Way back in 2004, before Facebook was around, God started talking to Doug Perry about this. It wasn’t CitySaver then, it was just the idea that the internet works backwards of what God wants, backwards of how we live our lives. That as we get more and more digitally connected with the world, we seem to be getting less and less connected with our neighbors. That’s what will matter if the chips are down. That’s what will matter if there is an emergency. The Bible says that we are sheep – and sheep can’t be alone. They just die. They need community. And that has got lost somewhere.
So God said to take everything the internet could do and point it at the local community. You see, the Church was supposed to lead the world in unity and community and loving your neighbors and meeting every need. But we haven’t done that. We have split off into over 50,000 denominations, spent billions on ourselves and mostly not cared for people in need. We have built four big cathedrals on four corners of the same intersection and taught people to divide off into teams. We’re supposed to be known by our love – especially for one another – but it’s obvious to the world that we don’t love much of anybody that’s outside OUR building.
Within a few weeks of this revelation from God, because of some of the stuff Doug was writing online about waste and fraud in “churchianity,” a couple showed up in Liberty, Missouri at Doug’s furniture store. Turns out Gary was a programmer, so Doug laid out the vision of what needed to get built – and Gary let Doug know that he’d been working on that exact thing for two years – and new three or four others that had tried and failed. But Gary didn’t get it done either, and Doug met two or three others after him that had also tried.
Soon after the Lord started giving more revelation about what “Church” ought to be – and it turns out that we REALLY messed this thing up! It was not mega-church or home church or cell church or stadium church. We were never supposed to split off into competing teams. It was always supposed to be One Body Per City, under Christ, loving one another, meeting locally, caring for needs, local leadership, fellowshipping daily and from house to house. But how is that possible? How could we ever get back to that?
Well, in a multicultural, multilingual society like we have now, you COULD do it … digitally. You could provide a place where all the Christians could check in, share resources, chat, learn, teach, coordinate, schedule, pray – and run it all through translators so you can hear the Chinese pastor’s sermon or what the Hispanic choir is singing about. You COULD make a way for the Family of God to reconnect without it being a threat to their Sunday morning boxes.
Jesus’ last prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane was for us – that we would be one as He and the Father are one because THEN the world would know that God sent Him. Did you get that? The greatest evangelism method of all, the best proof to the world that Jesus is who He said He is, is if the Christians could just play nice together. What a horrible condemnation! We’re about as far from One as you can get! But we were supposed to lead the world in community and care and sharing and love. But they aren’t shocked at all right now. We’re a laughing stock.
In 2004 Doug wrote his “Open Letter of Apology to the World” (LINK) that has been all over and is in a bunch of different languages. After God showed him how messed up everything is and the part he’d played in helping get it this way, he committed to try to fix it, no matter what it took. CitySaver and every thing that led up to it (homeless shelters, food pantries, community storehouse, apologizing at Pride Fests, carrying a cross, etc.) were all part of trying to be true to that commitment to turn this ride around.
So we are part of The Church of Liberty, Missouri, USA. And CitySaver is a gift from The Church of Liberty to the world because we see that things are broken – and we had a hand in breaking it – and we want to make up in some way. So we’re building something to bless our neighbors. No gold crusted cathedrals, no pipe organs, no stained glass. Just a mechanism, a tool, to help build local busineses, support local causes, connect people to their neighbors, and more – to give back for all that we’ve taken and spent on Chruchianity.
So that’s the short of it. We’re on a mission from God to bless you. CitySaver is all about the local community – about the common ground we all share – this dirt right here. CitySavior is a place where believers in Jesus (or people curious about Him) can gather. If you don’t want to hear about Jesus, that’s fine, just stay on your side. But know we love you and are praying for THIS place to be more like Mayberry (that’s the Andy Griffith Show for you millenials) and less like whatever dystopian, infighting, cold nightmare it’s becoming.
Here you can see the video about Doug’s original vision that started this crazy ride.