Urban Evangelism - “Why Aren’t We?”

One of the ways the church can practice cultural relevancy is to move away from the lofty sermons and haughty experiences of the past and focus the church into a body of believers meeting the physical, mental, and social needs of any and all it comes in contact with. The task of urban missions…will be that of ushering Christians, not as in the past, into merely judicial and impersonal structures, but into the vital experiences of the local church. With out the continuous support of a local body of believers most endeavors in the inner-city will fail. The lofty heights of the pulpit are for feeding the sheep, not for gathering new sheep into the fold. Personal, one on one friendship will be the evangelism tool of the future. It is through the daily, often uneventful, demonstration of love, purer than anything found on earth that will lead the lost into a relationship with Christ. In John 13:35 we find that ”by this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” The Jesus people see in you may be the only Jesus they will ever see. Your light must be evident. It is a sobering thought to that you only love Jesus as much as the person you love the least, and yet, it is an inescapable principle.

First, a definition of exactly what the term urban means is essential. A good definition of “urban” that encompasses many of the far reaching aspects of this illusive word is …“Urban”…here covers all the ‘things’ that characterize the fact of the metropolis…The central interest is in the process of urbanization, which can be defined as the phenomenon by which millions of men and women move en masse from rural to metropolitan areas, and - more importantly - which transforms the lifestyle. It is difficult if not impossible to characterize an urban area strictly in term of numbers or density. It requires far more than quantitative analysis but also qualitative analysis to understand the culture and lifestyle as well as the pure data. With this definition in mind, the history of the migration to cities must also be more fully understood. The industrial revolution spurred on a mass migration to the cities in the early part of this century. As jobs in manufacturing began to appear in large clusters at a particular city so did thousands workers to fill those positions. The boom in cities occurred at an astounding rate. …while the total world population doubled during the first half of the present century, the cities with a population of more than 100,000 quadrupled. This boom began in the United States and continued throughout the world for the next 30 to 40 years. Although the interests of the large corporations, and capitalization in general were well served through the advent of the city, more often that not, the city was not a place where individual needs were met. The process of urbanization is unique from all other cultural migrations in that it was the creation of a privileged few for monetary gain and not a migration as a reaction to a social need or problem as had been the pattern in the past. Cities such as Madras and Calcutta, Hong Kong and Singapore were born as support bases for imperialist inter

Some topics in this essay:
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