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ADVANCING THE GOSPEL INTO THE 21ST CENTURY
Part IV: City-Focused Strategy
by Tim Keller, Senior Pastor, Redeemer Presbyterian Church

(continued from page 2)
Global Cities and the Mission of the Church. What are the implications for mission? First, reach the city to reach the world. In general, missions should concentrate more on cities than anywhere else. I think the evidence is overwhelming and obvious for this. This of course is no argument for neglecting any particular people group or part of the world. The church needs to minister the gospel wherever there are people! But many of the current "unreached people groups" in remote areas of the world may be gone within twenty years (into the cities!) The problem is that white evangelical Protestants who control the U.S. mission apparatus are themselves overwhelmingly non-urban in background. They neither understand or like urban life. But

it may be helpful to those who harbor misgiving about cities... to reflect on the fact that urbanization as a present fact of life for most of the human family is a reality under the providential control of God. In Acts 17:26-27 the apostle Paul observes: "he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him." Viewed in light of these verses, city growth is not something to be perceived as entirely the work of the devil, but as part of God's providential plan in history. God's redemptive purpose behind urban growth is that 'men should seek him and reach out for him.' By means of these enormous gatherings of people, God provides the church with one of history's greatest opportunities for evangelization. Pressed together in metropolises, the race, the tribes, and diverse people groups are geographically more accessible than ever before. In come cases the processes of change that new urbanites pass through make them more receptive to the gospel. If this is the case, world urbanization should be viewed in an eschatological as well as missionary framework. God is our time is moving climactically through a variety of social, political, and economic factors to bring earth's peoples into a closer contact with one another, into greater interaction and interdependence, and into earshot of the gospel. By this movement God carries forward his redemptive purposes in history. A sign of our time is the city. Through worldwide migration to the city God may be setting the stage for Christian mission's greatest and perhaps final hour.
[Roger Greenway, "World Urbanization and Missiological Education" in Missiological Education for the Twenty-First Century: Essays in Honor of Paul Pierson (Orbis, 1996)]

Second, reach the city to reach both your region and 'overseas'. The old distinction between 'home-missions' and 'foreign-missions' is made obsolete by global cities - and yet the city is more than ever the key to both! One urban church is Queens has planted three daughter churches: one in neighboring College Point, one in the neighboring Bronx, and one in the neighboring Philippines. Why? The church reached so many Filipino immigrants in its neighborhood that the new Christians wanted to plant a daughter church among their friends and relatives in their country of origin. Each major city is now a 'portal' to most of the nations of the world. That is where they must be reached. But not only are cities the key to what used to be called 'foreign missions', but they are the key to 'home missions'. You can't reach the urban centers from the suburbs, but you can most definitely reach the suburbs from the city. Regional people-flow is from the urban center outward. Students grow up, singles get married, immigrants make money and want more space - and all of them move out from the center to the suburbs, following their converts out to their new neighborhoods. But ministries that begin in the suburbs only reach inward toward the city center with great difficulty.

Third, reach the city to reach 'the culture'. As we have seen, cities more than ever influence the culture and values of the world. The single most effective way for Christians to influence the culture of a nation is to have large numbers of them stay in cities and simply "be the church" there. Also, for all the reasons noted above, we would find increasingly that ministry which is effective in a world-class city has remarkably wide applicability, especially with the emerging generations.

Fourth, reach the whole city to reach the world. As we have seen, there is no part of the city that can be neglected. First, the poor cannot be neglected, because God has always worked mightily among the urban poor. 'Word' and 'deed' ministry will have to be combined, both in ministries to Christians within the community and outside it. The churches' attitude toward and work with the poor will be a significant sign of its validity to others. Second, the immigrants - the 'nations' - cannot be neglected, because they are far more open to (and more conscious of their need for) gospel ministry than they were in their homeland. Third, the 'elites' cannot be neglected, because they are disproportionately powerful and must be called to use their educational, economic, and cultural power for the service of others and the Lord. The church in the city must how its concern for the peace of the whole city (Jer 29:7).

Fifth, reach the whole city to reach your own heart with the gospel. In the city you'll find many things that will challenge your grasp of the gospel. You will find many people that seem 'hopeless' to you spiritually and morally. But if the gospel of grace is true, why would you think that their conversion be any more a miracle than your own? You will find people of other religions and of no religion who are wiser, kinder, and deeper than you. Even after growth in grace, lots of Christians are weaker people than lots of non-Christians. But if the gospel of grace is true, why did you think that Christians are basically 'better' kinds of people than non-Christians? After a while these and other examples will begin to show you that even though you may intellectually understand the doctrine of justification by faith alone, you functionally assume salvation by moral goodness and works.

Early in Redeemer's ministry we discovered that it was not enough for Christians to feel pity or even just affection for the city. Staff and leaders had to humbly learn form and respect New York City and its people. Our relationship with the people of Manhattan had to be a consciously reciprocal one. We had to see God's 'common grace' in them. We had to learn that we needed them to fill out our own understanding of God and his grace, just as they needed us for the same. We had to be energized and enriched by the city, not drained by it. Even Jesus so united his heart with the people he ministered to that he 'needed' their friendship (Matthew 26:36-41). Ministry in the city, then, will help you grasp the gospel of grace in powerful ways. You may even come to see that you spiritually need the city more than the city needs you.