Missio Dei Suburbia

Myth - The Suburbs Are Safe

From the Life Together blog:

Dave Gibbons pastors a church in Irving, California which was recently given the title, ”Safest City in America” (over 100,000 people) by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on June 1, 2009.  But he would like to submit that suburbs just like his may actually be the most dangerous places in America.

The suburban enclaves—with their middle-class citizens and well- manicured lawns, gates and guards protecting their Orwellian lifestyle and toys, Starbucks a few minutes from each busy intersection, and some of the best schools in the country—may actually be the most dangerous places to live. We may not have the high murder counts or robberies that urban centers have, but I wonder if the suburbs have become breeding grounds for the accessible and shallow thrills of drugs and alcohol abuse, extravagant parties and proms, and mere facades of happiness and the American dream. Just ask your local city drug dealer about his primary consumers: suburban teenagers and college students.

I’m not a researcher, but my gut impression from my travels and interactions with youth in the major cities of the world, as well as in suburbs and rural communities, is that they are all equally dangerous, just in different ways.

The dangers of the suburbs entail the lack of imagination (where do you find real art museums, innovative music venues, and creative opportunities to explore nature?); materialism; greed; isolation behind cookie-cutter neighborhoods and homogeneous clubs and churches; boredom: apathy; fascination with the relevant more than the real; a love affair with popularity more than loving the poor; and a thirst for excitement superficially satisfied in the Friday night party. All this takes precedence over a dangerous ride with God on the frontlines of his movement.  (Read the whole thing …)

The Suburbs - Bouncing Back

The Sub*text linked to this article from Forbes and New Geography about the burgeoning resurgence of the suburbs. It's a reminder that while urban planners - and even church planting movements - focus on the city, the reality is that most of the population of the U.S. lives in a suburban context.

Rethinking the Evils of Suburbia

Todd Hiestand argues that it's unhelpful to continue to bash the suburbs and asks how we can take the strengths that are here and leverage them for the good of God's Kingdom. He focuses on housing and calls us to be good stewards of our homes and express hospitality in a culture of isolation.

Read the article here.

The Vanishing Suburbs

Completely agree with Kevin Cawley's post below:

It has been interesting to read some of the conversations related to Time Magazine's The New Calvinism (10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now).

I haven't seen as many Christians talking about No. 2: Recycling the Suburbs:

The American suburb as we know it is dying. The implosion began with the housing bust, which started in and has hit hardest the once vibrant neighborhoods outside the urban core. Shopping malls and big-box retail stores, the commercial anchors of the suburbs, are going dark — an estimated 148,000 stores closed last year, the most since 2001. But the shift is deeper than the economic downturn. Thanks to changing demographics, including a steady decline in the percentage of households with kids and a growing preference for urban -amenities among Americans young and old, the suburban dream of the big house with the big lawn is vanishing. The Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech predicts that by 2025 there will be a surplus of 22 million large-lot homes (on one-sixth of an acre [675 sq m] or more) in the U.S. (read more)

The Great Suburban Environmental Hazard

The greatest threat we face in the suburbs is our goodness. In our great quest to keep evil at arm's length - to avoid everything that threatens our safety, security, comfort and convenience - we make a god out of our goodness.

But until we own up to our over-confidence in said goodness, we'll never live with a clear conscience. Because it's not just the bad stuff that separates us from God; our goodness does as well. Because, when we're convinced that we're good, we don't seek the forgiveness, the rescue, the restoration that we need and can only be found in the mercy of Jesus Christ.

(HT: Paul David Tripp, Whiter Than Snow, 22)

Total Church Conference Audio and Video

From Jonathan Dodson:

Soak it up. Here is the first installment of resources from the Total Church Conference. You won’t agree with all of it, which is exactly why you need it. Chester’s session on the Community-centered Gospel had a significant effect on me.

McCoy and Thorn on Evangelism

Since we're talking about evangelism for a few weeks on Sunday mornings at Christ Church, I thought I'd point you to a couple of blog posts by Steve McCoy and Joe Thorn on the subject.

For our bibliophiles, Steve asked the question, 'Which 5 books would you recommend on personal evangelism?' Lots of people responded. I actually used this to compile my reading list for this teaching series.

And then Joe posted this on what evangelism looks like for him in suburban Illinois. I find this resonates with what I'm discovering here in Watkinsville.

Sean Lucas on the Popularity of Joel Osteen

Sean Lucas, on why Osteen's Lakewood Church has over 15,000 people in attendance and is far more multi-ethnic than most churches in the United States.

'I think the driving reason that Osteen is hugely popular is that he sells hope. Books like Your Best Life Now and Become a Better You provide a message of hope that my life does not have to be the way it is right now; that God is powerful and able to change my life; that God is profoundly interested in my life and is near to me. And while that message of hope is packaged in the code language of the prosperity Gospel and positive psychology (like the phenomenally successful book by Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier), at the end of the day, people leave Lakewood feeling as though there is a greater meaning and purpose for their lives.

As I thought about all this, though, I couldn't help but think about John Piper's question from God is the Gospel (and other places): do you delight more in the fact that God makes much of you in the Gospel or that the Gospel frees you to make much of God? The fault in Osteen's message is that it overplays and wrongly prioritizes the fact that God makes much of us (and God does make much of us: as I read in my morning worship today, God cried out to a wayward Israel, "How can I give you up, O Ephraim?...My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender" Hosea 11:8).

The biblical priority is that God in the Gospel rescues, delivers, frees and sustains us to make much of God. He is the great good in the Good News--and it truly is amazing: that God would save his wayward children for the fame of his name; would shape worshippers who will find their deepest satisfaction in making much of God; and would gather together a worldwide body of worshippers who hallow his name!

And that is the great hope: not that our material position would be better or our relationships grow stronger. Rather, our great hope is that the steadfast, committed love of our God is transforming us into worshippers who find our hearts satisfied in God himself.'

The Suburbs - Silently Killing Your Manhood

From Cameron Schaefer at The Art of Manliness - Are The Suburbs Killing Your Manhood?

The danger [of] living in the suburbs is simply that there is no danger…it’s completely safe. Constant and complete control is a silent, but deadly killer.

HT: (Steve McCoy)

The Suburbs and Christianity

In case we confuse life in the 'burbs with following Jesus:

Suburbs = leveraging everything in order to experience safety, security, and comfort

Christianity = leveraging everything in order to experience the love of Christ, who is our safety, security and comfort