THE URBAN CHALLENGE

Taken from an article, COVERING THE GLOBE by Patrick Johnstone

The great cities of the world are the key challenge for mission in the twenty-first century. We ignore the cities to our peril. The great cities of our world are the source of most of our wealth and misery, wisdom and depravity, innovation and sin. The engine for societal change is in the cities, but, if used wisely, it could be the dynamo for the growth of the Kingdom.

The twenty-first century will be an urban world, just as the previous 20 centuries of Christianity have been a rural world. The end of the second millennium is also the end of the rural majority with just over 50% of the world's population urbanised.

Two centuries ago the world was rural, with an urbanisation of 4% and only one megacity in existence- Beijing with 1,100,000. By 1900 these had increased to 14%, 18 megacities and 2 supercities- London and New York. By 2000 these will have reached 51% urbanised, about 20 supergiants (only one of which is in Europe or North America), 79 supercities and 433 megacities. That trend will continue so that by 2100 the number of rural inhabitants may be only 10% of the world's population. The cities are even more vital for mission strategy than they were in Paul's day.

Pioneer missions in the twentieth century have been characterised by the need to reach unreached peoples; a process within sight of conclusion. The twenty-first century will be characterised by the need for pioneer missions in the great cities of the world- a much more complex and multi-layered kaleidoscope of needs. Mission frontiers in the twentieth century were perceived as rural, but we must switch our thinking to the urban challenge as the frontier of the future.

We have been winning the countryside and losing the cities, and all the time our rural constituency has been draining away to the cities. The glamour and romanticism associated with the jungles, mountains, deserts and remote islands seem like 'real' mission work to the home constituency, but living in ta concrete jungle, or squalid slum is far less attractive, and undesirable as a place of ministry.
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Our desolate cities are an immense challenge, but I believe a new day for urban ministry is dawning. The Lord promises us that these cities will be populated with His people.

Montreal Goes Wireless

Montreal, the second-largest city in Canada and the largest city in the province of Quebec, is going wireless. Two Montreal companies plan to blanket the city with wireless Internet service by 2009, making a big chunk of the island one huge wireless hotspot, reports the Montreal Gazette.

Internet service provider Radioactif and network installer Nomade Telecom will launch the first WiFi network and possibly WiMax in September on the Mount-Royal Plate. By 2009, they expect to cover nearly 90% of Montreal residents, over an area of 300 square kilometres.