How Many Christians?

"The first and most obvious step for dealing with the problem of our cities is to get Christians to stay in or move back to them. . . Not every Christian needs to live in our cities, but far more should live in them than do now. They should live in them as their mission field of choice. How many should there be? It is difficult to say. . . . In America in our day, where the economy is industrial and service-based rather than agricultural, 50 percent of the general population lives in cities. That suggests that at least 50 percent of the Christian population should also. But since this percentage is going up . . . and since we want to be ahead of the times rather than lagging behind them, we should probably lead the way with an even higher percentage of Christians relocating to the urban areas. Many thousands should move there" (J. M. Boice, Foundations of God's City, p. 167).

Urban Ministry Conference at Tenth
March 6–8, 2009