For the City Quotes

“In fact, as we looked at the history of larger cities, we found evidence of this in the way they were laid out and designed. Older towns once had a town square that operated as the functional center of the city. It was surrounded by the institutions of commerce and trade, law and government, the arts and places for dialogue. But alongside these key cultural institutions was always the church. The entire city would be situated around a center, and that’s what tied life in the city together. Again, the church was always an integral part of that connection. So we wondered: Was it possible to give new life to that long-lost vision of connection and unity, where multiple institutions came together for the common good of the city? Could it happen once again?”
― Darrin Patrick, For the City: Proclaiming and Living Out the Gospel

“This is in keeping with the statistics, which show that 80 percent of seminary and Bible school graduates will leave the ministry in the first five years of service.”
― Darrin Patrick, For the City: Proclaiming and Living Out the Gospel

“Thus, in the 1850s a lot of London churches did what a lot of American churches have done during the last thirty years: they fled the cities. These churches moved their locations to the outskirts of London. But Metropolitan Tabernacle, pastored by Charles Spurgeon, decided, “We’re not going to do that. We’re going to stay here. We see this as an opportunity for the gospel.”3”
― Darrin Patrick, For the City: Proclaiming and Living Out the Gospel