"Hope 4 The Big Cities," a proposed worldwide urban outreach by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, is raising its goals, hoping to reach out to even more large cities than originally planned. From an original initial proposal to engage the church in special evangelism efforts in 13 cities, at least 60 are now being targeted and more than 100 new congregations are planned for those cities, church leaders say.

In 1950, only 18 percent of developing countries' populations lived in cities; soon, however, that number will be half of those nations' populations. Ironically, in these very countries, the Adventist Church has done far better in reaching rural areas than urban ones. The "Hope 4 The Big Cities" initiative seeks to change that.

Funding for the project will come from special offerings collected during the church's quinquennial business session next year in St. Louis, Missouri, and at other special times. The July 2005 event will include a special offering dedicated to the "Hope 4 The Big Cities" effort. Three other worldwide Sabbath offerings are designated for the initiative -- Oct. 9, 2004; April 9, 2005; and July 9, 2005. (See ANN, April 5, 2004.)

"If we continue with a 'rural' or '19th century' style of worship, old outreach methods, or a theological emphasis in our message, which people feel is irrelevant to them, we will not be seen or heard in the big cities," said Bertil Wiklander, president of the Adventist Church's Trans-European region. "The 'Hope 4 The Big Cities' campaign is therefore also a challenge to us, as God's church, to be relevant while maintaining our integrity," he added.

According to Ulrich Frikart, president of the church's Euro-Africa region, the changing nature of European culture is also influencing the way the church's public presence is approached.

"A real cultural mutation introduces us into what may be called a postmodern or ultramodern era, and, assuredly, into a post-Christian one. This change calls for new forms of expressions of faith, a new way to 'do church,'" he said.

Frikart said major urban areas in his church region will try to update their mission focus, meeting people where they are; emphasize community life and outreach to those who may have been disappointed in the church earlier; and "center on new ways to worship God" that make use of alternative worship formats, prayer movements and Web sites.

In the Southern Africa-Indian Ocean Church region, according to Pardon Mwansa, church president in the area, "we have actually identified 24 'large cities' in our [region] and are in the process of developing methods to evangelize these cities."

He said that the largest of these is the South African city of Johannesburg, whose 10 million inhabitants include fewer than 40,000 Seventh-day Adventists. Mwansa said the Church is contemplating establishing an FM radio station to broadcast the church message; building large churches in unentered compounds in the city; and training pastors in urban evangelism.

Across the world from South Africa, Adventist Church leaders in Mexico City are also formulating plans for a large urban outreach.

"We are convinced that just regular evangelism is not enough," said Israel Leito, president of the church's Inter-American region. "We have a permanent evangelist stationed in Mexico City on the payroll, but we need to do far more than that."

Along with the evangelistic outreach, Leito said, the church has created another local office near Mexico City, freeing urban church leaders to concentrate on the city itself, which is one of the world's largest, with a population of 17 million.

"The approaches that work in the city are not necessarily workable outside the city, and because church growth outside the city is easier, attention and resources were diverted to those areas more than in the city itself," Leito said. "By not having [responsibility for those] other areas, the [local church authorities] must concentrate on reaching city dwellers now. We are planning to make the units in the city smaller, in order to be more concentrated on specific areas," he added.

Bringing the Gospel message to the world's major population centers is a goal of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which currently has 13.5 million baptized members and 25 million people attending services weekly.