Q Is Going Local

by Q Ideas

On September 27th, Q will host our inaugural Q Cities event in Denver, Colorado. Over the past year, the Q team worked with a team of local leaders to imagine and carefully plan what a completely localized, one-day Q gathering might look like. We couldn’t be more excited to see it all come together next week.

We have curated over 15 presenters that represent the biggest ideas and social issues facing the leaders of Denver. Using our trusted experience and format for education and collaboration, Q Cities is creating an opportunity to facilitate learning, conversation and action at the local level.

But don't worry, our Q Los Angeles national event in April 2013 still promises to be our flagship gathering of leaders from across America and the world for three days of learning, rekindling friendships and finding ways to work together. As this vision gains momentum and matures, we want to make sure you can leverage Q in your local environment. Q Cities Denver is a first step in that direction. We hope to learn a lot from this first-time experience and then be better prepared to equip other cities to do the same in the years to come.

Q Cities are one-day events hosted for 200 church and cultural leaders in major American cities. These intentional annual gatherings are designed to bring together the best and the brightest leaders working for shalom in their city.

In this piece published previously here at Q Ideas, Al Barth exegetes the necessity of the Church’s city focus:

“In Jeremiah 29, God told the Israelites who had been taken into Babylonian captivity, “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper” (Jer. 29:5–7).

While the Jews were living in that place, they were to engage fully in life, even in the life of a city that was ostensibly opposed to God. Even though the Lord gives them a self-oriented reason for doing so—“if it prospers, you too will prosper”—the fact remains that he is telling them to seek, work for, pursue, and be concerned for the peace and prosperity of that place.

It was a pretty radical idea—that God’s people should work for the good of people who are not living in right relationship to him. That, however, is what he tells the Israelites. This may sound radical to us today, but it is very much in accord with what Jesus deemed to be the second greatest commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:39). It is right in line with the idea that Israel, God’s people at that time, was to be a “blessing for the nations” (Gen. 12:3). And it is right in line with John 3:16, “For God so loved the world . . .”

Repeatedly throughout the Scriptures, we see God’s concern for cities and the people within them, both those inhabited and dominated by his people, like Jerusalem, and those that were not, such as Nineveh and Babylon. God is just as concerned today about cities as he was back then, and therefore so should we.

There are many reasons why we ought to be concerned about the city, not the least of which are the following:

1. The cities are where people are and increasingly will be.
2. The cities are the key centers of influence culturally, spiritually, and in nearly every other way.
3. The city is God’s invention, part of God’s plan and purpose, and as such should not be regarded as evil. Life in a city is our eventual destiny—or at least our eternal destiny will revolve around a city.

God cares about people, their suffering and pain, their heartaches and trials, the oppression they experience, the injustice they bear. He is a God of compassion. He wants his creatures to experience joy, love, and peace. The logic is pretty simple: God loves people, the human creatures he has brought into being. Cities are where most of them live. Therefore, God cares about cities. And if God cares about the cities and the people who live there, so should we.”

So, Q is going local. Our method of learning has not changed. It’s simple: exposure, conversation and collaboration. By bringing together leaders from the different channels of culture—media, education, politics, arts and entertainment, business, the social sector and the church, we are able to learn from one another, and engage in lively conversation with consequences at the local level.

If you live on the Front Range or have friends in the region, please invite them to join us and have them register for Q Cities | Denver here.

Comments

ALSO BY Q IDEAS

ALSO IN SOCIAL SECTOR