February Ministry Update
Hello Friends!
Greetings from beautiful NYC! We have made it through the holidays, another COVID outbreak, and a blizzard! We are so grateful for your continued prayers and support. Thank you to all who reached out through a phone call or text message to encourage us.
Church Updates
Since our last update we’re had some really exciting opportunities to care for our community. In December, we partnered with the MNYBA and Langston Baptist Church from SC for Coats for the City. This event was absolutely incredible!
Leading up to this event, we saw God open up some really amazing doors in our neighborhood. We reached out to a local elementary school to share about Coats for the City. The Principal and Parent Coordinator were excited about the event and immediately sent a text to every parent in their database. They also gave every student a flyer to take home and also posted the flyers on the doors to the school! We’re grateful for the favor we’ve been given at this NYC Public School and are looking forward to continuing to cultivate this open door.
At the actual event, we were able to hand out over 200 coats to men, women, and children as they prepared for a cold NYC winter. In addition, we gathered information and prayed with every willing person who was in line to get a coat! Overall, it was huge success. I have since run into grateful neighbors who received coats!
In January, our focus was on connecting with our core team. We are so excited about the group of individuals who God is bringing together for this church plant! We’re grateful for the Church of Eleven22 in Jacksonville who has sent and connected us with individuals who feel called to live on mission in New York City. There have already been several individuals who have moved up from Jacksonville and more coming! We can’t say enough about the amazing encouragement these individuals are in our lives!
Personal Updates
Both kids are thriving in their schools! Even with all of the COVID outbreaks, their school has remained open and learning continues to be in person. They’re making friends and becoming true New Yorkers!
We’re excited that Melissa started Cosmetology school this week! This has been a dream of hers for several years and God opened up the doors for her to finally begin. She’ll be going to school each day through October. After she graduates, she hopes that this skill can be used cultivate new relationships with our neighbors!
I have begun preaching weekly at The Journey Church in Queens as an interim Pastor. I’ve committed to being with them through the end of March. The Journey Queens was planted a decade ago and has a legacy of recording some of the state’s highest baptism numbers. They also have incredible systems for follow-up and ministry that I am grateful to learn during my time with them! I’d love for you to watch along online through their Facebook page each week: The Journey Queens.
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While there are so many incredible things happening, there are also some things that we are asking for your prayer and support for.
Office/Group Space We have shared before the incredible opportunity we had to partner with a couple other churches in the neighborhood to share a meeting space for an affordable rate. Unfortunately, this space flooded this past Fall and the necessary repairs haven’t been completed. Since the flood, we have been extremely limited as to when we’re able to utilize the church building. Our Core Team meetings have needed to be on Zoom and I’ve had to office from coffee shops in Sunnyside. As we’ve prayed about this, there might be a door that is opening up for us. In our same apartment building, our Landlord has let us know about another unit that is opening up and asked if we’d be interested in it. It would give us a third bedroom so the kids wouldn’t have to share as well as an additional living room space separate from the rest of the living space where we could have regular group time. It would also provide me with a dedicated office space. We are praying for God to give us the ability to move into this new space as it would solve several of the current hurdles we’re facing. This new space would be available in March and would cost an additional $800/month. We believe that the additional space would be a huge asset to our young church! We are praying that there would be an individual or church who would be able to provide the resources to make this opportunity possible. Would you consider making a recurring gift toward our ministry? Click Here to begin giving!
Spring Ministry Opportunities As we begin to move through the winter and into the Spring, we are strategizing with our team specific ways we can care for and love our neighborhood. We believe that God has placed the church in local communities for the purpose of getting outside of the church walls and share Christ’s love through humble service. We call this ‘incarnational ministry’. Just as Jesus put on flesh and dwelt among us, we as the church are called to be the body of Christ as a presence in our neighborhood. With having additional team members who are able to contribute significantly to ministry here in Queens, we hope to ramp up what we’re able to do in the way of incarnational ministry. Through events like Serve the City, where we organize and mobilize our community to serve our neighborhood, and Camp Sunnyside, where we put on kids camps for children in our neighborhood, we’re able to give our neighbors a more accurate picture of who Jesus is. It’s a small way that we can show them that Jesus loves them and begin faith conversations with them! These type of events and outreach opportunities are made possible by the generous gifts of people like you who partner with us financially. Would you consider contributing a one-time gift to further our reach?
We believe that every person deserves to hear that God loves them and is inviting them into a relationship with Him. Our mission is bold and costly but is made possible through the prayer and financial support of people like you. Thank you for linking arms with us!
Jordan and Melissa