Corey, Leann, and Ezra Boyd have arrived and are rockin it in NYC! You can read about their journey here.
Our summer interns have also arrived and you can read Clay’s first impressions of the city here.
Things are going well here. Many, many opportunities counseling the wholeness and power that Christ brings to broken lives.
City Uprising is fast approaching.
Tomorrow the whole family is packing up and heading upstate until next Thursday for an Intervarsity camp. IV is a parachurch ministry organization that is doing an amazing job in the city @ evangelism. I’ll be leading a small group on the book of Mark chapters 1-8. I’m really looking forward to connecting with lots of students from universities all over NYC. Pray that God would give us great favour with the students and that we’d make lots of fruitful connections for The Gallery Church!
Susan is heading to a minister’s wives’ retreat this afternoon in Brooklyn. The retreat is being hosted by the association @ The David Dean house. Anytime something like this comes up, the answer is always YES! My wife needs and deserves a weekend away to refuel and be refreshed. Whether your wife is raising three kids under three or not, she probably needs some rest and relaxation too! So later this afternoon, I will brace myself as I’ll have all three of our kids overnight for the first time. I’d appreciate your prayers.
Whether you are a pastor or not, what kinds of things do you do for your wife to treat her?
There are over 50,000 New Yorkers that have HIV that do not know it. Pause and think about that just for a minute. As HIV progresses it can turn into full blown AIDS.
This summer The Gallery Church along with 300 or so of our friends from around the country will be hosting a “City Loving” initiative here in New York called City Uprising. At City Uprising we’ll be loving on our city in a variety of ways from evangelism, catalytic church planting efforts, school restoration projects and HIV awareness and testing. Probably most unique and certainly that which gets the most press is our work with the HIV community. Most of our work deals with awareness and promotion of the testings sites. Their is not a lack of medical clinics, but people do not know how important it is to get tested and many do not know that they can get tested for free. City Uprising is a sincere attempt of loving our neighbors as ourselves. I want to ask you to help us.
It is not too late to come to City Uprising. Consider coming to New York City this June 28 - July 1
Consider praying on a radically regular basis that God would allow our ministry to the HIV community to extend far past City Uprising. Ask God to grant us great favour with people during City Uprising.
If this year cannot work for you, consider mobilizing a group of people to come to City Uprising 2010. Dates to be announced soon!
My hard drive crashed. I have a new one. Blogging resumes…
God is amazing and the joy of the Lord has been our strength! Our family is thriving in this world city and God is establishing the work of our hands in ministry. A little update for you:
Mondays are typically my day off, but this past Monday I had the great privilege of meeting with Dr. Alvin Reid from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary to talk about church planting in New York City. We are excited about the possibility of some SEBTS students coming up for a class this fall to study urban church planting with The Gallery Church serving as their learning lab. Though his reputation had proceeded him it was my first time to meet Dr. Reid. He is a new friend and one of God’s choice servants indeed. Around the table was Dr. Reid, his daughter Hannah, Ellis in from Baltimore, Jeff Getz, Steve Allen, Aaron Coe and myself. Our conversations about the strategic nature of planting in global cities and the possible partnerships that could maximize that cause were very encouraging! Before he left Dr. Reid made sure we were tuned into this message.
Tuesday we had a great staff meeting capped off with even better prayer walking on the UWS. Staff meeting was held @ Joe: The Art of Coffee, one of the best coffee shops in the city, which just opened a new store a few blocks down from our apartment. Later that night Maggie (a friend I went to jr. high with) and Matt (her husband) came over for dinner. They have been coming to the Gallery but will be heading back to Los Angeles in July.
Wednesday I had the privilege of sharing the gospel with a gal from Russia @ Joe, followed by some wonderful prayer and journaling @ the resevoir where I had a very encouraging phone call from Bill Graham. Later that evening before Growth Community, we had a wonderful time with Jon Fox over dinner.
Yesterday I took off a little early and took Jack to this playground
View Larger Map @ 92nd and after his nap. The weather was perfect and the park was swarming with school children. There was a water fountain continuously running that Jack couldn’t reach with his mouth but could make it spray himself in the face by plugging it with his finger. It was so much fun!
Later last night we hosted 5 friends that have been living together on the Upper East Side for the past two years. Elizabeth, Rachel, Katie, Micole, and Susan, are each amazing gals and we are so happy to call them friends and honored that they are marrow of the Gallery Church. Rachel captures beauty here, Susan creates it here, while Katie cooks it, Micole designs it, and Elizabeth carries it everywhere she goes. We look forward to continuing to getting to know and grow with these East Side gals.
Today the weather was amazing. We leisurely strolled down to Joe (yes again, it is actually very strategic to go to the same place often to cultivate relationships, not to mention it is located a block away from our Upper West Side Gathering) and then through the park before we met up with a group of friends @ the Rudin Family Playground. Jack loves exploring through the park and playgrounds.
Susan will be starting up a Mom’s group next week from folks that expressed interest from our Easter Egg Hunt. Pray that she will be effective in building lasting relationships with these ladies and impacting them with the gospel.
Next weekend I will be one of the many missionaries sharing @ Hilldale Baptist Church’s “On Mission Conference”. Sunday night I will have the privilege of preaching in the PM services @ First Baptist Church in Clarksville. I hope to see many of you that weekend!
Thank you for your prayers and love!
We had an amazing Easter Sunday here in New York City with over 140 people gathered in our two services combined. We launched our new mini-kid theater Big City Adventures with Gallery Kid in the morning gathering and Lillie and Elliott were dedicated this morning as well. Tonight we had two baptisms…the video for the first is attached but we had technical difficulties on the second. Click on the link above to see a video of the baptism. I sensed God’s favour on the whole day in a special way! Thanks for your continual prayers, we need them and feel them!
(update at bottom)
Please pray for us all…
I’m sick…chocked full of medicine, hoping these cold sweats is my sickness passing.
Susan has been a little sick in TN and on her way home.
Lillie has had a cough and is about over it.
Elliott has had a cough and is about the same.
Jack is just now getting the cough.
We do appreciate your prayers!
Update:
I went to the doctor, took antibiotics, and am feeling a lot better, though I’m still coughing a bit and some sinuse drainage. — Susan is feeling a lot better, still coughing a little. — Lillie is fine, but the trip to Clarksville has thrown her sleep patterns off and she got up last night @ midnightish and 4ish. — Elliott has some congestion and is getting the vick’s vaporizer at night prescribed by the doc…and slept till 6:30 this morning — Jack went to the doc Saturday night and had an early ear infection. He is on anitbiotics and is feeling a good bit better. Thank you all so much for your prayers and love!
Not in New York, its 60 and sunny there. I’m in Hutchison, Kansas and there is a blizzard warning here. The missions event I was to speak at tonight has been cancelled. I should be speaking a few times on Sunday though.
Check out how crazy the weather is here.
Update: There is now 18 inches on the ground. Crazy! March 28th
A very good friend recently sent me an excerpt from a biography on Daniel Boone that he is reading as an encouragement to us living in such a small space. Encouraging and entertaining it was indeed. Below is an extended quote from the excerpt that he sent. Keep in mind while you read that we currently have two babies that sleep in our room with us. Very soon however we plan to move all our little one’s into the same room as Susan and I take the smaller room.
Rebecca and Daniel first lived in a cabin on Squire Boone’s property. After Daniel’s brother Israel died of consumption, they took in his sons Jesse and Jonathan and raised them as their own. Nine months after their wedding a son named James was born May 3, 1757, and another son named Israel was born January 25, 1759. Rebecca would have eight more children over the next quarter century, and she would later adopt six children of a widowed brother…
The house Daniel built on Sugartree Creek, when he was about twenty-two years old, was more substantial than a simple cabin. The logs were hewed flat and fit snugly together. A big fireplace and chimney of soapstone and wood provided heat for cooking and living and much of the light in the evenings…The house measured eighteen by twenty-four feet and, according to a resident in the area at the time, was still standing a century later.
Settlers on the frontier were accustomed to living in small spaces. There could be little privacy with children of all ages, babies crying, someone breaking wind or coughing. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries people slept two and three to a bed, when there was a bed. Four or five children might sleep on the same cot or pallet. Because of lack of space and lack of beds, they slept packed together on ticks stuffed with leaves or straw or corn shucks. In cold weather the several bodies in bed together helped them keep warm in a corner or lot far from the fireplace.
There are many accounts of travelers stopping for the night at cabins or houses along their way. Common courtesy of the time and place required that visitors be invited to dinner and to stay the night. In a cabin where ten people normally slept the visitor would be invited to unroll his blanket near the fireplace and undress or half undress in the dark or semidark. A kind of privacy was created by everyone ignoring each other. And even if you woke in the night and heard the sounds of lovemaking nearby, you pretended not to notice. That the crowding in the cabins and little houses was no hindrance to lovemaking is proved by the number of children born on the frontier to families such as the Bryans and Boones. Judging by the birthrate, the hardships and crowding seem to have been a spur to fertility, not a restraint.
My friend who sent this to me is sympathetic as he has twins and five children total. Encouraging and entertaining indeed!