A Church for the City
Why Do We Love Atlanta?
Have you ever stared at downtown Atlanta’s skyline at night? It’s incredible, almost seeming to have a life of its own. Ever since Breanna and I moved here we have made a practice of doing just that, most often from the roof top deck of our loft. There is something almost magical about it.
When we aren’t looking at the intricate pattern the buildings weave together in the city, we often stand atop the same roof to watch the fireworks over Turner Field following a Braves game. In each of these moments we feel a tangible connection with the city and the many people that inhabit it.
A few times a week I run down Grant Street passed Oakland Cemetery, heading onto Memorial toward Grant Park. As I run past Young Augustine’s, I think of all the friendships I have made and continued to cultivate there with owner, bartender, and patron alike. I dream of a day when maybe—just maybe—they will come to know the hope I have in Jesus and they will share in it with me.
But regardless of their decision to follow Jesus or not, I love them because He does; I love them because they are my friends. That’s the beauty of our city: you can become a “regular” at a bar among a diverse group of people who believe and live for varying things, but genuine friendships can form.
As I head further down memorial, past Only You Tattoo, Tin Lizzy’s and Ria’s Bluebird I marvel at the culture that they have created around good food and community, and I am thankful that I have been invited into that. I wave to the servers at Ria’s nearly every morning, and they gladly reciprocate.
As I round the park, past all of the beautiful Victorian homes and wind back to Memorial, I see the buildings that have yet to experience the renewal effort that has begun in Atlanta and most American cities. I imagine the potential they hold to be places of beauty, culture, education, and most beautifully, gospel transformation.
What if this abandoned warehouse were a place to worship Jesus? What if this empty parking lot were built up to be a place for community education initiatives, or an outpost for fighting sex trafficking in the city? How amazing that would be for the glory and fame of Jesus! How amazing that would be for our beloved city!
We love this city; it is our city. This sentiment has become so familiar in our home that my three year old routinely says, as we walk or drive though downtown, “Look daddy, there’s our city.” Even at three years old she understands the tangible connection we have to this great place, and why God sent us to live and serve in the center of the city.
This connection we feel comes from the simple call we believe we have received on our lives from God: to serve and love this city with the gospel. As often as we stare out over the city, we pray for it. We pray for our neighbors, our city officials, the homeless, and the fatherless. We pray for every diverse grouping of people this city has, and it is a great joy.
This city is teeming with art, business, culture, diversity and creativity. What if all of those efforts were redeemed and renewed in the gospel? A place that is already incredible would come to be unimaginably better. It would begin to reflect the City of God that is to come. God’s redemptive story goes from a garden to a metropolis, and we have the privilege of making our city, Atlanta, progressively reflect the beauty to come.
-- LBC, December 2010
More on Cities:
Dr. Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhattan says this:
"Cities are strategic and have lots of people yet they are poorly served by the Church. Cities are disproportionately important and disproportionately underrepresented in terms of ministry. This is not to say that every Christian should move to the city, but that church movements should begin to focus on the cities more."
Tim Keller Argues For Churches In Cities [Lausanne] from Kenny Jahng on Vimeo.
In a city, you are thrown together with people who are like you, but also with people who are not like you. This tension leads to massive creativity. This creative tension always births new culture. As Christians, we shouldn't abandon the place where the culture is formed and then complain about the way the world is going!
Four things to consider:
1. If you want to reach the world, you have to reach cities.
2. If you want to reach overseas as well as your region, you have to reach the cities.
3. You need to reach the city in order to reach the culture. Churches in cities are the only hope for redeeming what comes out of them.
4. You have to reach the whole city to reach the world. We can't neglect the urban poor. We will have no credibility for the wider culture if we are not involved with its most glaring needs. The gospel enables people to get along who, outside of Christ, never would. The need for multi-ethnic and multi-economical churches is pressing. We must reach the impoverished as well as the elites.