Recently I was in California for the oral defense of my doctoral dissertation. As I sat on a hillside overlooking the city of San Francisco, I could not help but think of both the contrasts and the similarities between the “big city” in California and the “rural” area where I live in Vermont.
The differences are many. For example, the greater San Francisco metro area has nearly ten times as many people as the entire state of Vermont. The average house price is 3 and ½ times the average price in my area. Clearly the people in California are much more interested in style, fashion and fancy hair than most people in Vermont. There was a wide range of races represented in California, where as Vermont is one of the “whitest” states in America.
But for all the differences between the two, there were many similarities as well. The area in which I stayed in California has one of the lowest populations of evangelical Christians in America, and Vermont has the absolute lowest, according to the most recent Gallup poll. The people in California seemed to attempt to fill the emptiness in their lives with recreation and possessions, which is not that much different from how people in Vermont try to fill the void in their lives.
In the end, it does not matter where you live, people still need Jesus. Rich or poor, young or old, city or rural, people need the Lord. What can we do this week to share Jesus with the people around us?
Try attraction rather than promotion. That would be a welcome change.
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