While we have been focused all these years on how to get the Christian mission into China, these millions of Chinese people have been scattered by the Lord of history into cities all over the world. The whole world has come to the cities, and the cities present amazing challenges. An extraordinary amount of sociology is required to exegete a community. Everybody who comes arrives with cultural baggage. Whether in Cairo, Paris, or London, pastors must sort out the agendas of the sending culture while trying to pastor the agendas of the host culture.
Cities package people in certain ways.
I learned that lesson as a young pastor in Seattle in the early 1960s. My church was in the midst of a building project at the time. The first thing that the Department of Defense did under Robert McNamara's leadership was to withdraw the biggest government contract that Boeing, in Seattle, had ever had. The contract was given to Lockheed and General Dynamics in the South. Huge numbers of Boeing workers were unemployed overnight, leaving many Seattle families devastated.