Taking It to the City

In 2008, journalist and scholar Marvin Olasky exhorted Christians to embrace urban areas because of their rapidly increasing populations: “Today’s burgeoning cities desperately need the Christian willingness to bless and respect despite insult. In 1950, 29 percent of the world’s population lived in urban environments. By 1965 that figure had risen to 36 percent. Now the total has passed 50 percent and will likely be about 66 percent by 2025.”¹

Yet there is more reason than mere population density to increase ministry in cities, for they desperately need the Gospel’s leavening influence. In addition to the high crime rates, poor public education, and worn-down housing present in many urban areas, city dwellers are also less likely to establish meaningful social connections than their rural counterparts. Political scientist Robert Putnam found that volunteering, working on community projects, charitable giving, and even blood donation are more common in small towns than urban metropolises.² Indeed, cities are home to droves of the isolated and uninvolved. Compared with other Americans, residents of the nation’s largest metro areas report 10-15% fewer group memberships, attend church 10-20% less frequently, and are 30-40% less likely to attend public meetings on local affairs.³

Thankfully, many Christians are taking this data to heart and investing themselves where the need is greatest. Examples are legion. Two are illustrative.

In Brooklyn, Larry Holcomb invests himself on Fulton Street, commonly known as “Muslim Street,” where new African immigrants flock every Monday night to English classes. Holcomb has become part of their lives: “As he stands in the street in the evenings, greeting everyone in sight by name, locals shake his hand in quick recognition of the years [Holcomb] has spent acquiring the status of a neighborhood fixture.”⁴ He began teaching English in 2003. It afforded him the opportunity to know his neighbors and present the gospel. His mission is simple: “to reach unreached people groups in New York City,” and he notes that there are currently 600,000 Muslims in the boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. Holcomb is a missionary to the world in North America. The city is a context for global evangelization.

Christians unite for a very different kind of ministry in Phoenix, Arizona, where scores of adolescent and pre-adolescent girls are victims of sex trafficking. Faced with such a crisis, Pastor Mark Connelly of Superstition Springs Community Church decided his church had to act. So he invited several other area congregations to form a nonprofit organization called Vision Abolition to battle child sex trafficking. When a former Phoenix vice mayor heard about the effort, she pulled the churches into a coalition of government officials and private groups determined to battle child prostitution. Thanks in part to their efforts, Arizona toughened penalties for adults engaged in sex acts with minors and launched a public education initiative on child sex trafficking.⁵

Vision Abolition also directly helps 20-30 trafficked children each month with their physical and spiritual needs. Pastor Connelly’s four-year goal is to open a Christ-centered safe house that will shelter and restore such children. According to Phoenix police detective Christi Hein, the fight against trafficking owes much of its success to the resolve of Christians. “I think it’s only because they’re faith-based that they’re willing to take this on and to deal with the hurdles,” she said. “Until this group came along, I had given up.”⁶

Of course, it takes great courage to invest oneself in an urban setting, and not all are called to that type of ministry. But for those who are called to this challenging mission, there are unique blessings and great opportunities for cultural transformation.

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