Briarwhere?

Since our first pre-launch worship is this Sunday (Oct. 30) and I haven't profiled all the neighborhoods in the Forest Hills vicinity, I thought I'd add one more (I already profiled Kew Gardens and Rego Park and plan to dedicate a large profile of Forest Hills just prior to our launch in November.).

This week we go to Briarwood, a neighborhood just south and east of Kew Gardens (where I live). As most of you know, I grew up in Queens, but the first time I met someone from Briarwood, my reaction was, "Where's that?" It turns out I'm not alone in my disorientation. Briarwood shares a zip code with neighboring Jamaica and while people who lived there always knew it by this name, most people in Queens (myself included) knew it as that strange, but nice section of Jamaica.

In the 1970s and 80s, Jamaica did not have a kind and gentle reputation amongst Queens neighborhoods and people in Briarwood (especially natives) strongly disassociated themselves from the area with which they shared Postal Service common ground. Eventually, the New York City Transit Authority recognized this, renaming the subway station from Van Wyck Blvd. to Briarwood/Van Wyck. Now, while not everyone in Queens knows where Briarwood is, certainly more know now than ever before.

Speaking of Van Wyck, Briarwood is where the Grand Central Parkway and the Van Wyck Expressway converge. Robert Van Wyck was the first mayor of the Five Borough New York City following the Greater New York Act of 1897. This neighborhood is conveniently located between LaGuardia and Kennedy Airports and has been increasingly marketed as an ideal location for people relocating to the city.

After muscling its way through central Queens, Queens Blvd. loses much of its punch by the time it reaches Briarwood. A pedestrian mall complete with park benches occupies the middle island of the road and by the time it crosses Hillside Ave. it becomes a measley two-lane road quietly ending at Jamaica Ave. It is also dotted with coffee shops and mostly utilitarian stores. Apparently people in Briarwood either cook their own meals or order take-out. I suppose if they want to splurge, they'll drive down Queens Blvd. to the fine dining establishments in Kew Gardens, Forest Hills, or Rego Park.

Another interesting feature is intersection of Queens Blvd. and Main St. Queens Blvd. is arguably the "main" street in the borough, while a case can be made that Main St. is not. This is a reminder of Queens' rural history. Before becomming part of New York City, Queens County was mostly farmland spotted with little towns. This is why addresses name the neighborhood rather than being simply New York, NY or Queens (my address, as you know, is Kew Gardens, NY). The town of Flushing in the northern part of the county had a Main St. that naturally extended to a rural route which connected the town to the city of Jamaica. As the city urbanized and became part of NYC, the entire stretch of road became known as Main St.

This is Archbishop Molloy High School. I only mention this because it is where actor David Caruso ("CSI Miami") attended. When "NYPD Blue" primiered, it paired Caruso with Dennis Franz who has a pronounced Chicago accent. Critics noticed the authenticity of Caruso's accent. Of course it was authentic, he's from Queens.

While Briarwood has a share of typical six-story co-op apartment buildings, it also has a number of typical Queens cookie cutters as well as several quiet serene streets which make it attractive to new residents. The neighborhood sits at the head of a glacial moraine that forms the North and South Forks of Long Island, Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Martha's Vineyard (get your maps out and check this out for yourselves). This moraine forms a hill and explains why the southern border of Briarwood is Hillside Ave. This hill is quite pronounced and creates an almost San Francisco-like setting. In any event, I go into this sort of detail because several people in our church's launch community are from this neighborhood.

Prayer Concerns: We're almost there folks. Pre-launch is this week, home fellowship groups have begun, the youth program is taking shape. It's all very exciting, but we need it all to be covered in prayer. Please keep it all in your prayers, as well as other programs that have yet to develop. Don't forget my fanancial needs in this Church Planting effort. I'm still significantly short on funds. Please keep this in prayer as well.

Thought: If the Red Sox won the World Series last year and the White Sox won this year, but there are no Blue Sox in the American League, how can they call themselves "American?" With only Red and White Sox available, wouldn't they be more... Canadian?

This Sunday is our first pre-launch worship service, and I've actually scheduled the first Youth meeting for next Wednesday.

Drying Out, Diving In

After receiving enough rain to flood the Sahara, we have finally seen a few days of dry Fall-like weather. No one was gathering animals two by two, but I did see a woman walking two dogs last Friday.

We met this week for the first time at the school where we are scheduled to hold our worship services. Starting at 3:30, Sunday afternoon, we opened with an orientation to the church plant for people who may be interested in getting involved. That was followed by prayer for the church by Michael, me, and the members of the Launch Community. It was quite encouraging for our core church community to gather for prayer. This is a picture of the school where we met and plan to continue meeting for the forseeable future. It's actually a great library with wonderful acoustics (yes, it's a library with great acoustics) and wonderful natural light. I think most of us were pleasently surprised by those aspects of it.

Despite this fact, our first pre-launch services don't begin this Sunday. Rather, we will begin in two weeks because the school is being inspected by the Regents board this week and we can't be there while that is going on.

Our Home Fellowship Groups were introduced to our impending study of Galatians by reading through the epistle out loud and discussing some general concepts about what Paul was attempting to accomplish in the letter and what was going on in the lives of his recipients. Our youth program is temporarily on hold until Michael introduces me to more of the parents. The Home fellowship Groups have an exciting dynamic and vary in size, and the youth program,though we expect it to begin small, remains an ambiguous undertaking until it finally gets going. Again, as always, my financial picture remains tight. A reminder that anyone interested in helping support our church planting efforts here should make checks out to Redeemer Presbyterian Church; put my name on the memo line; and send them to my address: 83-44 Lefferts Blvd. Apt. 3C; Kew Gardens, NY 11415. Please include a note with your contribution explaining how frequently your support will come (monthly, quarterly, once a year, etc.). Of course, I could raise millions of dollars and if there is no prayer behind the money, our ministry will fail. Please keep me and Michael and our efforts continually in your prayers.

Twice in the last week, I managed to go out to Austin St. (the shopping center of Forest Hills) with two people to present our Church-Name questionnaire. Irrespective of how helpful these are in helping us determine a name, they have become an interesting study on human behavior. We may take some of what we learned to modify the questionnaire and to go out a few more times before we processes the information.

I think it would be safe to say that a similar survey of people's reaction to church names would be received differently in Mississippi than it has been in Queens. I think it may have something to do with people's reaction to the word "church."

There are a few more things on the horizon. For instance, we may have an opportunity to rent worship space from an actual church as opposed to the school library where we are currently anticipating the use of. We might have a great musician signed on with us, at least for the short term.

Our prayer needs: There was at least one person at a Home Fellowship Group (HFG) last week who seemed clearly to be a non-believer. That fact is both frightening and exctiting at the same time. It's frightening because we want the Holy Spirit to work in this person's life and we feel very self-coucious about our teaching. At the same time, we want people to feel that their HFG is a place to invite their non-Christian friends to attend. There is also a great number of little things (church planting is full of minutia, all of which is vitally important). Two dear friends of mine are expressing interest in our church plant. I would love for them to get involved. One of them recently left a church, the other hasn't been going to church for quite some time. Please keep all of these things in mind.

Until next week, may God continue to richly bless you all.

Sympathy for Noah

After one of the driest Septembers on record here, New Yorkers have been introduced to a new concept... Monsoon Season. It has rained so much over the last week, we have more than made up for last month's lack of rain and have set several new records for October rainfall... and the month isn't quite half over.

The picture here was taken from New York City Newsday and shows a section of the Grand Central Parkway in Queens that has become something of a lake. The biggest question I've been asking myself over the last week is whether we should be planting a church or building an ark.

I was supposed to take a few people from the church plant out into the neighborhood last Saturday to ask people their impressions of about 10 names we've been considering for the church. Hopefully, the rain will clear up soon so we can do that. For some reason, people don't like answering a questionnaire in the rain. Go figure.

There was one ray of light this week, however, though it only fell on Mets fans. That's right, the Yankee's were eliminated from any hopes of winning the World Series by losing to a team appropriately called The Angels. I'm not sure what's more satisfying to a Mets fan, a Mets win or a Yankees loss. Both are frighteningly rare these days, but I must say that this season wasn't a complete wash as long as some other team than the Yankees wins the World Series.

After all, it wouldn't be appropriate on the 50th anneversary of the Brooklyn Dodgers' only World Series victory (over the Yankees, no less), for the Yankees to have a successful season. There's a sermon illustration here somewhere. You know, evil ultimately looses. I do need to be careful of my Yankee-bashing though, Michael, our organizing pastor is a Bomber fan, as are some of the people who are lending me financial support. I'll keep all of you in my prayers.

Our home fellowship groups are up and running and we are slightly behind schedule in our Sunday School program and Youth program, but our launch is still on track for late November.

Church Plant Prayer Reminder: We will soon be in need of storage for our equipment as the school where we will be meeting cannot provide us anything but a place to meet. Thankfully, our curriculum is free (apparently Great Commission Publications has a soft spot for church plants). We will have some additional expenses and needs as times goes by, all of which I would ask you to keep in your prayers. We are looking for a talented musician to lead our music program. I can sing, but that alone will not carry a quality music program (though we could fall back on our Presbyterian roots and sing accapella Psalms). Please pray for our music initiatives. We had been courting a musician, but he got a very good offer from another church... one that we are in no position to match. My responsibilities will be increasing as well and my ability to remain flexible will be a key factor. I am also still trying to find opportunities to raise money, though with an increasingly busy schedule, that's getting harder and harder. I still have some things in the works (two additional church visits, and a radio interview are still on the horizon). For those of you still considering financial support, my contact information can be found on several entries on this blog. To whatever extent I can, I am keeping many of you in my prayers, and ask primarily that you remember me in yours.

Hopefully, by next week's update, the rain will stop. If not, I may have some difficulty updating the blog from lifeboat.

Gentlemen, Start Your Engines!

Well, just about everything in our church plant starts this week... Just shy of our actual launch (scheduled for near Thanksgiving).

My three small groups and youth ministry kick off this coming week (Two are meeting this Sunday evening for a combined dinner, though Sunday is not the scheduled time for either group). Our curriculum is in the mail from Great Commission Publications; we are having our rehearsal worship services with discussion following (a dangerous time for a church, as individuals who wish to establish themselves as spiritual leaders and de facto leaders may attempt to accomplish this status by asking many questions and making several comments, not because they want the church to benefit, but because they want to be seen in a flattering spiritual light). Please pray for these services.

Michael and I will also be going out with questionnaires to the community asking them to share their thoughts on establishing a new local church, Christianity, God, etc., and attempting to derive a name from amidst their responses. Needless to say, our dance card is full.

Church Plant Prayer Concerns: Our Youth Programs, Sunday School Programs, and Small Groups; Our continued rehearsal worship services working up to our November launch; Michael's and my prayer lives, that we would grow to love Jesus more and more each day; the individuals in our launch community; and, as always, my continued fundraising efforts (support information can be found in other entries on this blog). BTW: Visit Reyn's blog this week. There's a big picture of me in his weekly posting.