The challenge of the cities

The following factors might render us sleepless as we consider how to pray and work for the cities of the world.

1. Urbanization. Our planet is increasingly urbanizing. Eighty percent of North Americans are urbanites. Asia has 90 percent of its population in cities, and Africa ;is the fastest urbanizing continent. Eleven million a year move into Latin American cities. At the turn of this century, 15 percent of the world lived in cities. By mid-century, 28 percent; by 1975, 41 percent. Currently the world is 49 percent urban; by 2000 it will be 55 percent. That would be 3 billion people the total world population of 1965.

Today there are 3,450 cities of more than 100,000 people in each, and 330 megacities populated by more than a million in each. Supercities, with 4 million-plus inhabitants in each, number 45, and there are 12 supergiants with more than 10 million in each. Consider the size of Tokyo/Yokohama (27 million), Mexico City (21 million), Shanghai (20 million), New York (18 million), Sao Paulo (16 million), Los Angeles (13 million), and Calcutta (9 million).

Urban growth rate is twice that of rural growth. Sao Paulo, Brazil, grew at a rate of 20,000 a month in the mid-1970s, a quarter million a year. Never before in history has Christian witness faced so large an urban challenge as today.

2. God's love for people. Urban mission is important because God loves the people crowded in the cities. Urban mission is also important because Adventism is a mission to people. If we are to take seriously Christ's Great Commission, to "go and make disciples of all nations" (Matt. 28:19, NIV), we must go to the cities. We cannot afford the luxury of settling down in the suburbs and in comfortable churches, teaching fine theology, while ignoring the desperate needs of the urban world. Jesus wants us to be with Him where He is (John 14:3), and that close personal proximity need not be simply future it must also be present. Jesus is present wherever there is sin and suffering, pain and alienation. He is alive and well in the cities, and He calls us to join Him there. Christ, our model, ministered in multicultural and urban settings. He did not limit His ministry to the Judean suburbs but served racially mixed and culturally diverse Galilee and Samaria and urban Jerusalem.

Three enablers

Three important value commitments of the Adventist Church prepare us well for work in the cities: The Second Advent, social involvement, and the Sabbath.

The Second Advent and its concomitant doctrine, the judgment, teach us that nothing is permanent but God Himself. The Second Advent liberates us from the tyranny of the present by anticipating the coming of God's future and even participating in that future now. The Second Advent offers hope for the urban hope less. The judgment will reverse the tables of political power and give the kingdom to the saints. We can experience the reality of that future here and now: "As through Jesus we enter into rest, heaven begins here. We respond to His invitation, Come, learn of Me, and in thus coming we begin the life eternal. Heaven is a ceaseless approaching to God through Christ."¹

Advent-expectant theology and resultant lifestyle can modify even the bleak est urban existence, transforming ghettos through changing lives.

Adventists have a rich history of quiet social involvement and gentle transformation. Our hospitals serve many of the larger cities of the world and are known for their excellent care. Programs directed toward better living, aimed at various soft and hard addictions, improve the health and economics of urban peoples and their quality of life.

Adventist schools have also been responsible for significant social changes. In the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil, the several conferences in that city operate more than 40 elementary schools. They have earned the respect of the community—75 percent of their enrollment is from the non-Adventist public sector. The effect of these schools on the church is considerable, providing many new members each year. The impact of these schools on the city is also significant as families are visited by teachers and pas tors to be touched by the gospel and introduced to a wonderfully inclusive community of faith. Mission schools in Africa and the South Pacific have served as change agents producing much of the political leadership in the new nations. Adventist schools have influenced many of the leaders.

Isaiah relates the rich Sabbath blessings the Lord gives to those who show concern for the hungry, the homeless, and the oppressed (see Isaiah 58). Our commitment to the Sabbath must drive us to the slums of the world, where millions live in terrible desperation. Such a ministry can only enhance our Sabbath joy. "Then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken" (Isaiah 58:14, NRSV).

Three barriers Ray Bakke, noted urban missiologist, perceives three major barriers to Christian involvement in the cities.² The first is the theological barrier. We still read the Bible through rural eyes, having been raised that way. The urban reality is so new that we have not had time to catch up with it theologically. We suffer from what Alvin Toffler calls "future shock," the premature arrival of the future.³ Many of us idealize the little brown church in the wildwood, forgetting that our fastest growing churches are in the cities. Bakke states, "We need to expand our theology until it encompasses God's vision of the city."⁴

The second barrier is the ecclesiastical barrier. Our churches can no longer be culturally homogeneous religious clubs speaking one language and operating on a rural time schedule. Urban congregations must celebrate the three angels' messages in a rich diversity of cultures and languages. One intersection near my church offers me the opportunity to eat Cuban, Salvadoran, Jamaican, Chinese, Italian, Vietnamese, West African, and Peruvian foods, but the music and worship style in my church the member ship of which reflects all these cultures is still mostly Western. The local Safeway store is open 24 hours a day. My church is essentially closed except from 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 noon on Sabbath. How can we liberate our churches to serve in the new urban context? How can we minister to the culturally distant who live in the shadows of our existing churches? The needs of the cities require strong urban churches with experienced leadership. The traditional distinction between foreign and home missions is a thing of the past.

The third barrier is fear. With the needs of the cities being so pressing, we must fight the temptation of "White fright" and "White flight," escaping to the suburbs. People thought my family was brave and praiseworthy when we moved to Africa a number of years ago, taking our small daughter with us. Some of these same people considered us less intelligent and even less sanctified when we later went to an inner-city church in a violent area ruled by a vicious gang, with my two daughters working with me in our summer urban day camp. Yes, cities are dangerous, but even more dangerous is our fear itself.

Fear of the unknown and of that which is different intimidates us. The fact is that life is dangerous everywhere today. Drugs are a problem in affluent suburbs as well as in ghettos. Driving on the highway is more dangerous than driving through town. Misplaced fear can immobilize us and prevent us from effectively following Jesus, who is Lord of the cities as much as He is of the jungles and bush and farmlands.

Safety is never mentioned in the biblical lists of personal and collective goals. It is not included in the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22, 23). In fact, Jesus suggests that seeking safety is actually fatal (Matt. 16:24, 25).

The gospel cannot be effectively shared from a distance. Christians are desperately needed in the cities to model faith and compassion, successful families, and perhaps most important, modeling community. One of the most important gifts that the church has to offer to the cities is just what we are. We must not accept the concept of "throwaway " neighborhoods, where the visible evils of drugs, prostitution, and violent crime are fenced off from us and contained, ignoring the equally serious but less visible crimes of the suburbs.

Three prepositions

The relationship of the church to the city may be viewed through three prepositions. The first is the church in the city. This is the shallowest relationship of the three. The church is simply there, with no particular attachment to the city or the specific neighborhood. The church in the city is superimposed upon the neighborhood, a ghetto in one building. Frequently the church in the city is a drive-in church, a congregation that drives in on Sabbath and then returns to the safety and tranquility of the suburbs or farms. These commuting members generally have no stake in the community: they have no psychological ownership there, no concern for its schools and its families, no concern for what happens on Sunday through Friday as long as the church building is not harmed.

The second level is the church to the city. This suggests interaction between the church and the community, concern about the neighborhood and its problems. It is a more wholistic approach that understands the need for the church not only to be present in the community but also concerned with both evangelism and even social action. The Achilles' heel in this approach, however, is that the church "knows" what is best for the community ("Look at those teenagers. What they need is . . .").

In reality, the people most affected by problems are the ones best able to deal with them. While this is a primary principle underlying effective urban minis try, it is also one of the most difficult insights for Christians to apply even after we accept it intellectually. Because we know the gospel, we feel that we know what is best for the community. Programs under the "church to the city" model may thrive, but only as long as the congregation keeps committing people, materials, and funding. Effectiveness is limited, and burnout is inevitable. Eventually the programs will die because they were never the programs of the people. The people in the community were spectators or clients, not participants and goal owners. So the church to the city model is actually colonialist in nature, operating out of a paternalistic attitude.

The third approach is the church with the community. In this model the church incarnates itself in the community, be coming one with the people, and entering as a partner into the life of its neighbors. The community, which understands the problems from personal experience, in forms the church, while the church respects the people of the community, correctly perceiving them as persons of great wisdom and potential the only potential agents of real change in the community. Few urban Adventist churches (with the exception of some largely Adventist neighborhoods) are community churches, acquainted with and responding to their immediate surroundings. Those that are know the excitement of being part of such a dynamic living organism.

What works?

Mission is always local. McDonald's can franchise identical outlets in all the cities and succeed because they are selling basically a standardized product. Christianity, however, is intensely relational and thus must be culturally conditioned. What works in one city may not work in another; even what works in one neighborhood of a city may not work in another neighborhood of the same city. New York is different from Sao Paulo. Manhattan is different from the Bronx. Strategy may be painted in broad strokes, but the fine lines must reflect the immediate cultural, social, economic, and historical context.

During the past decade in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the Adventist Church has experienced unprecedented growth, swelling to 73,000 members. A recent survey of our conferences there serves as a baseline of comparison with other urban areas, and suggests some broad essentials that appear to be transferable:

1. A growth mentality. It is important that the local church senses an imperative of growth and perceives itself as growing. Organisms that do not grow may be either retarded, sick, or dying. When a church loses its vision of growth it faces one of the three dangers. This growth identity is generally accompanied by a strong sense of urgency that drives the congregation. Frequently this growth identity is facilitated by a visionary program developed within the conference/mission or union, that builds the structures of evangelism into the local churches.

2. A sense of confidence on the part of the church. That is, the church members must have assurance in both their salvation and in their Christian uniqueness. Few members are going to be enthusiastic about inviting others to become part of a community that is vague about its identity or purpose. Adventism must continually renew its sense of uniqueness and prophetic identity within the constantly changing structures of society. And the church's identity and uniqueness in the past may not suffice today as we near the twenty-first century.

3. A positive attitude toward the unchurched. When Christians experience a radical break from the host society, they find it difficult to cross back over and recruit new members. To be totally absorbed into an Adventist subculture is to be no longer effective "in the world," as Jesus said we should be (see John 17:11). The larger society then perceives that we have little intrinsic interest in them, other than as numbers on our books or trophies of our "crusades." The unchurched must not be viewed as the "enemy," but as the subject of God's concern and thus the church's.

4. A willingness to make the best of social context. When people migrate to a new area, they are open to change. They have already changed homes, jobs, and neighbors, and they need to replace old loyalties with new relationships. The church as community can offer a new church home, new spiritual neighbors, and a new community of satisfying and caring relationships.

5. The establishment of small groups to give a structure for evangelism and easier assimilation of new members. These groups allow for diversity, fellowship, lay training, and growth.

The new frontier

The cities are the new frontier of missions. Alert and sensitive Christians in many churches and denominations are responding to the challenge. What a shame it would be if Adventists, who sense their end-time uniqueness, should fail to read the signs of the times by failing to follow Jesus in His mission to every nation and tribe and language and people.

The cities cry out for creative, innovative, caring Christian mission. God invites us to join Him in His mission to the world, to the increasingly urban world. Dare we refuse?