Community of the Inconvenienced

Take the average stadium and fill it to capacity with people. There are people in every seat, people on the playing field, and even people in the in the aisles. Then give an apple, or any object for that matter, to an individual and ask them to deliver it to the person sitting in "Seat 45 Row 3 Section F". They would have a difficult time moving through the sea of people to accomplish their task. This is very
similar to the way it is in New York City.

You have 8-10 million people living within a few miles of one another. To be specific Manhattan itself is only 22.7 miles from end to end and is home to a whopping 8 million people! Sure we have subways, buses and even taxis but with the such a large population in a tiny area it can take you up to an hour or more to travel on the the island for shopping, to get a haircut, or even to go to work. Obviously, there are millions of other people who also have to go shopping, get a haircut, or go to work. In other words, you're not the only one who has to carry the proverbial apple to some person in some random section of the stadium. Interestingly enough, everyone else in the stadium seems to have a similar objective.

Lately I've been pondering this drastically different way of life I have become a part of. In a lot of ways it is truly inconvenient to do life in the city. The average New Yorker has to plan out their day significantly more than a person living anywhere else in the world. There is no quick run down to the Wal-Mart or neighborhood Target. However, if you do make a Target run you have to keep in mind how you will be getting everything you purchased back home without paying for an expensive taxi ride. On a side note, I have quickly learned that New Yorkers are really not rude. Just don't get in their way or slow them down. The sidewalks in New York City are like highways to everyone else because most of us in the city don't have cars. Our legs are our wheels. Cut someone off and you might get honked at, or in NYC - chewed out.

We have tried to counter-act this inconvenience with convenient services like grocery delivered to your door, laundromats that wash and fold your clothes for you, and "Chase Banks" on every corner. These are all services that I have taken advantage of, but they still do not eliminate all of the New York City inconvenience out of everyday life.

I paint this picture for you so that you might better understand some of the difficulties we as believers face in "church-planting" in this unique stadium called New York City. Unlike other parts of the country, church attendance is just not easy. It can be quite an inconvenient activity. For most, it takes at least an hour to get to church for a two hour worship service mixed with some "fellowship," another hour commute to get lunch with friends from church afterwards, and then an hour commute back home. The typical Sunday morning for most Americans has taken over 5 hours in New York time and that's just if you only go to the morning service!

So I ask for your prayers. Bottom line, God truly needs to burden the heart of the people of New York City so that they would be willing and wanting to get past any inconvenience they may experience when going to His church. New Yorkers really need for God to show them clearly that church should be an integral part of their life, that their life can only be what it was designed to be by making a commitment to a local church. I'm sure you can relate to the inconvenience that going to church can sometimes play in your own personal life. But understand it's even more significant and magnified for the general New Yorker.

We as New Yorkers will often go out of our way for something that we perceive to be important to us. So pray that God, Christ, and the things of Christ would become an important necessity for the people of this great city. After all, we as New Yorkers can always seem to find a way to get up on a Sunday morning, dress in our favorite outfits, commute and show up early and then stay late to spend time with friends as we fill up the stadium for a New York Jets game - many times even to capacity.