Urban lifestyles have reduced the extended family, which was evident in towns and villages, to the nuclear family. This is increasingly being reduced to the single-parent unit. The ethical discipline that comes within the relationship of an extended family breaks down, leaving the nuclear family not only isolated but also free to function in negative ways. Isolation and ideologies become iron curtains imprisoning city dwellers. Isolation develops through being cut off from the extended family and through the fear of robbery and urban violence.
Ideologies emerge out of political and religious ideas to strongly shape people's worldviews.
These worldviews often have clear agendas attached to them, often for political change or for philosophical antagonism to religious ideas. So isolation or ideologies make those people living in cities far less accessible with the gospel. At the same time we need to remember that it is in the cities where the next generation for the most part is being educated, where the everyday affairs of the nation are being determined and where the influences of ideas are being generated. The gospel desperately needs to be made known in the cities. Furthermore, the fact that there is a creator who is deeply concerned for his world and how we function as stewards of his creation needs to be declared.