Sunday In NYC

I love this city, and love living here. I don’t know where else I could have a day like I had today.

It began with an early morning 4 mile bike ride in light rain with my friend Dave from my apartment to Central Park. We met Keith and Ralph, and completed a 5 mile run, also in light rain. But what’s a little rain to New Yorkers? The park was full of life, including thousands of bikers who were participating in a bike tour through all five boroughs of New York City- in the rain!
After the run, we biked home through Times Square, dodging the tourists and a parade of Scottish men in kilts playing bagpipes- in the rain! Don’t know what the occasion was; there is always interesting and sometimes unusual stuff going on in this amazing city. We sped down 7th Avenue to 34th, dodging the tourist busses and bagpipes and the constant flow of bikers racing up Broadway.

After a quick shower and a change of clothes, we headed out on the subway to attend services at the Salam Arabic Lutheran Church in Brooklyn. The “we” included Timm Kelly, who is on our team and will be moving to the city with his family this summer.

The trip to the church reminded me once again of the immensity of this city. We took the 6 train to the N train, traveling under the East River to the R Train- and finally to our destination- about an hour later- still in New York City.

We got to the church early to meet with the guest speaker for the day, Bishara Awad. Bishara is the President of Bethleham Bible College. He had spoken last Wednesday at Kensington Community Church. He was making a stop in Brooklyn to visit with his daughter and her family before heading back to Israel on Monday. Steve Andrews had called me and suggested that we try to connect with Bishara while he was in town.

The Salam Arabic church service was in Arabic- go figure! My Arabic is worse than my Estonian (see earlier blog). Most of the time Dave, Timm and I were lost, but even with the language barrier we knew we were worshiping God with our Arabic brothers and sisters in Christ. Fortunately, Pastor Khader El- Yateem (who happens to be a graduate of Bethlehem Bible College) translated Bishara’s message for us sitting in the back pew. He taught from the Sermon on the Mount about what it means to “go the second mile.” It was a very challenging message about finding the “second miles” in our lives in which we follow Jesus, sometimes at great personal cost, and always only in his strength.

During the service I was struck with the diversity and the beauty of the varied expressions of the community Jesus has formed and is forming around the world. And I realized again that most of the world is within reach right here in New York City. We sat together for 90 minutes with little in common- different language, culture, and how to worship God- but with the most important thing in common…Jesus.

One of the intriguing side notes is that this church is in the Bay Ridge area of Brooklyn. Timm Kelly is coming to start a new charter school where he will serve as principal in…guess where? Bay Ridge! Perhaps today was the beginning of a something God has for us in terms of building a relationship with Pastor El-Yateem and the Salam Arabic Lutheran Church.
The day ended with Communitas’ weekly gathering. We talked tonight about the kind of community we trust Jesus is forming us to be as we lock arms together. Jason shared his story of how he found Jesus- or rather how Jesus found him. Keith led us in communion as we remembered Jesus love for us.

After the gathering, a bunch of us hung out at a local diner just around the corner as we do most Sunday nights. I eavesdropped in on conversations around the table- the laughter and the struggles and the insults- mostly directed at me!
A pretty full day- bikers and bagpipes, long subway rides- receiving communion in the morning in Arabic in the evening in English. As I said, I love this city, I love living here, and I love this group of people who collectively are Communitas.