People. Places. Passions. – Missional Challenge

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Guest post by Dr. Tim Svoboda

How do you go about reaching a city with the love of Jesus? Cities are large, complex and often times the sheer population size in cities can be overwhelming. I live in the considerably small city of San Francisco that has a population of 800,000 people. It is just 7 miles wide by 7 miles long. Several of us have walked across the city in prayer and though it is seemingly small it is still a challenge in thinking through how we can engage the whole city with the love of Jesus.

I believe the key to reaching cities lies in rising up the Micro focused leaders that I wrote about in our February 2010 newsletter. Micro-focused leaders need to have a clear focus. Cities are so complex with many different sectors, ethnic groups, neighborhoods, businesses and concerns.

Are neighborhood churches more effective than commuter churches?
Is mass evangelism more productive than friendship evangelism?
Do we focus on the inner city or the suburbs?
Should we reach the upper class, middle class or lower economic class?

The answer to all that is YES! We need to do it all. As Ray Bakke says, “We need a theology as big as the city.”

When our theology is as big as the city we will produce a missiology that is diverse as the city. City mission is not just ministry to the poor. It is ministry to every sector, people and place of the city.

Micro-focused leaders are leaders who have a clear focus on People, Places or a Passion. Let me explain.

People. A people can be the Vietnamese of San Francisco, the North Indians of Chicago, the Afghans of Fremont or the Sikhs of Vancouver. Who are the people of your city? Have you done a good demographic study of your area?

Place. A place can be a company like Google in Mountain View or General Motors in Detroit or a neighborhood in your own city. What are the distinct neighborhoods of your city? Here in San Francisco we are a city of neighborhoods with each one being different from the other in ethnicity, shops and behavior. Japantown, Chinatown, Little Italy, The Mission, Nob Hill, Portreo and The Sunset are just some of our fascinating neighborhoods with different cultures, food and shops.

Passion. A passion can be the arts, sports, music education, law or an area of justice such as domestic violence, human trafficking or suicide prevention. These passions cut across the whole city and intersect throughout the length and breadth of the city.

When a person focuses on their gifting in a particular People, Place or Passion of society they find many different expressions of ministry that bring life to that focus.

Here in San Francisco we are dreaming about releasing people to lead incarnational and decentralized ministries across the Greater Bay area that are focused on the People, Places and Passions of San Francisco and the Bay area.

I first met Tim and Karol Svoboda in Chennai, India in 2007. I’ve been inspired by their commitment to community transformation in an urban context. Please pray for them and their extensive ministries in San Francisco and around the world.