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A CRUCIAL HOUR FOR 1700 LEAST EVANGELIZED CITIES

The Context of City Wide Strategies

The 1700 Least Evangelized Cities lie in a swathe that reaches across the world from Japan, through China, India, South Russia, the Muslim World and down into French-speaking Africa, in an area that has become popularized by Luis Bush as the 10/40 window, an area lying between 10 degrees South and 40 degrees North, and between Japan and Morocco.

We can analyze the need in terms of evangelized and unevangelized cities. Of the 3500 cities in the world over 100,000, there are approximately 1,700 that could be classified as unevangelized, where we are using a rough rule of thumb to define unevangelized as "lacking a multiplying movement of churches that could significantly impact major sectors of the city, or less than 3% "Christian"".

Such a task is bigger than any single mission can handle. It requires many missions and national churches working together. This was one of the functions of the AD2000 movement.

In developing the Cities Leaders Network for the AD2000 movement, some very simple comparisons of existing research has resulted in an estimate of 1700 such unevangelized cities. By AD2000 there had developed over 400 cities over 1 million, and over 300 of these could be classified as unevangelized. 30-90% of the population of each of these is in highly responsive colonias, favelas, bustees, bidonvilles, slums, shantytowns, squatter areas...

The exciting thing as data has come in from around the globe is that almost every one of these cities has a church. The gospel has got to the ends of the earth. But none of these has sufficient numbers of believers and churches to effectively evangelize each major sector of the city.

Today we are moving into what Dr. Paul Pierson calls the fourth era of the modern missions - reaching the cities. In the last decade over 1 billion people have careened down rural roads into multiplying concrete highways to be disgorged and disoriented into the city and its slums.

Almost all population increase in the next decades will be both urban and urban migrant (rural population growth will remain static). The majority will be in the slums and squatter areas. These will increase far faster than the rate of industrialization of the cities.

The penetration of these cities and these receptive urban poor communities define the target of missions for the next decades. 
* The future of missions is urban.
* The future of missions is urban poor.

The Least Evangelized are the Poorest

Now if I ask you the question, "Which cities are the poorest?" and follow it with another question, "Which cities are the least evangelized?", the two answers come out about the same. These least evangelized cities are also cities of the poor.

In the evangelized mega-cities, the migrant poor have also been the most responsive. For example, in Greater Los Angeles, the Hispanic churches are growing at a rate of 10% per annum, according to Cliff Holland, who has developed a directory of all 12,000 churches in L.A.

The Poor, The Rich and the City

Beyond the poor of these cities there are many other people groups, often without a single church worshipping in their language. There are also elites, who determine the nature of the structure of the cities. If transformation of poverty in these cities is to occur these also need to be evangelized. If a self-supporting church indigenous to the city is to emerge there must be both the emergence and the networking of rich and poor churches.

Last Frontiers Require High Intensity Intercessory Warfare

Not only demographically but theologically most are aware that the final Biblical battles are battles between cities. Between God's people in the cities (the bride of Christ, which is the city of God) and biblical "Babylon" as it represents the emerging inter-global network of cities, the global city itself.

The casualties will be greater in these last unreached cities. The level of direct confrontation with the powers more intense. There are centers of tremendous power in this 10/40 region. Five of them are Calcutta (center of Kali and Brahmanic Hinduism), Varanassi, Iraq, Iran and the Himalayan/Tibetan region. Penetrating these is done only through death. Such powers are centered in cities, control countries or regions and extend their influence through the "isms" of philosophy and religion. The level of demonic activity in the context of these centers of principalities is far greater than that of past Protestant missions foci among tribes, or in easily accessible countries or even Christianized or Catholicized contexts.

For example, no Christian leader in Calcutta has survived without major illnesses, severe opposition from other Christians, pressure from government officials.... These are no paper tiger Christians. They are beaten, grizzled warriors who carry scars - some of them physical, many of them deeply emotional. During the puja season in Calcutta or Ramadan in Muslim countries the sense of oppression is so overwhelming that most of us find any forward advance of the Kingdom halts and personal spiritual survival requires our whole attention.

At the same time as we face a higher level of intensity of opposition, the world is moving to the cities, where all the depravity of man coalesces in giant grotesque forms that enable the spiritual powers to wreak great destruction in increasing levels. Thus reaching and transforming the cities becomes increasingly difficult.


 The A D 2000 Cities Network

The AD2000 movement was an international linking of emerging third world churches and missions, and older evangelical Western missions. It grew out of the Laussanne movement with a strategic perspective towards world evangelization focused on completion of the task by the year A.D. 2000 and beyond.

It was developed over a 10 year period, based on 10 networks (special interest groups) related to specific target interests (cities, youth, Discipling A Whole Nation (DAWN), women, mass media etc.). These tracks catalyzed national, and regional consultations leading up to two major international consultations of 4500 people in Korea in 1995 (halfway evaluation point) and another in 2000 A.D. in Jerusalem.

The City Leadership Network grew out of one of these, the cities network, and seeks to encourage Leadership teams with citywide strategies in mega-cities and the 1700 least evangelized cities.

City & Regional Coordinators

As network leaders we have been identifying and recruiting regional coordinators for each continent. City Coordinators are people already functioning as networkers, visionaries and catalysts in the city, and wants to enhance these processes by networking with others of like mind. Generally, this would involve mobilizing the research, the churchplanter's consultation, the city launching conference and then involvement in an urban ministries conference and subsequent processes.

How is This Financed?

Each organization involved in the network funds their part in the process. There is no money being given from a central office. We ourselves, look for God to provide.

Partnering Missions to a City

The diagram in the next section shows a process of partnering churches with the aim of establishing new churches in every sector of a city. Every step in such a process is the working of the Spirit, as we work with him. The role of the City Coordinators is not to do all of these steps, but rather to initiate and shepherd such a process into being, by giving vision, bringing together those who can get the task done (networking), and helping them form effective group dynamics (partnering).

From Evangelism to Transformation

Looking at the city goes beyond church-planting to the issue of what are we discipling people for? What is the role of the church in the transformation of the city? Such a process requires issues of looking at how the bible relates to urbanization, city economics, political issues in the city, etc. Such theologizing is of use in speaking the scriptures into the context of the city elites and to those in power and seeking transformation of the city Leadership and through them the city structures.

So What?

Networking, partnering and research are major steps forward in the wider process of seeking the leading of the Spirit of God as we press towards the goal of a church in every community, and language of the cities of the world.

 © Viv Grigg and the Encarnação Alliance Training Commission
For problems or questions regarding this web contact web@urbanleaders.org
Last updated: 05/15/09.

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