Movements of religious conversion create the moral fibre in enough people to bring about the dynamics of social transformation of a nation, (provided there is an affirmative theology and release of Leadership and structures).

The Lord is the salvation of the city itself. His presence is found in the church. So the church must first be established. Evangelism is primary and results in the bride of Christ being formed. The bride must then be united and purified across the city. Then it has the key to the transformation of the very structures and society of that city.

The diagram below shows four levels of Christian presence in the city, For each level there is focus. Each focus is dependent on the continuance of the prior one:

1. From Evangelistic Beachheads: (Cities less than 0.5% Christian). In pioneering contexts the whole focus is on penetration evangelism. The theology tends to be a theology of guerrilla warfare, a pilgrim theology. The city of man is seen as the harlot Babylon. The church is very separate from the society (world). "We must go through this Vanity Fair, this worldly city, to reach the heavenly city".

2. To Church-planting: (0.5-3%) The broad-scale evangelism never ceases but as churches develop there emerges a higher priority on saturation evangelism (Goal 1: the gospel to every person) and church-planting evangelism (Goal 2: formation of new congregations).

3. To Movements (3-10%) At some point this movement dynamic begins to become spontaneous multiplication of churches along with saturation evangelism (the gospel touching every person), as in the situations today in Manila and Brazil. Revival movements also spontaneously seem to break out. There is a necessity for waves of revival, particularly in contexts where older churches lose their momentum, where statistically they are a force, but spiritually they are not.

R.A. Torrey, preached back in 1904 in my home city of Dunedin, in the country of New Zealand. It was a city founded by a shipload of Presbyterians to be a city of God. When he preached, the city closed down. Shops were closed with signs "gone to the crusade." Whole trams full of people would burst out into singing of hymns. Torrey saved a city by a revival in the power of the Holy Spirit.

4. To Transformation: When saturation evangelism has succeeded, the city has not yet been taken for God. The whole counsel of God must be fully preached by the churches. From revival comes the important work of the Kingdom working like yeast and salt outside of the church as we seek transformation of the structures of society and culture (6% +).

Not just the individuals but the social dynamics of the city must see the salvation of God. He not only desires redemption of men, but restoration of the created order. The New Jerusalem is the model. Presbyterian, Anglican, and Catholic church theologies thrive in such contexts. For them, the city tends to be seen as a reflection of God who creates structures for the blessing of men. The soul cannot be disassociated from the earth from which we are made.

Failure in transformation can be seen in an evangelized but burning Los Angeles, where the evangelical gospel had never fully been rooted in the Biblical mandate for reconciliation. There is a church for every thousand people (evangelistically the city has been taken), but the church has not fully impacted the structures of the city, particularly in its ethnic and moral issues, so this "Christian" city both burns down in racial anger and spews pornography across the world.