Recommandé
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- I want to thank our staff and volunteer team at Union Church who made this lunch possible. We gather 6 times a year to ask ourselves this simple question: Why do you live in LA?
- Jesus was perhaps the best communicator to ever walk this planet and He loved to ask questions. In fact, questions often change the world. Bono is asking through the One Campaign to end global poverty this questions, “Should WHERE one lives determine IF one lives?” Because he’s asking this one question, he’s motivated over 2 million people to fight extreme poverty around the world. Questions can change the world. So let me ask you this one question, “Why are you in LA?” This one question could change your life. This one question could change the city for the better.
- Did you come to LA to: Get famous? Become important? Get a degree? Make money? Find a spouse? Buy a house? Raise your family? Enjoy the weather? Most people come to the city to get something from it, not to give something back. Did you come to LA To make your name great?
- But what if God has brought you to LA, not to make your name great, but to make His name great. To reveal His goodness. To usher in His kingdom. To share His love. To help our city flourish. What is God brought you here not to plunder it, but to bless it? What if God brought you to LA to make His name great by helping the city of angels to live up to its name?
- Jeremiah 29:7 & 11 make up what I call the 7-11 PrincipleJeremiah 29:11 is a favorite of many, „For I know the plans I have for you...plans to propser you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.“ This is the verse you hang on your refrigerator and highlight in your bible. But no one usually highlights verse 7 Verse 7 gives the context and condition upon which verse 11 depends. It says, „Seek the prosperity of the city in which I have brought you into exile...for if it prospers you will prosper.“ The 7-11 Principle is simply this: You don't get 11 until you first do 7 You don‘t get the blessing of God before you first give the blessing of God. You don‘t get blessed by plundering the city, you get blessed by blessing it. God blesses His people who bless the city in which they live Let me tell you a little bit about the city...
- The website 192021 says this: “Cities are the art and heart of our culture, the homes of our governments and corporations, the places where science, commerce, art and culture collide, the vital centers where healthcare and education live. The markets of the world are centered in cities.” The power is shifting from nation-states and moving toward the megacities of the world: Shanghai, New York, Tokyo, Rio and Los Angeles In 1800 only 3% of the world lived in an urban area. By 1950 30 % In 2008 50%. So today is the first time in history when the majority of the world identifies itself as “urban”. Humanity has crossed over the threshold and is barreling toward a new reality that will one day be almost exclusively urban. But by 2050 over 67% will live in an urban area. The world is moving toward cities.
- The largest metro city in the world is Tokyo at 36 million and our city of angles is #11 with 16.7 million in its Metro area. LA is one of only 19 global cities that will grow to 20 million in the 21st century. It’s what sociologists are calling a mega-city. One of fastest growing neighborhoods in LA County is downtown LA, gaining 27,000 new residents the past decade and some predicting 20,000 more coming this next decade The weekday population of downtown LA swells to 500,000. The young and educated are almost twice as likely than their peers without a 4 year degree to move within 3 miles of a downtown city center (USA Today April 2011) The opportunity is before us to help make downtown LA one of the great neighborhoods of LA. Perhaps God somehow connected you to downtown LA, as the Hebrew book of Esther says, “for such a time as this?”
- Amidst of all this dramatic change in the world and in downtown is Union Church of Los Angeles: a multi-generational, multi-ethnic, a multi-socioeconomic church that has been blessing the city for nearly 100 years in downtown LA Sunday morning is the most segregated day of the week in Los Angeles. We want to break down those barriers and truly represent the beautiful diversity of LA. If you come on a Sunday morning you’ll see the 20 year old and the 80 year old. We have white and black, Asian and Hispanic, the homeless and the loft dweller. In fact, the women from LA Mission’s Anne Douglas Center will be joining us starting next week. I can’t wait for them to be part of our church family in all of its diversity. We believe God wants to do something special through our little church that has been a fixture in Little Tokyo for nearly 100 years.
- We believe that Union Church is strategically located at the crossroads of LA : to the north are 4 and 5 star restaurants in Little Tokyo and the new Metrorail regional connector and to the south is Skid Row with masses of struggling people; to the west is the financial district with its high rises and condos and to the east is East LA with its proud but struggling working poor God has placed Union Church at the crossroads of LA for such a time as this. So let me ask you again this one question: Why are you in LA? Perhaps God brought you here for a purpose…His purpose. To paraphrase of Frederick Buechner: God’s will is often discovered At the intersection of your greatest passion and the world’s greatest need How is God calling you to make His name great in the city of LA?
- This one question about why you are in LA leads to three sub-questions I want you to consider: How can Union Church help you bless the city? We want to help you integrate your faith and your work, your spiritual life and your everyday life How can you help Union Church bless the city? We’re trying to start a much needed pre-school here. Can you help? What could we do together to bless the city? Support education, fight poverty, relieve traffic, reduce pollution, create art that points to God, create jobs, develop affordable housing, help make downtown more friendly for families, create a safe environment for a diverse downtown. What could we do together to bless the city?
- What could we do together to bless the city? The 7-11 Principle says that God blesses those who bless the city in which they live.