News Bangkok, Thailand: "This TV Show Will Make People Upset"

by Andrew McChesney, News Editor, Adventist Review

"I Want This City" offers an unflinching look at the correlation between mission offerings and what happens on the front lines of mission.

The average Seventh-day Adventist in North America gives U.S.$21 a year to the World Mission Fund collected by the Sabbath School mission offering.

That’s enough to buy a medium-sized bag of dog food.

And that’s why the Adventist Church will debut a 13-part television series unlike any you have ever seen.

“I Want This City,” which premieres on Hope Channel on Friday, is a gritty TV show that traces the direct correlation between mission giving and what happens on the frontlines of mission. The reality-style show follows Adventist missionary E. Douglas Venn for nine months in Thailand’s capital, Bangkok, one of the most unreached cities of the world.

“This TV show will make people upset,” said Venn, who now oversees mission outreach to the world’s cities as the recently appointed director of Global Mission’s Urban Centers for the Adventist world church.

Venn said some people have asked him about the TV show: “Is this really the face of foreign mission that we want to show church members?”

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