Presuppositions

So it's been a little weird telling people that I work at Jews for Jesus. I seem to often an "OH" response. It's like I just told them, "and oh yeah, I'm an expert on all things Jewish." It's funny. It's like telling someone you work for a hedge fund and immediately being asked financial questions. Well, I'll tell you now that I don't know a lot of things about Jews in NYC. I'm learning here and there, but my main job is to support the staff who does know so they can reach out to Jews.
Here's the reason I'm writing about this. I don't want to be defined by what I do for a living. I want people to known me for me.
If I tell someone that I'm a "Christian," they immediately have a stereotype in their minds of what that person believes, looks, and acts like. For the most part in New York City, it's negative. We've got to live a life so that people can be surprised when they hear we're followers of Jesus. Am I defined by following Jesus? Yes. However, people have extremely different and diverse definitions to draw from. In this context, I am forced to follow the real Jesus or fall into one of many false definitions.
There's you're fun fact for the day.

The Past Month

As you can see below (previous post), it's been a while. February was a pretty eventful month I guess. I started a new job for one thing. This past week was three weeks. I'm an administrative assistant at the Jews for Jesus office in Manhattan. Josh, the branch director was one of the speakers for two of the Ozark classes. After he taught the second class, we got to talk a little, and he half-jokingly asked if I wanted to do some "administrative grunt work" when he heard I was in search of work. I answered a quick Yes! A few weeks later I had an interview. I learned later that he was not seriously considering hiring someone until that conversation. So, I'm learning the ropes of the office and eventually I'll be his assistant. It's definitely not what I envisioned myself doing, but it's where God has led me. I thought I would get a job where I could be around lots of unChristian people, but I guess I get to share the gospel in a different way to people when they call the J4J office. So, I'm thankful for work and a paycheck.
Last weekend, an Ozark class also came out. They were here just from Friday to Monday. It was an "Introduction to Church Planting" class, and I got to be with them all weekend. They were a great group, and we had some great teachers. I am so thankful that God led me to be involved with this. I've been learning stuff and have had church planting on my mind more and more. Pretty sweet.
Life Groups also started this month. I'm leading one that's studying the Gospel of John. The three meetings we've had have been great so far. There's about 11 of us altogether (though not everyone has shown up at the same time). Though we're meeting in the Forefront office, everyone has felt comfortable. I've tried to make it as homey as possible. The group is kind of backwards from what I thought it would be though. I kind of envisioned having some people who weren't Christians, but everyone is. I also thought it would be super focused on study and not so much on relationships, but people have been staying after group for a whole hour just talking. That's OK with me.

Wow, so it's been like a whole month since I've posted! Oh my! The fan mail has just been piling up, so I haven't had the time! Rest assured, blogging will return.

So last week on the way home from work I saw a guy who obviously was either coming from or going to the airport. He had a large thin case, and I asked him if it was a snowboard. We started talking, and he told me that he had just come from Colorado from a snowboarding week. He got to see The X Games and showed me a video on his camera. It was pretty cool, cause I had watched a few minutes of the X Games on Sunday. It was just a random conversation with a random person, but I really felt like I should keep talking to him. It was weird, but it was like the Spirit was prompting me. So I asked him questions about whatever I could think of, and he was pretty talkative. Now the amazing thing was that this had been going on for about 30 minutes and he and I were both not home yet. In the back of my mind I kept thinking how awesome it would be if he lived in Bensonhurst and how much more awesome it would be if he was at my stop! Well, we kept talking, he wants to go to Colorado and live on the slopes. Not a bad life if I say so. Anyway it turns out that, wonder of wonders, he got off at the same stop as me. He lives like a block and half away from me! We exchanged numbers and hopefully will be a drink this weekend or something.
I question all the time why God led me to live in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. It's kinda far from Manhattan, and there's only a few people from Forefront here. I dream all the time of being a part of a group of Christians that can live close together and radically effect the neighborhood where they live. I guess God works all the time when the circumstances aren't perfectly like we've planned.

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!).