Urban Ministry Part Du

The Urban Ministry class from Ozark was a great week! The students got here alright and on time on Saturday, so we promptly enjoyed a few hours going to Rockefeller Center to see the tree and the whole city from the top floor of the building. On Sunday, I led the students to 4 churches. That's right, 4 churches in one day, and all of them were extremely different in how they are reaching people. First @ 9:15 we went to Redeemer Presbyterian's traditional liturgical service where the quartet played a Mozart number for the prelude and postlude.
Then we went to Forefront Church @ 11:30 which targets 20-30 somethings with a band. Church is in a concert venue for rock bands. After lunch, we went to Times Square Church at 3:00 which bought and meets in a theater on Broadway! The service was spirited and had a more traditional African-American heritage, though there were all kinds of people there. After the 2-hour service, we went down to Brooklyn for Church! of Park Slope a young plant that is highly relational and highly focused to reach their neighborhood. Each church is so different! It makes you realize that you need more than one kind of church to reach the many cultures of a city.
During the week, Gordon Venturella taught classes in the Empire State Building. You may remember that with earlier classes, we met in a classroom in the basement, but this week we were on the 15th floor with a great view! Gordon is on staff at Lincoln Christian College and Seminary and used to be on staff at Ozark. He did a great job of raising good questions for students to ask about the city, about themselves, and about what God thinks of it all.
In between times of teaching, the class visited several organizations in the city:
NYC Rescue Mission - reaches the homeless; those at the bottom
Teen Challenge - Started as a youth discipleship program for gang members, but today also reaches many with substance abuse.
Jews for Jesus - reaches the 2 million Jews in the NYC metro area; 1 million in the city.
The students also heard from several pastors in the city - from Forefront Church (Midtown Manhattan), Church! of Park Slope (Brooklyn), Community Christian Church (Upper East Side/Harlem), and Crossroads Christian Church (Brooklyn).

Because of some generous supporters, we were able to see Phantom of the Opera of Broadway! Trae, Mom, and I have been huge fans since we saw it in Tulsa with Trae's junior high literature class. It was a great show, and it reminds the students of what kind of people they may reach in NYC - those who enjoy the best of the arts and culture all the time.
All in all, it was a wonderful week. We enjoyed temperatures in the 50's and 60's (NOT the norm) and only had rain as the class was heading to the airport to go back to Joplin. Once again, I am so glad that God has blessed me with such an opportunity to be a part of building the future leaders of His church. Hopefully more and more will have the cities of the world on their radar screen as they seek to spread the gospel of Christ.

Urban Ministry

Tomorrow at 5:45 (hopefully!) a plane will land with 16 students from Ozark Christian College ready to learn about doing ministry in an urban context. They'll be here a whole week for the Urban Ministry class. Gordan Venturella will also be with us to lead most of the teaching times. Dave and I will be more of facilitators this time around, arranging travel, guest speakers, and events. The class will be visiting various churches, ministries, and non-profits in the city to learn and evaluate how they minister in an urban context. It will be a challenging and enlightening experience I'm sure. Would you please pray for the 16 students that they would be sensitive to God's Spirit this week? Would you pray that they would be stretched? And also that they would be safe.
Would you also pray for Dave, Gordan, and I? This will be our first week-long class to come out, so it'll be a little different. Pray that we would lead well and be sensitive to God's Spirit ourselves. I'm really excited about what God is going to do in some students' lives to effect his kingdom for years to come!

December

Wow, so most of december passed without a post. That's the holidays for ya. I got to go home for Christmas. It was great! It was nice just to be home with family and hang out. Many of you heard about the ice storm, and lots of you experienced it. I was overwhelmed! I'd say that 95% of every tree had some kind of battle injury, and every driveway had a huge pile of branches stacked in front. It looked like a bomb went off 20 feet in the air. It was crazy.
So the big gift I got for Christmas was from my parents: an iphone. Yes, I got an iphone. Everyone seems to go gaga over it. Well, that's apple technology, culture, and advertising for you. It is pretty great, especially having the internet and google maps anywhere in the city. And thankfully, it's a great phone.
I got back to New York on new years eve, and much to my dad's chagrin, I did not go to times square to watch the ball drop. Instead, I enjoyed time with my roommate and another friend in a more quiet celebration.
While I was home, I got to go to my home church, Cedar Ridge CC, twice - which was great! It's always good to see familiar faces and have everyone ask me if it's cold here (actually this week it's been the coldest yet with highs in the 20's!).