With more than half of the world’s populations now living in cities, and urbanization occurring at unprecedented rates, there is an opportunity to rethink how organizations support everyday life. Destination Destiny’s New Urban Agenda offers a compelling vision for the future as theologically resilient, sustainable, and inclusive for urban practitioners. The agenda argues that relational activities should be people-centered, culturally contextualized, and support critical thinking that enables people to live compassionate, self-determined lives.
The political narratives overtaking our moral thinking, and political affiliations seem to be more of a test for orthodoxy than loving our neighbor. As adults, be aware of how these narratives unwittingly open the door to shape us more than the Bible. Politicians have become masterminds in creating polarizing content that serve the purpose in hitting the right emotional buttons to create chaos.
Succinctly stated, “No political party has the market cornered on Christian beliefs. Despite each side’s religious rhetoric, faith-based endorsements, and passionate attempts to secure Christian voters, neither has God’s best interests at heart.” Political parties are tasked with many things, but carrying out the Gospel isn’t one of them.
A new generation of people today share a commonality in mindset and mental complexity. They see the world through a common set of lenses. Ethnicity, religious affiliation, and location do not drive their choices as they did for past generations. Leaders who still focus on putting people in a box, marginalizing segments of the population, and trying to offer solutions without portfolio are no longer relevant in speaking to their needs.
At Destination Destiny, we believe that the root causes of the challenges people face are the same in rural, suburban, and urban environments. The difference is how they are labeled and the veracity of their accounts. More and more are becoming keenly aware of this. The symptoms may vary from community to community, but how we help people work through their challenges requires putting aside assumptions and preconceived notions to address the root cause of what is happening in their social location.
The New Urban simply put, it’s
- a lifestyle that permeates all segments
- non-geographical
- 24-hour global, all encompassing and omnipresent media
- multi-cultural, multi-racial, multi-tasking, multi-media and multi-generational
- both / and
- a reframed narrative
- a prism of parallel identity layers that all intersect
- a digital natives lifestyle
- the experience, expectations and engagement
- Cosmopolitan meets the thug & Hip-Hop with a violin
- The Kingdom party