Churches arise and put your armor on !!

Life in the city can often be viewed as something to be avoided if at all possible. The idea that life in the country is better and that it is more conducive to walking with God is often how many Christians think.

I believe that such a perspective needs to be challenged in our increasingly urbanised culture. All across the world it is evident that God is moving more and more people into cities. We are seeing that to live and move and have our being in God is to live and move and have being in an urban context.

Since the mid 19th Century many have viewed cities as centers of chaos and places of evil and danger to be avoided. The outworking of this has been the retreat of the church from the city and the loss of the gospel in the city. Christians have become afraid of the city and often do not know how to relate to it even as it moves closer and closer towards them in suburbia.

Cities have existed since the earliest of times and through the ebb and flow of history they have grown and developed in their nature and make-up. Now in the early years of the 21st Century we are seeing the urbanisation of the world even to the point where cities are possessing more power than nations.

The Christian church must respond. The city presents many and varied opportunities for gospel mission. Government, education, commercial, medical and media centers pervade the city and regions are influenced by cities as the apostle Paul clearly understood.

We need to respond positively and bring the city of God to the cities of our world. Churches arise and put your armor on. Pray for the peace of your city and the influence of the gospel to spread throughout it, bringing hope, righteousness and justice to its people.....!!!