Church in the Big Apple

For the last two days, we’ve been meeting with staff members from Redeemer church in New York. The church was started in 1989 with a dozen people and now gathers around 5000 each weekend in several different locations around the city. It has helped plant over 100 churches and last year invested nearly $2 million into social action projects.

Every person we’ve met speaks with excitement over the vision to impact the city with the gospel.  However impressive this is, Pip and I have been challenged by one thing in particular.  Redeemer believes God wants the local Church to go into the city and bless it, change it, redeem it and by doing so influence the culture of all of the United states.

Practically, their ministry goals are three-fold:
Equip individuals to fully apply the gospel to their lives and develop a Christian worldview of their profession or industry.
Connect professionals within a field in ways that inspire and challenge gospel-centered behavior.
Mobilize their leaders to become agents of change for the common good inside existing institutions and by creating new ones.

Personally I’ve realised how little we focus on this crucial area.  So often we create a culture that values church ministry over and above workplace mission.  We have over emphasised the secular/sacred divide to leave people thinking their job is simply a means to an end.

Excitingly, our mission group structure provides a brilliant framework to bring together people in the marketplace to support and encourage each other.  Perhaps our training in MTS and FP Impact needs to include a more focussed approach to faith and work? Surely our workers need to be trained to the same degree as our church planters!

Apart from our meetings, we’ve managed to view a beautiful sunset from the Empire State building and walk around Times Square (see photo). We would value your prayers though as we leave for Chicago today and are meeting with Steve Nicholson who heads up church planting for the Vineyard group of churches.