I was in Las Vegas this week for a wedding. I find Vegas a somewhat entertaining but mostly oppressive city. It lives and breathes lustfully as it swallows people up alive. Christians are not immune.
I have wondered for some time how one could effectively carry out a full-orbed ministry in Vegas and I have found few answers. If one adopts a "Christ transforming culture" model (I think that is the proper posture of the church) the question is, what are you transforming it to? You see, when a transformation model is applied, it normally assumes something to build upon like some prior structure. For example, if you planted a transformative ministry in a "red light" district of the Bronx, NY, you assume there was a viable neighborhood there once that you might grab some building blocks from in a work of restoration.
What prior structure is there to Las Vegas?
Las Vegas was dusty ville in the middle of a nearly trackless desert waste. Then came Ben Bugsy Siegel and the Syndicate. A city sprang up from nowhere with an economy and existence based soley upon two things that were illegal elsewhere: (1) prostitution and, (2) gambling. Poof! Instant city. Scratch ever so slightly below the thin veneer of "culture" (The Gugenheim collection, the Monet's, the fake city-scape facades) and you find an economy still based on those two things. Can you build a new city for the glory of God from scratch there? Don't get me wrong, God can do anything but God has, in the past, abandoned decadent flesh-pot cities to their own devices and eventual destruction.
So, I know there must be some model for transformation but what is it and is it biblical?