In our last post, we saw that the population in Lee County grew by 24.2% between 2010 and 2020 and is now home to over 175,000 people. Not surprisingly, over 61% of people in Lee County live either in Auburn or Opelika.
Auburn’s population increased by 42.6% between the two census periods - a rate of about 6 people per day (190/month or 2,276/year). As of October 2023, Auburn is home to an estimated 82,000. At this rate,
by the 2026 football season, Auburn’s population will surpass Jordan-Hare’s seating capacity. Auburn is now Alabama’s seventh most populous city.
Opelika’s population grew by 17.1% over that same period - a rate of about 1.2 people per day (38/month or 455/year). Currently, Opelika’s population is around 34,000. Considering both cities together, the O/A community is home to over 116,000 people.
If these trends continue, conservative estimates put Auburn’s population would surpass 90,000 and Opelika’s over 37,000 by the year 2030. To put it simply, the Auburn/Opelika community will be home to nearly 130,000 people by 2030.
Some Implications for the Church
There are so many implications that this has for the Church here, but I merely want to highlight here our posture towards the public service sector. City councils, law enforcement officials, the fire departments, public utility leaders, school administrators and faculty, healthcare professionals, and many others are grappling with how to serve and care for the growing number of people in our community. This is a daunting challenge with many complexities and often no clearcut solutions.
In Auburn/Opelika, many who work in public service are Christians and that is a tremendous blessing. But whether they follow Jesus or not, their service to our community reflects the character of God who orders, protects, and sustains our world so that life can flourish. God’s lovingkindness is mediated, albeit imperfectly, through the thousands of people serving our community in thousands of ways every day.
So while it is easy to complain about some problem or policy we don’t like, as followers of Jesus Christ, we are called to live differently. Here are three ways we can do that:
Stay tuned for future blog articles and
our podcast that unpacks other implications for the Church in light of our missional context.