What is God's Global Urban Mission?

Here is an advance paper for the Lausanne Movement's Cape Town 2010 entitled "What is God's Global Urban Mission?"  The article was written as an early draft of the content to be discussed at the evening plenary session on “Megacities,” and the afternoon multiplex session on “Embracing God’s Global Urban Mission.”  The following is a portion of the article written by Tim Keller.

The growing importance of cities

In 1950 New York and London were the only world cities with metro-area populations of over 10 million people. Today, however, there are more than twenty such cities—twelve of which achieved that ranking in the last two decades - with many more to come. World cities are becoming more and more economically and culturally powerful; Cities are the seats of multinational corporations and international economic, social, and technological networks. The technology/communication revolution means that the culture and values of global cities are now being transmitted around the globe to every tongue, tribe, people, and nation. Kids in Iowa or even Mexico are becoming more like young adults in Los Angeles and New York City than they are like adults in their own locales. The coming world order will be a global, multicultural, urban order. World cities are increasingly crucial in setting the course of culture and life as a whole, even in areas of the world, such as Europe and North America, where cites are not literally growing in size.

There is a second reason that world cities are so important to the Christian mission. The millions of newcomers in burgeoning cities have characteristics that make them far more open to the Christian faith than they were before arriving. First, they are more open to new ideas, and to change in general, after being uprooted from traditional settings. Second, they greatly need help and support to face the moral, economic, emotional, and spiritual pressures of city life. The old kinship support networks of the rural areas are weak or absent, while in the developing world often have “next to nothing in working government services."  On the other hand, churches offer supportive community, a new spiritual family, and a liberating gospel message. "Rich pickings await any groups who can meet these needs of these new urbanites, anyone who can at once feed the body and nourish the soul."

Here is a glimplse at the city populations throughout the world:

http://www.citypopulation.de/world/Agglomerations.html

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