Urban Ministry in the 21st Century (4 vols.)

The twin forces of globalization and urbanization are transforming the context of global missions. While the Western church grapples with the challenges of evangelism in an age of globalization, new evangelistic opportunities are emerging that blur the conventional boundaries between local and global outreach. Even as the rise of a persistent post-Christendom presents new challenges for the church, global migration is rearranging the religious and ethnic makeup of our cities. Cities are centers of constant change, and in an urban world, current missionaries will need to become adaptable. Furthermore, contemporary missions strategies will need to engage a world organized along networks that may transcend geographic boundaries. Painting a picture of evangelism and church planting in our urban and global world, Crossroads of the Nations utilizes contemporary data and together with missionary accounts – both actual and recent – tells a story of transnational missions impacting our world.

In a time of mass urban migration, the great irony of our age is that the closer we have come together the further we have moved apart. Within this globalizing world the gap between rich and poor grows ever wider, creating seemingly unbridgeable chasms between people who inhabit the same city. It is against this backdrop that Colin Smith explores what it might mean to create a different kind of narrative where these gaps become redemptive spaces, open to new possibilities. Mind the Gapweaves a rich tapestry of stories from Nairobi along with London and Cape Town. These imaginatively combine with reflections from Luke’s gospel to chart possibilities for hope in the heart of the divided city.

More than half the people on the planet live in cities. It’s not just our future that’s urban- our present is. What does the Bible say about cities? How should the church go about reaching those billions of city-dwellers? Where do our cities fit into the Kingdom of God The church needs a comprehensive, gospel-centered response to these questions as we seek to obey God’s call to “seek the welfare of the city” (Jer. 29:7). In Sowing Seeds of Change, Michael Crane weaves together theology and praxis, creating a framework for understanding your city, a means of crafting a vision of what it could be, and a way forward towards transforming it. Sowing Seeds of Change proposes an approach to the city that is both holistic and Christ-centered, offering churches a balanced, compassionate, well-researched model for ministry in diverse urban contexts. Whether you’re a pastor, missionary, seminarian, or urban church member, you’ll be challenged, edified, and equipped by Sowing Seeds of Change.

Often times the Bible is associated with rural pastoral settings. The Israelites wandering in the desert wilderness living in tents, David playing his harp for sheep out in the pasture, and Jesus strolling along dusty roads between remote villages. But what if I told you that the Bible is an urban book and that the center stage for where the drama of biblical events played out was truly the city? Starting in Genesis, all of the way to the end of the Bible in Revelation, the whole trajectory of humanity and the focal point for the Missio Dei was and is urban and not rural. When Jesus erupted into history through the womb of a teenager he lived in the most urban region in the world. The early church was birthed in the city and spread to the largest most influential cosmopolitan urban centers of the day. For the first-century Christian, to be a follower of Jesus was synonymous with being an urbanite. The Urbanity of the Bible explores the urban nature of the Bible and displays the urban trajectory of the Missio Dei. The city was and is a dominant theme of the setting, backdrop, and purposes of God throughout history. As the world today has flooded to the cities this book is good news. We were meant to live in the city.