Sabbath: Urban Ministry in the End Time
Read for This Week’s Study: Acts 18:1-28; Exod. 2:23-25; Matt. 13:3-9, Matt. 13:18-23; John 15:12-13; 2 Pet. 3:9.
Memory Text: “ ‘Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper’ ” (Jeremiah 29:7, NIV).
Jesus over city
The three angels’ messages call for the gospel to be preached to “every nation, tribe, tongue, and people” (Rev. 14:6, NKJV). Thus, wherever people live the message must be brought to them. And because so many now live in cities, to cities we must go.
In fact, urgency for city work intensified in 2007, when the United Nations statistical experts declared that for the first time in recorded history, the majority of the world’s population was living in metropolitan areas. Today urban ministry has become the central issue for Seventh-day Adventist mission strategy.
In many nations, Adventist outreach has accomplished more in the small towns and rural areas outside the metropolitan regions than it has in the cities. Surveys have shown that in some major urban complexes the majority of people have never heard of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and thus know nothing of the “three angels’ messages.”
Hence, it’s clear that to reach out to the world, we must reach out to the cities.
* Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, September 17.
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In addition to what the author has said, in urban areas that is were evil activities are taking place. However, our gospel must dwell much in the cities and we are not supposed to rest at all.
Cities have a diversity of challenges.This is where it is easiest to meet diverse groups of people.The well to do have built walls around their dwellings which may be very difficult to go through.On public transport and on the streets one may rub shoulders with people and not be able to penetrate their personal space.But as we have learnt in last week's lesson, if we relentlessly seek,there is someone somewhere in the forest of people who will be very glad to hear the good news of salvation!
Urban ministry in the end times needs be carefully planned. People are of different cultures, different professions / career , allowable time, different looks in life. Reaching out to these people would seem impossible. One item that will be more useful is to group 3 to 5 people (or even more) of people with the same "interest" (could be career / or profession). Make sure that anyone who will do this is familiar with their "interest." Just make a group discussion and you can insert your ministry into it. God will make you useful and will equip you with that endeavor.
Most of People they came To the cities by means of work education and carears. Ive met with many brothers saing that they came only To work, not in evangelise others are no longer go To church ny that reason
Gospel must be preached all over the world according To Mat 24:14
If this is what God want's us to do, He will make the way for us to go where he sends us to go ,No matter where, this don't need any planning . The disciples didn't plan they just went in the name of the Lord,
Part of the memory text reads, "Pray to the LORD for [the city], because if it prospers, you too will prosper”. (Jeremiah 29:7 NIV.)
The idea that prosperity is to be found in the cities, has drawn many people to the cities all over the world. Over the centuries, the ideas that strength is to be found in numbers, and that centralization of resources (and of skills) produces prosperity, have produced an impression that cities are places of security/refuge. Some might interpret the words in Jeremiah as a call to actually go and live in the cities; and the text might be made part of a "prosperity gospel". But I'm sure that many of you realize that the city referred to in the verse, is the city of Babylon. We should be careful, I suggest, not to apply the verse to the cities of our day in general. God's call for today, I would assert, is for people (especially His people) to come out of the cities.
Cities, in consequence of their very nature, have the 'ability' to dis-empower the people of God.
But oh yes, the cities are vast "depositories" of precious people, and people must be sought and reached with the Gospel, but let's not think that we must live in the cities in order to present the Gospel to them.
People are very many in towns cities in the same way evil and all insane are happening in the cities its now our duty to go and tell them the good news of our LORD FATHER
I pray to God the father though his son Jesus, Dear Heavenly Father, you promised in Your Word that "I can seek You and find You when I search for You with all my heart!" (Jer.29:13) So Lord, I now cry out to You with a WHOLE heart, and I ask You to please hear my prayer and give me the deliverance I seek! You said, "They looked unto Him and were lightened, and their faces were not ashamed.-This poor man cried and the Lord HEARD him and SAVED him out of all his troubles!" -- Psa.34:5,6.
Lord, You told us to "submit ourselves to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from us!" Jesus, I now submit myself to You! Please forgive me for any and all unyieldedness, unwillingness, hardness of heart or resistance to You and Your Spirit! I ask You, Lord, to please "Create in me a CLEAN heart, O God; and renew a RIGHT spirit within me!" -- Psa.51:10.
To spread the word of God in a place that seldom hears the good news is refreshing. We must be careful not to bring the ways of the city back into our homes, but to simply not to go to the city is not an option. Just pray and spread the word....have faith.....and Love..... By Love we cover a multitude of sins....Love changes people