Why Big Tree Believes Faith Must Become Visible in the Life in the City
City transformation is not first a political idea, a social program, or a strategy for urban improvement. For Big Tree, it begins with a biblical conviction:
Faith in Christ is deeply personal, but it was never meant to remain merely private.
God calls His people to worship, to pray, and to grow in holiness — but also to become visible witnesses of His wisdom, mercy, justice, truth, and love in the world.
That includes the shared life of a city.
Every city is shaped by deeper realities: what people believe is true, what they consider good, what they honor, what they tolerate, and what they are willing to take responsibility for.
When these foundations weaken, the visible life of a city weakens as well. Families become more fragile. Trust declines. Institutions lose credibility. Public life becomes more divided. People lose confidence in the future.
A city is not transformed in the abstract. Transformation becomes visible in the real places where people live, work, learn, lead, create, suffer, serve, and worship. That is why Big Tree looks at eight key branches of city life.
1. Family & Community Life
The Pressure
Many people live close to others but still feel alone. Families are under pressure, divorce is common, neighborhoods are fragmented, and responsibility is often left to institutions instead of relationships. In many places, crime, hostility, and broken trust make it harder for families and neighbors to feel safe, connected, and responsible for one another.
The Fruit
A renewed city has stronger families, where children can grow up with a mother and a father, faithful friendships, safer neighborhoods, and people who know and care for one another.
The First Step
Begin by strengthening one real relationship: a neighbor, a family, a single parent, an elderly person, or someone who has been isolated.
From fragmentation → toward stability
2. Education & Youth
The Pressure
Many young people are surrounded by information but lack direction, character, purpose, and strong role models. Education often prepares students for performance, but not for wisdom, responsibility, faith, or life.
The Fruit
A renewed city forms young people with truth, character, wisdom, and purpose. Education helps them think clearly, live responsibly, and recognize faith as an important framework for understanding life, making decisions, and serving others well.
The First Step
Invest in one young person: mentor, teach, encourage, support a family, or strengthen one place where truth, faith, and character can grow.
From confusion → toward purpose
3. Business & Economy
The Pressure
Workplaces are often driven by pressure, short-term thinking, fear, and profit without responsibility. People can easily become tools instead of neighbors, and trust erodes when integrity is sacrificed.
Many businesses do not recognize that they are never spiritually neutral. Every company shapes people, decisions, culture, customers, employees, families, and the city around it. When leadership is shaped mainly by fear, image, greed, exhaustion, or compromise, the workplace begins to produce that fruit.
The Fruit
A renewed city has businesses that create value, provide opportunity, practice integrity, and serve the common good. Work becomes a place of stewardship, creativity, provision, and responsibility.
Christian business leaders allow their faith to become visible in how they lead, communicate, make decisions, handle conflict, treat employees, serve customers, and take responsibility. This does not mean forcing faith on others. It means leading with clarity, humility, courage, honesty, and integrity before God.
The First Step
Ask one honest question: Where is our work, leadership, or business culture out of alignment with what we say we believe?
Then choose one practical step that can create visible fruit: improve how conflicts are handled, build a healthier feedback culture, support employees and families more intentionally, mentor younger leaders, serve a local need, or address an unhealthy pattern that has been tolerated for too long.
From profit only → toward visible fruit
4. Media & Communication
The Pressure
Public conversation is often shaped by noise, manipulation, outrage, distortion, and division. Media can reward speed and emotion over truth, clarity, and responsibility.
The Fruit
A renewed city speaks truthfully. Communication becomes a tool for clarity, dignity, understanding, and shared responsibility rather than confusion and hostility.
The First Step
Choose one place where you can communicate more truthfully: a conversation, a post, a story, a publication, or a platform where clarity and honesty are needed.
From noise and distortion → toward truth and clarity
5. Arts & Culture
The Pressure
Culture often reflects emptiness, cynicism, triviality, or distorted desires. Instead of shaping people toward beauty, dignity, and meaning, it can normalize fragmentation and hopelessness.
The Fruit
A renewed city tells better stories. It honors beauty, creativity, dignity, memory, and hope. Arts and culture help people imagine what is good and worth building.
The First Step
Create, support, or restore one expression of beauty, meaning, or memory — a piece of art, a performance, a public space, a story, or a cultural gathering.
From emptiness → toward beauty and meaning
6. Health & Well-Being
The Pressure
Many people suffer physically, mentally, emotionally, and relationally without lasting support. Systems can become overstretched, impersonal, or disconnected, leaving the vulnerable unseen and the hurting alone.
The Fruit
A renewed city cares for the whole person: body, soul, family, and community. It does not abandon the sick, the elderly, the addicted, the lonely, or the wounded, but creates pathways toward healing, stability, and dignity.
The First Step
See one vulnerable person more clearly. Offer presence, support, practical help, or partnership that strengthens dignity and opens a path toward healing.
From neglect → toward healing and dignity
7. Churches & Spiritual Life
The Pressure
Churches can become inward-focused, divided, fatigued, or disconnected from the real life of the city. Faith may remain inside church walls while the surrounding culture is shaped by other voices and values.
The Fruit
A renewed city has churches that pray, teach, serve, unite, and equip believers to live their faith beyond Sunday. The church becomes a visible source of worship, truth, mercy, unity, and public responsibility.
The First Step
Strengthen one act of visible faith: prayer for the city, service to a local need, cooperation with another church, or equipping believers to live their faith in everyday life.
From inward religion → toward visible faith and service
8. Government, Justice & Public Safety
The Pressure
Public life is often marked by distrust, polarization, fear, and weak accountability. Leadership can become reactive, ideological, or self-protective, while communities lose confidence in justice and order.
The Fruit
A renewed city has public leadership that protects what is good, restrains what harms, and builds trust through justice, courage, and service. Public safety creates space for families, businesses, churches, and neighborhoods to flourish.
The First Step
Support one relationship of trust between citizens, leaders, and public servants. Pray, listen, encourage accountability, and strengthen cooperation where responsibility is already present.
From fear and disorder → toward justice and trust
Let’s Grow Something Together
Whether you run a business, lead a church, raise a family, or simply care about Spokane — we would love to hear your story and explore how we can partner for the good of our city.
If you’re not ready for a personal conversation yet, you’re warmly invited to join one of our monthly Big Tree Gatherings. These meetings — online and in-person — provide a simple, relational space to connect with others, hear updates, share ideas, and pray for Spokane.