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    Why Live in A Big City

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    Ger Jones
    Dr. Timothy keller: Christians should live in the largest cities and live out their lives there. He says it's great because it's resourceful, brings them into close contact with people of different races. It's also a challenge to go deeper in understanding and articulating what they believe, he says.

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    Why Live in A Big City

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    Ger Jones
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    Dr. Timothy keller: Christians should live in the largest cities and live out their lives there. He says it's great because it's resourceful, brings them into close contact with people of different races. It's also a challenge to go deeper in understanding and articulating what they believe, he says.

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    Why Live in a Big City

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    Dr. Timothy keller: Christians should live in the largest cities and live out their lives there. He says it's great because it's resourceful, brings them into close contact with people of different races. It's also a challenge to go deeper in understanding and articulating what they believe, he says.

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    61 views2 pages

    Why Live in A Big City

    Uploaded by

    Ger Jones
    Dr. Timothy keller: Christians should live in the largest cities and live out their lives there. He says it's great because it's resourceful, brings them into close contact with people of different races. It's also a challenge to go deeper in understanding and articulating what they believe, he says.

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    WHY LIVE IN THE BIG CITY?

    [ DR. TIMOTHY KELLER ]


    One of the most effective ways for Christians today to be a city on a hill would be for a large number of believers to move into the largest cities and live out their lives there.
    As an urban church planter and minister, I often talk to Christians who are either thinking of moving out of New York City or considering moving into it. I find myself rehearsing a number of principles and issues each time. Why should Christians live in major cities?

    BECAUSE IT IS SO GREAT.
    Kathys and my own children grew up in the city. They regularly thank us for raising them here, and they give some of the following reasons. First, it made them resourceful. Having grown up in New York City, they are intimidated by nothing. They feel they can get along and get around anywhere. Second, it brought them into close contact with an enormous range of people of different races, classes, worldviews, religions, and temperaments. They have acquaintances and friends among a great diversity of humanity. Third, the big city has exposed them to a stunning range of cultural opportunities. The concerts, museums, galleries, and theaters have enriched and challenged them. Finally, my kids insist that Christianity is more vital in the city. There is almost no nominal Christianity in the city. People do not go to church here because it is expected. People cannot be Christians here without being challenged and questioned by their friends. This forces believers to be much more thoughtful so as to understand and articulate their faith. As a result, our children were exposed to scores of strong young urban Christians who were attractive and influential models for their faith. These are the same reasons that so many other Christians find, to their surprise, that their faith thrives in a city like nowhere else. Daily life here is a dazzling education, a never-boring engagement with the sources of cultural production, a unique opportunity to practice cross-cultural Christian community, and a challenge to constantly go deeper in understanding and articulating what they believe.

    BECAUSE IT IS SO IMPORTANT.
    Just one example: four of the 2001 Academy Awards were won by artists who were all students together in New York Universitys art department in the mid-1980sMarcia Gay Harden, Ang Lee, Kenneth Lonergan, and Joel Coen. The people who will be in control of our culture twenty years from now are here now, though we (and they!) dont know who they are. The city is the future of any society. Cultural trends are forged here. Aspiring writers, artists, thinkers, entrepreneurs, scholars, professionals, and antiprofessional activists all come here to make it. Immigrants flow into major cities before moving out into the rest of the country. The early church succeeded in capturing the Roman Empire because Christians lived predominantly in urban areas. Todays Christians have fled the cities but then wonder why the church has so little influence on the culture. The late James Boice wrote that the single most effective way for Christians today to be salt and light and a city on a hill (Matt. 5:1316) would be for a large percentage of the nations believers to move into the largest U.S. cities and live out their lives there.1

    BECAUSE IT IS SO HARD.
    The city is also a very hard place to live. It is terribly expensive, even in the inner city. It is a legally, socially, and politically complex place to live. It is highly mobile, and longtime residents suffer the continual loss of relationships. The city is filled with

    1. James Montgomery Boice, Two Cities, Two Loves: Christian Responsibility in a Crumbling Culture (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1996).

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    idols (cf. Acts 17) of sex, money, and power; and many give in to temptation. But though Christians should not deliberately seek difficulty, it is hard to imagine a more practical way to follow the incarnate Christ, who did not live where he was comfortable but where he was useful (Rom. 15:3). The American Christian church has traditionally been middle class and non-urban. Moreover, we value privacy, safety, homogeneity, sentimentality, space, order, and control. The city is filled with ironic, edgy, diverse people who do not value these things at all. The city is an easier place to live (than the rest of the country) if you are poor or rich, if you are nonwhite, if you are single, if you are rather unconventional in your tastesbut it is a harder place to live if you are a middle-class family. The plain fact is that a great many people in this country find the city an uncomfortable place to live. What can we do? The early church increased in influence and relevance because it was urban. The modern church is fast losing cultural and economic force because it avoids the city. The only solution is that a lot of Christians who are not naturally comfortable in

    and indigenous to the city will have to follow Abraham and live by faith, using the comfort and joy of the gospel to face the difficulties of being here and breaking through to the greatness of it. Abraham was called to leave a familiar culture and become a pilgrim, seeking the city of God (Gen. 12:14; Heb. 11:810). It is difficult to strike a balance here. God does not call everyone to live in a city, nor do those he calls to the city necessarily have to live their entire life there. People who find great opportunity to use their gifts productively elsewhere need be able to go out from the city without guilt. People who for selfish or cowardly reasons will not even think of living in the city, however, need to be confronted. Consider it done.
    Copyright 2001 by Timothy Keller, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2010 by Redeemer City to City. This article first appeared in the Redeemer Report, May 2001. We encourage you to use and share this material freelybut please dont charge money for it, change the wording, or remove the copyright information.

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