"I pray…for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you…. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one…. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." John 17:20-23

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem…." Acts 1:8

The life, health and spread of the church of Jesus Christ immediately following Pentecost stands as one of the greatest demonstrations of God's grace and power throughout the centuries. While there were certainly many factors that contributed to the depth and breadth of the early church, this apologetic would like to propose that one of those key factors was the existence of a practical and relational unity of the people of God in any given city and that the absence or existence of such unity has important implications for our city today.

We would propose that the absence of biblical city-wide unity by the Church today has had a detrimental impact upon the life and witness of God's people in the city. Stated positively, we believe that the presence of a biblically united and healthy city-church results in God blessing his people with a level of church life and public witness otherwise absent in that city. We believe that God, in some important way, deals with His people on a city-wide basis.

I. God's Dealing with People on a City Basis

When one begins to look at the New Testament through a 'city-lense' of vision, we are forced to acknowledge that either cities have a particular role to play in God's Kingdom strategy or there exists a significant amount of biblical material that simply 'happens' to touch on ministry that is framed in a clearly city-based context.

Consider, for example, the following random questions prompted by a look at God's dealings with cities in the New Testament alone.

We would like to propose that one of the critical components of the effective spread of the Gospel in the first century had to do with the principle that God was dealing with his people at some level on a city-church basis and that his people were, at some level, living in biblical unity at the city level.

We believe that one of the reasons the Church in twentieth century western civilization has been so relatively ineffective today is that it has been fragmented into dozens if not hundreds of unconnected and unrelated congregations and denominations within any given city. Calls for even minimal city-church unity are usually written off as " a contemporary impossibility" or "theological compromise". We would propose that it is neither but rather a falling short of a standard of experience to which God has always called his Church.

Lest this be seen as a merely academic discussion, let us be reminded that never in the history of Spokane, this nation or this world have there been more unsaved and unchurched people than there are today. While the spread of the Gospel is making tremendous strides world-wide, the growth of the Church in Spokane over the past decade or more has merely kept pace with the biological growth of the region (0.5% per year compared to the population). Some congregations have grown. Some have declined. The overall net effect has been that less than one in five people in Spokane attend church on any given Sunday. Of the 414,500 residents of Spokane County, some 340,000 are not a functioning part of a congregation from week to week.

But if God's people in any given city are to attempt ministry on any sort of city-wide basis in a way which encompasses the spectrum of God's church in that city, it must be based upon a solid scriptural foundation.

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