This past September we hosted a Vision Tour where we flew in pastors and prospective church planters in from all over the U.S. to Tucson. The idea behind the tour was to identify target areas and people groups where we want and need to start new churches. It was a lot of work, but a great time nonetheless. We had a great sampler platter of urban areas, the university area, among the Hispanics, the Pacua Yaqui tribe, Middle Eastern refugees, and of course, the suburbs.
The best part for me was in the preparation. While in the planning phase I happened to read Street Signs which opened up my eyes and helped me look at Tucson anew. I even expanded my vocabulary in regards to the city, but most importantly my love for Tucson grew. I decided from this point on I'm going to love this city as a student and work my way into all of the cracks and crevices. I set out to explore this place in depth and fell even more in love with Tucson.
According to the book, we've now just hit the "World-class City" mark as we've reached a million people. I've heard some projections that by 2050 we'll be at 10 million. Needless to say we're exploding with growth and as a church planting strategist it breaks my heart that we're not even keeping up with this growth let alone back-filling the urban areas when all the white churches fled to the 'burbs. I just learned today to in one spot in SE Tucson they're gonna create a whole new suburb ex nihilo starting with 30,000 homes! It's a daunting task.
Just yesterday I was thinking of this book as I drove from one end of Tucson to the other after I got done mountain biking. I really do love this city and I can only imagine how God feels as well. I too grew up in a tiny town (Iowa), but God has opened my eyes and heart for the city. I'm excited about trying in some small way to impact culture knowing the influence of Tucson is more far-reaching than I realize.
2 comments:
Cities like Tucson are springing up all over North America. How does the border and our "theology of borders" effect cities like Tucson? JS
I'm not too sure exactly what you mean but I'll take a stab at it. I think the whole issue of being right close to an international border does have an affect on the way we think. Some see these borders, although simply lines on a map, as inpenetrable and solid. The goal is to keep a clear separation of identity and the exchange of culture and ideas.
On the other hand, some view borders as "suggestions" of boundaries, therefore, culture and ideas are readily passed back and forth. Personally, I get really excited when I run into people who live in Mexico who're up here shopping. They're beautiful people driving nice cars and look like urbanites ... but they live in Northern Mexico. As a matter of fact, I was researching a major shopping mall slated to come in to Tucson and according to their research they're anticipating drawing from a couple of million shoppers alone from Mexico. Where is the border thinking for them? They see a market to tap into and are going for it.
Border thinking hems us in at times when it comes to ideas and culture. I think in reality borders are more like semi-permeable membranes of culture and ideas rather than a 700 mile stretch of steel fence.
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