Why do we run away from the cities?
Is it because there is evil lurking within the concrete jungles?
Do we run away because our cause is lost?
Do we run because we serve a false god?
Have we received the orders from God to ignore the Great Commission (Matthew 28:17-20) to go to the urban centers?
Or do we abandon God's children in the metropolis because we are lazy, complacent, and comfortable?
We don't want to get our hands dirty in the mess of the cities. We want to ignore the environmental challenges, health hurdles, joblessness, and homelessness.
Or perhaps we've already checked out of this world, and are awaiting Christ's Return, so why should we bother trying to make a difference?
Besides, what difference can I make? Does one person really matter?
Here's what God said to Jonah, when he wanted to abandon his call to love the city of Nineveh - "And should not I care about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not yet know their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well!" Jonah 4:11
Today we now have "Millionenstadtes" - cities of multiple millions.
So what is the Christian family doing to share the Gospel to the billions living in the mega cities? Or is the call of Christianity only for the comfortable suburbanites who resembles you or I?
The challenge to spread hope in the metroplex requires a selfless team dedicated to uplifting Christ. Entrepreneurs to provide sustainable jobs to combat unemployment, educators to combat illiteracy, mothers to love to combat bigotry, medical missionaries to promote health and combat disease, fathers who are present for their families to combat crime, engineers to attack sanitation & traffic gridlock, grandmas who pray to combat temptation.
Yet some within my faith family have made a call to run to the hills, and abandon the cities. What's up with this mentality? Cowards, I say. I'm glad that instead of retreating, the leaders of God's last day movement are instead advancing into new territory.
To read more about this advance check out Hope for Big Cities Initiative
What will you do, when God calls you to love a city to Him?
For further study . . .
- Some Demographics of Mega Cities by Steve Jones
Consolidation for Social Awareness and Responsibility (CSAR) - The Mega-Cities Project
- Growing Up in Cities - A UNESCO MOST Project
- Cities of the Future: Today's "Mega-cities" are Overcrowded and Environmentally Stressed by Divya Abhat, Shauna Dineen, Tamsyn Jones, Jim Motavalli, Rebecca Sanborn, and Kate Slomkowski
