City of Contrasts

Since I’m currently preaching a series of sermons on the theology of Miami, one of my leaders at Crossbridge emailed me this week a link to America’s Favorite Cities website. I love when they do this. It shows they are into the series topics and it helps my preparation. The website basically ranks cities into seven categories according to both residents and travelers. Here are some of the highlights of how Miami is doing both for its citizens and for the greater American community.

It ranked…

#1 as the most attractive city (people) while #29 as place for intelligence

#2 as the “most stylish” and “singles bar scene” while #28 in “culture”

#3 as “wild weekend” and #2 as hottest “spring break” spot while #28 place for families to have fun.

#5 as diverse while #27 as friendly

It also ranked among the top 5 of of “luxury stores” and “luxury hotels” while surveys have ranked Miami among the top 5 poorest cities in the country.

Surveys have also shown that while the vast majority of its habitants claim to Christians (mostly Catholics) Miami is the second most unchurched city in the country. Two weekends ago the Catholic Archdiocese here closed down 13 churches and I know as a fact that Presbyterians, Baptists, Anglicans and Methodists are in steep decline in the area.

It is indeed a city of many contrasts – reminds me of New Testament Corinth.

The ministry shift that my wife and I took from South America to Miami has been a smooth one because we got used to the sharp cultural contrasts. It’s very much like any given Latin American capitol. It’s clear that the cultural interchange between Miami and these cities is a strong one.

While some of the placings in the ranks might be caricatures of those who have felt they have lost the city to latinos, it clearly shows that we as the church have a lot of work to do. Miami is very far from reflecting the City of God (not the one in Rio, although not far from this one). If we could only harness the beauty, the diversity, the energy, the flavor and ,weather (?) to produce equality, justice and glory to Jesus… I’m sure it would affect positively not only a region but the future of America all together.

Let’s wait and see how we rank next year.

Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 12:41 PM in Pastor Felipe. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.