MAKING DISCIPLES: Rethinking Urban Mission

Several images continue to inspire churches, new recruits, and giving to global mission. Many of these images are aligned with poverty or primitive cultures: a tribal person with a bone in his nose; a little yellow airplane dropping gifts in a basket to Indians who have never seen a white man; pleading eyes of an orphan with a distended stomach; people living in ragged tents whose homes have been destroyed by war or natural disasters. All of these images are true, but they are only half the truth.

We must shatter the notion that our main motivation for global mission is generated by pity for those who have less than we do. The main motivation for global mission should be that God deserves the worship of all people everywhere, and that we have been called to take the good news to those who are under the power of the enemy, whether they live in mud huts or in fine brick homes with a Mercedes Benz in the garage.

Modern mission history, methods, models and marketing were carved out by going to the people in the rural areas. The names of mission agencies from a century ago demonstrate this theme: Sudan Interior Mission, China Inland Mission, Africa Inland Mission. Missionaries went where the people were, and the majority of people were inland, living in rural areas.

Enduring models of mission emerged, with equally famous images to promote them: David Livingston, wearing a pith helmet in the jungles of Africa and speaking to natives gathered under a Banyan tree; hospitals in the distant rural areas curing crippling diseases and sending home pictures of pustulating sores. And since rural people were often agrarian people, it was typical that a missionary could spend time quite profitably sipping tea, meeting people on their front porches in the long afternoons, gathering tribal people together and telling stories. 16 millimeter movies could be shown on the large white-washed walls of the local plaza and attract hundreds of people who had no other opportunity to see a movie. These were all true representations of what God had called missionaries to do, and many gave the ultimate sacrifice in carrying the gospel to these remote areas. These are rightly considered heroes of the faith, and millions of people world-wide have heard and accepted the Gospel because of them.

Meanwhile, during the last century, people were streaming to cities worldwide. Cities had schools, supermarkets, movie theaters, shopping centers, discotheques, banks, and employment opportunities. Time was at a premium. Instead of long lazy afternoons to chat with neighbors on the front porch, the day was consumed with driving through busy traffic to work all day, then struggling home again through the same traffic in the evening. Saturday became the day to get all the household chores done; Sunday the day to sleep in. Missionaries began to realize that none of the old missionary models worked anymore. People didn’t need hospitals because the cites had multiple hospitals and clinics. They didn’t need 16 mm movies because they could go to the theater and see the latest Hollywood (or Bollywood) productions. They didn’t need schools because the city had lively educational systems. And they certainly didn’t have time for long afternoon chats.

In today’s urban world, quite possibly one of the best possible way to get to the mission “field” is to enter into gainful employment in the area where the good news is most needed. Pilipino missionaries are streaming across the Middle-East, finding places of employment in some of the places where professional missionaries have been prohibited for centuries. Nigerian missionaries are finding employment in the oil industry and the medical industry. Check the next time you go to your local hospital in the US, and you might run across one of these humble servants of the Lord, using his or her occupation to spread the light of the Good News. Recently I had a conversation with a fellow mission leader from Europe who began his missionary career as a medical researcher at a hospital in one of the most conservative countries of the Arabian Peninsula. Because of the ingrown nature of that society, they had several genetic disorders and they paid this missionary enough money for his work that when he sent that money back to his mission society, they were able to support two more missionaries through his income.

Instead of missionaries going to start hospitals, now we have missionaries who go to be employed by existing hospitals. Instead of missionaries going to set up schools to teach English, we have missionaries who go and are employed by local businesses to teach their people English.

The main issue is not funding, although funding for global mission is a secondary benefit. The main issue is that we have to find the means and mechanisms to enter the worlds in which people are living. Just as missionaries entered the rural world of the last century, finding means and models which would allow the Good News to enter their minds and hearts, we need to enter the urban world and explore the new avenues of global mission that are right before us.

The author of the Organic Church, Neil Cole, said that when he began his church-planting ministry in California, he thought he would start a coffee shop. Then the Lord tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Why would you want to start a coffee shop when there are already two coffee shops in the area you want to reach. Why not go there?” He began hanging out in one of the existing coffee shops, making friends, and soon had a group gathering regularly to hear the good news and to talk about the Lord.

S. America is the most urban continent in the world. In Venezuela, for instance, at least 85% of the population lives in cities. Caracas, a city of approximately 5 million, sits in a valley only 15 miles long and is one of the densest cities on earth. Tokyo is one of the largest cities on earth. These cities need the Lord, and TEAM needs many more people who are willing to find the creative means to meet these people where they live and work, in the marketplace.