Very little happens around the globe that is not shaped significantly by urban systems—whether
economic, political, cultural, financial, social, medical, educational, or religious. Today, more than ever, cities shape the world.
A few months ago Rev. Dr. Soong-Chan Rah, a professor at North Park, wrote a book called The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity. This summer I read a review of this book, which had this sentence in the second paragraph: “Unfortunately, few western Christians have the opportunity to learn from believers in other cultures.”
How true . . . and how mistaken. True for most people, but mistaken for students at North Park. Here in Chicago, within walking distance of our campus, students have every opportunity to learn from people from other cultures and religious traditions.
How does this shape learning at North Park? Whether in our undergraduate curriculum or in the Seminary, our setting becomes the first “text” students read. On the streets of our neighborhood, in the apartment building right next door, they see, hear, and meet people from around the world. And in our neighborhood students can visit places of worship as diverse as anywhere in the world—the Assyrian Christian Church on Bryn Mawr Avenue, Congregation Shaare Tikva north on Kimball Avenue, the Korean Presbyterian Church around the corner from Starbucks, At-Takaful Islamic Center on Lincoln Avenue, Emanuel Covenant Church a few steps east along Foster Avenue, St. Demetrios Orthodox Church next to Swedish Covenant Hospital, Spanish mass at Nuestra Señora de la Merced on Kedzie Avenue, and afternoon services at Iglesia del Pacto Evangélico just across the street.
There’s much more here to discover, of course. There are as many places to learn at North Park as there are streets in our city and immigrants in our neighborhood. Each of these holds a secret for engaging student learning.
We can do this, because our home is in Chicago.
Centuries ago God’s people were taken into exile, seemingly abandoned by God and left to fend for themselves. The prophet Jeremiah came their way and encouraged them, even in this time of distress, to seek the peace and prosperity of the foreign city into which they had been exiled. Now I ask you, if refugees in Babylon could settle into life in a foreign city, raise and educate their children, and seek the well-being of Babylon, how much more might we be expected to do this in Chicago, and be blessed by God?
–Dr. David Parkyn, North Park University President
