Equipped For A Glocal Urban Reality

Each fall I have the opportunity (along with other staff members from Sunshine) to do volunteer training with primarily college students and young adults. In addition to "program specific" training, such as discipline, how to tutor, etc - we teach sessions on the historical context of our neighborhood, seeing and celebrating the image of God in other cultures, educational inequities in urban areas, a Biblical response to poverty, and last but not least...The Gospel. For those coming to us from schools like Moody, I know that the Gospel and exegeting the Scriptures will be emphasized in their four years there. However, one thing I have emphasized this week (that one of my mentors, Dr. Fuder, use to stay to us in class) is that we must not only learn how to exegete the Scriptures, but we must also learn how to exegete our city, our neighborhood, cultures, people, etc. We must be cultural learners. We have to intentionally study (and re-study) the historical context and current social trends and challenges in the area in which we serve. In humility and with graciousness we must approach the realities of race, culture, and class as learners in God's school. This type of ongoing education is crucial for us as Christ-followers in the 21st Century. The integrity of the Gospel is at stake because we have an "all nations" commission and a "love our neighbor as ourselves" mandate.

I told the students this week that regardless of where they end up serving, whether it be rural, urban, or suburban that thinking Biblically through issues of race, culture, and class will always be relevant if we want to live missionally in a way that truly exalts Christ. However, studies are showing that the world in which we live is increasingly becoming urban. A recent Christianity Today article entitled "Urban Urgency" reported that more than half of the world's population now lives in cities. In 1950 fewer than 30 percent of the world's people lived in cities, but it is projected that by the year 2050 almost 70 percent of the world's estimated 10 billion people will live in urban areas (according to the United Nations). As God is sovereignly moving people to cities (Acts 17), He is bringing the Nations to these cities. As this happens, Ray Bakke likes to say that "other nations" are no longer geographically distant, but rather culturally distant from us (as believers). It not only becomes about crossing cultural divides to reach people for Christ, but also about learning from our global family (those who know Christ) as we begin to do life together and celebrate our differences.

We have to ask God to give us a "glocal" mindset and heart (that's local and global). We need not juxtapose the two against each other. It is both/and. This new growing urban reality is going to require believers to have an ever increasing Christ-centered compassion for both the neighborhood and the nations.