This trip has been packed full and our Sabbath in NYC took things to the next level. We didn’t stay for the whole service at the gatherings (most of them spend the majority of the day together) but the common threads of these church plants was that they are intentionally small, rent space from other church denominations and are passionate about spreading the gospel and planting more churches!
Pelham Parkway Spanish – Bronx
Beginnings: 6-7 people started meeting in a house, started preaching and growing, then in less than a year they had 40 members. The majority are from the Dominican Republic (reflective of the majority of Adventist Hispanic churches in NYC) and they’re renting the building from a Sunday church.
Outreach methods: friends, family, door to door, and tracts at laundry
Goal: to plant another church and baptise 81 people this year (they were having a baptism that afternoon). When the speaker on the platform mentioned they wanted to plant another church- the congregation yelled “Amen!”
Bethany SDA – Bronx
Beginnings: A team of literature evangelists have been in the area for 1-2yrs selling books door to door and decided to plant a church. They were part of the Pelham Spanish group but now rent a Sunday church a short walk away amongst a small shopping strip.
Outreach methods: books door to door, family care services in the new building, food packages to the needy
Goals: They are majority Jamaican but with their English services they’d like to attract any English speakers to their church. They want to be a company in 3 months time and are glad to be a smaller church partly because the people they want to reach have told them big churches are ‘cold’ and smaller ones have better fellowship
Mont Haven Spanish & Fusion English – Bronx
We didn’t initially plan to attend this church but our guide – Dr Manuel Rosario – dropped off his wife and kids here. We realised that it’s one church with two services, one in Spanish and one in English (Fusion – mostly young Caribbean people).
Franco Haitian – Bronx
Beginnings: This church was hard to find amongst the main drag of car servicing garages – in fact the church has a steep garage entrance that you need to walk up and through to find the front door! Inside we found a number of Haitian people and the volume was cranked so high I could feel the French. The majority of these people left other Adventist churches to start this one – and this was their 3rd Sabbath in the building (owned by a Sunday church). BTW- the Conference pays the rent of the church plants here for the first 3 months 🙂
Outreach methods: Prayer. Food. Music. Invite family and friends
Goal: Reach the Haitian people living in the Bronx
Lunch Break at a church-owned evangelism trading centre
NY Filipino – Queens
The Filipino group was in full swing with AY’s when we arrived mid-arvo to their rented facility – another Sunday church! In 2005 a couple of them had a vision to have a Filipino church in NYC, so they started a small group, some literature evangelists came and helped and last August they became a company. Whilst a number came from another Adventist church, they hope to plant again in Manhattan soon, and said Laundromats were a great place to witness (captive audience?).
Southern Asian – Queens
Background: There are 600,000 Indians in NYC and the local Indian pastor initially wanted to target people who spoke Punjabi (from India and Pakistan). But the Pastor realised this target was too small, and that God never asked us to preach just to our own, but to every tribe and tongue. So he changed the name to ‘Southern Asian’ so people who spoke Hindi, Punjabi and English could be included. They rent from the SDA Spanish church who meet in the morning.
Outreach methods: Teach Hindi classes, pray for 3 friends and fast for the person once a month (also read 3 chapters of bible a day). How do you convert a Hindu? Become friends, go slow, then introduce them to Jesus.
Goal: Plant more churches and baptise lots of Hindu’s. It was great to meet a few of the Hindi people who were preparing for baptism. They were dressed in traditional garb and excited to be following Jesus!
In Conclusion
This was one long Sabbath and I’ve never visited so many churches in a row. Yet it was great to meet such passionate people and experience first hand how they’re reaching their community. I didn’t connect to a lot of the worship styles but tomorrow brings some initiatives targeting urban professionals so I look forward to seeing what’s in store…
Disconnected, Disengaging, Disenfranchised, Disenchanted and Disappearing 