What strides would a local church take to meet the needs of others within their own community? More specifically what would it look like for churches within NYC to reach the needs of others within their community so as to create opportunities for deeper spiritual needs to be met? These questions have been giving shape to the Gallery's thoughts on outreach and it is certainly exciting stuff!
The Gallery Church meets on the fifth floor of a building that the church has designated as "SALT". It is located at 1160 Broadway and finds itself in an interesting part of Manhattan. As of late the particular area where the church is located has been dubbed "NoMad", as reported in a "New York Real Estate" article. The article goes on to say that "NoMad" stands for "North of Madison Square Park". Why is this important? If you didn't already know, Manhattan is so culturally diverse that when you walk just a few blocks in any direction you might find yourself suddenly in a completely different culture and in a completely different neighborhood. Therefore, as neighborhoods come into existence they are typically given it's own name in order to give some distinction to the different areas of NYC and Manhattan.
So this gives us as a church some direction for ministry. It is not just about simply doing ministry in NYC. It's about strategically using the resources that God has given us to do ministry in the city, especially when it comes to doing ministry in our "NoMad" neighborhood and the others neighborhoods that are close to "SALT". Property is an obvious commodity in the city that has millions of people in just a few square miles. Therefore we want to use this commodity, the "SALT" space, to meet the needs of the community as much and as often as possible. Our services take place on Sunday's but we are praying about the possibility of using "SALT" as a true community center with the intention of meeting the community's needs all week long!
So who actually lives in NoMad? What needs do they really have? How as a church can we reach out to them with this space that God has given to us? The answers to these questions will hopefully and prayerfully be met in the days, weeks, and months to come. Please pray for us as we begin this journey. To find out more about "SALT" and/or "NoMad" click on the hyperlinks which are highlighted. Also pray that God will continue to reveal ways in which we can continue to meet the needs of our community - however great the strides might be.
