Forward to Urbana 87 Compendium
by Thomas DunkertonPresident, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship
More from Urbana 87
"I believe God calls us to go today where people need him. Most of these people are in the cities."
Ever since World War II, we have seen a tremendous increase in migration to the cities of the world. God has enabled us to produce more food with fewer people doing the production work.
I think history shows us that farmers tend to be prolific in terms of their families. With fewer jobs on the farm to support a big family, these people have had to go elsewhere to find jobs and make a living. As our farms have become more efficient, we need fewer people to work on them. Those people generally end up in the city. This has been especially true in the U.S., but I believe that in almost every Third World country today, people are leaving the farms and moving to the cities.
For many, many years, evangelicals have been sending missionaries to the foreign mission field. Invariably, that has been to rural areas, as opposed to urban areas. As a youngster, I didn't find my missionary heroes in urban areas. Northcote Deck lived in the Solomon Islands and floated from island to island preaching the gospel. Hudson Taylor - my middle name is Hudson because my mother wanted me to be a missionary to China - worked in the rural areas of China. Bill Deans, a Plymouth Brethren missionary who was a former advertising man went and worked in the Congo. He started a beautiful work in Nyankunde, but it was a rural work. The missionaries I knew about went out as God called them, and they were faithful to the calling God gave them, but none of them went to the cities.
I believe God calls us to go today where people need him. Most of these people are in the cities. In the cities we have grinding poverty, a lot of disease, severe overcrowding, millions of people in a homeless condition. Some of the world's worst conditions are in the cities. Cities are where many hurting people live, and they need to hear the healing gospel of Jesus Christ. Whether it's in the U.S. in the slums of Harlem or Bedford-Stuyvesant, New Delhi, Manila, Tokyo or Mexico City, these major cities of the world are becoming increasingly populated and, for the most part, have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. These people need to be told. They need to hear, and they cannot hear without a messenger.
Cities of the world are calling missionaries to service for the Lord which can take many forms: social workers, business people, pastors, teachers, doctors, nurses. There are all sorts of people needed. There isn't anyone who in some way, shape or form could not use the talents they have or the business career they have been involved with to be a missionary to an urban area - either at home or abroad.
I spent most of my adult life working in New York City, and I have been involved in many of the good biblical works in that city. Not only was I involved in missions work and Bible study groups, but I served on the Board of Directors of the United Way and was instrumental in getting money from worldly sources into the hands of the needy and suffering.
Don't think that God calls people to serve only in religious capacities. There are many things you can do within government and within voluntary health and welfare agencies that meet the needs of suffering people. Open doors abound in urban areas today. What we're looking for are people who are willing to go and walk through those doors.
Several years ago I had the opportunity to go to China as a guest of the Chinese government. I lectured with nineteen other advertising agency professionals about advertising and how the Chinese could start up ad agencies and ad-related activities. The people we talked to were tremendously interested in what we had to say. They were open, and in quiet moments, my wife and I had the opportunity to share something of God's Word with them.
When I came back home again, I said to myself, "If I were twenty-one and starting over, China would certainly be the country I would go to. They are hungry for our know-how." They may not be too anxious for us to go out and hold street meetings, but they certainly have no objection to our sharing our faith with the people we would be working with.
I believe there is a tremendous area of opportunity for us today in countries that are closed to missionaries. Professional people, business people of one sort or another can go in, hold down full-time jobs and witness to the saving grace of Christ. These people are particularly useful in the cities of the world, where most of their talents can be put to good use. It doesn't matter what God has called you to do now. There is hardly an excuse for you not being concerned for the lost and dying and for the opportunity you have to use the talents God has given you in another place, most likely an urban area.
May God help you to choose to consider the challenge to be his servant and his messenger to the cities of the world in the 1990s.
Unless otherwise noted, all materials on the urbana.org web site are Copyright InterVarsity Christian Fellowship / USA. All rights reserved.
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