresee Institute for Metro Ministries (BIMM), founded in 2002, takes its name from Dr. Phineas F. Bresee (1838-1915), a leading Methodist pastor in Southern California in the latter half of the 19th century. Out of his restlessness to minister to the urban poor with a message of practical service and of victorious and holy Christian living, he became one of the early leaders of the international denomination of the Church of the Nazarene and pastor of its mother church in downtown Los Angeles, named the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene (1895).

The Term "Metro"

Over 50% of the world lives in urban area (25,000 inhabitants or more). Yet the influence of cities and city regions now permeates even the most distant communities. BIMM's philosophy is that urban areas do not stand alone or in isolation, nor can urban areas be dissected into contrasting zones, such as inner city, downtown, industrial and commercial zones, suburban, sprawl communities, edge cities, or encircling rural areas, because they all contribute health or disease to the whole. Therefore Bresee Institute seeks to resource, not just "inner city," but partnerships, networks and collaborations that, under the rubric of "Metro," identify the interdependencies and relationships within the organism of the urban whole.