Mission to the City

A friend of mine recently wrote: "God lives in the mountains and the beaches, but he is even more visible in the city."

I agree wholeheartedly.

Although I love the ocean and find spiritual renewal there, I also love New York City. Every time I am there I see something new that I don't completely understand. It reminds me how small I am, how big God is, and how much more there is to do on his mission.

The world is no longer best understood by national boundaries. It is understood by its major, global impact cities. More people live in cities than ever before. And it is not just the poor or ethnic minorities. (That day is long gone.) It is now the preferred dwelling of many in the creative class, those who come up with the ideas that shape the future of the world.

America is an urban nation. More than two thirds of Americans live on the three percent of land that contains our cities. Yet cities get a bad rap: they’re dirty, poor, unhealthy, crime ridden, expensive, environmentally unfriendly… Or are they?

Recent studies are showing another view of reality: cities are actually the healthiest, greenest, and richest (in cultural and economic terms) places to live. New Yorkers, for instance, live longer than other Americans; heart disease and cancer rates are lower in Gotham than in the nation as a whole. More than half of America’s income is earned in twenty-two metropolitan areas. And city dwellers use, on average, 40 percent less energy than suburbanites. (see Triumph of the City by Edward Glaeser.)

Church planting in these urban centers is the future (really the present) of our mission to the world.

It has been said that salvation history started in a garden (Genesis 1-3) and will end in a city (Revelation 21-22). We are heading for the Holy City, the city of hope.