Chicago presents a unique context for evangelism and church planting.
I remember as a child taking Saturday day trips with my parents, driving from the Quad Cities to Chicago and being enamored by the sheer size and diversity of the city. My dad knew some families who helped start an Alliance church in the city and we’d visit them on occasion.
But, honestly, it was the shopping and restaurants in Chinatown that made the two and a half-hour drive worth it for me!
Chicago presents a unique context for evangelism and church planting that really doesn’t exist anywhere else–at least on the same scale. From the Great Chicago Fire that led to the building of the world’s first skyscraper to the Great Migration that’s linked some its neighborhoods to Mississippi for a generation, Chicago challenges church planters to thoroughly exegete the culture and ask what it means to evangelistically engage this urban sprawl.
My family was a part of a wave of immigrants that settled in the surrounding areas of Chicago. And almost 40 years later, organizations like World Relief Chicago continue to resettle refugees and immigrants all over Chicagoland. Today, one in seven residents of the state is an immigrant, while over 20 percent of all Chicago area business owners are also immigrants.
What also make Chicago a unique opportunity for evangelism and church planting are its rich history of social activism, its large university population, and the global influence it has on commerce, education, and culture. It’s nearly impossible to plant a church that’s Kingdom-minded and properly engaging with the gospel without considering these things. At least it’s ill-advised.
The renowned missiologist, Dr. Paul Hiebert, who was a professor of mission and anthropology at TEDS near ...
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