Loving our City

Candice Roberts

If you have been around the Genesis Project long enough you have heard talk of city transformation.  That's because we believe God has put us in this city at this time in history for a purpose. Ogden has been given to us as our home.  In Acts 17:24-28; we find a passage in which Paul is preaching to the men of Athens.  Here is what he says, "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.  God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.  'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring."

Did you know that God intended you to be here?  Did you know that perhaps you are the means through which God will bring redemption to the city of Ogden?  I had a conversation not long ago with a friend about gentrification.  Gentrification is the process of revamping cities to make them newer, more beautiful, and wealthier.  That sounds simple, but it isn't.  With gentrification property values go up but the people living in poverty get pushed out and deeper into poverty.  It would seem even our best efforts to redeem a town, tend to make it worse.  Throwing money at a problem isn't enough.   Love is the answer. We've got to love people where they are.  And we have to love people enough to stay with them in the mess and help them dig out.  That is how a city is redeemed; with love one person at a time.

So we find ourselves in Ogden, Utah today.  We have been given the charge to love and serve Ogden, one person at a time.  In case you are having a hard time falling in love with Ogden and its people, I've provided a list of some pretty awesome things about this city.