Dive into the Old Testament and examine God's plan or blueprint for how we're to live and function in the city as a covenant people. There are many principles, examples, and ideas that offer the modern-day urban Christian a working template of how we can follow God in the city.
With the focus being on urban mission for everyday life it means that the scope of this course is for anyone who lives in the city who is a follower of Jesus. The ranges from ministry leaders to those in the professional world and everyone in between. What would it look like for an urban planner, an architect, an artist, a barista, a bike mechanic, or computer programmer to catch a vision (practically and theologically) for how God wants them to faithfully live in the city? Any and every degree-seeking student should take this regardless of their career paths.
As Christians are confronted with an ever-increasingly urbanizing world we need to learn to be at home in the city. Not simply living there, but at home where we are familiar and comfortable in an urban environment so that we know how to live out the gospel in these settings.
We will walk through Scripture to discover the urban trajectory of Scripture as God's locus for His covenant with humanity. We will then learn from biblical figures as to how they lived out their faith in God in everyday life in the city.
To live faithfully in the city is to live on mission … not our mission, but aligning our lives to the missio Dei. The trajectory of our lives, regardless of career or occupation, is to live as a covenant people for God’s glory and purposes in the world (and city).
In this case context is specifically narrowed down to the context of the city whether we're talking a small regional city or a global megacity. The principles in this course apply to both contexts and all of the cities in between.
Cities are the epicenter of the intercultural world as people migrate en masse to our urban centers whether they move from the rural hinterlands or internationally. As a result these are the most wonderfully diverse and intercultural places on the planet.
This course is specifically designed to be hands-on and practical, especially since it is about living out the missio Dei in everyday life in the city.
Living out God's mission in the city is not a solo endeavor. We are a part of God's covenant people and there we do so in the context of community
