The Cost of Following Jesus Anywhere and Everywhere.

We shouldn't be upset when God moves us and scatters us into the world. Even if we are somewhat in our home culture, we need to remind ourselves that we are outlanders.

A lot of us feel even more disconnected because the world seems so weird now. There is so much turmoil and change. We feel uncertain.

As believers, we should be certain of who we are because as we own our identity, we transform the cultures and places where we are planted. Yet, we remain different from them.

How do we operate among the lost? How do we reach them?

REACHING AN URBAN GENERATION

First a confession, I’m just a small town East Texas boy. For generations my family has lived in small towns and farming communities. When I was 19, I was on a YWAM School of Evangelism outreach for two months in the big city of Chicago. You might as well have taken me to Mars. 

It doesn’t take an astute observer to realize that there are many things in the world today that are not as they should be. Modern society is like a piece of shattered plexiglass; it’s still intact, but its integrity is compromised. The entire framework of our human reality is filled with cracks and fissures, all of which can and should be fixed by focusing and investing into our vertical relationship with God, which in turn smooths out our horizontal relationships with others.

Most modern day Christians would, I think, be tempted to balk and perhaps even scoff at the idea of seeking God in the middle of some of the most highly populated cities on the planet. I can’t recall any church I’ve ever been to offering a men’s retreat to Skid Row in Los Angeles, or a women's retreat to the Miracle Mile in Chicago. What we typically refer to as “God's country” are legitimately beautiful places: snow capped mountains and sandy beach sunrises. The unfortunate truth of those places is that they are often devoid of God's most beloved creation: people.