New York Missions - Day 1 - June 28

First, let me say that the church is on the 4th and 5th floor of a building (I think the building in total was maybe 8-10 stories?), so it's not like they can advertise that "Hey, we've got a church in here!" It's basically a couple doors on each side of a corner with a buzzer box for their facility, as well as a dentist office and other businesses.  Some of the work we did, then, was to let the community know they are here.  They've been there for, I think 3-5 years now.  Part of their space they lend out for art stuff (they are in the Chelsea district of Manhattan, which is an "artsy" area).  They have art showings, jazz concerts, stuff like that.  And when people come to those events they can say "Oh yeah, we also meet here in this space for church on Sundays and Wednesdays..."

Our work started on Monday, June 28....
Day 1

I am on a team of 6 (including me and Jerry).  Along with a couple other teams, we went to a NY park near the church building and did a survey for an art project called the Future's Project.  We broke up in two's and we would approach people as they walked by and say "We're doing a Community Art Experience, could you help out by answering two questions?"  The questions were:

1.  What are you doing tomorrow?

2.  What would you do today if you knew there was no tomorrow?

They then signed which area of NY (or other location) they lived in and we gave them a flyer explaining that all the responses would be put into an art exhibit being shown Wednesday night (along with another art exhibit in the same gallery of the building). We had a photographer if they wanted photo to be displayed in the area.  I probably got 30 or more responses and probably just as many "no" (variety of reasons) to which I would say "okay, thanks!".  This was so out of my element, and I realized it is God doing this through me. I also realized that I usually don't answer survey questions when I see people doing that (in malls or on the street) so I realized that the "yes" answers were the exception, and the "no" answers were kind of the norm, which made it seem less like rejection...

My group is comprised of two other couples that I though "Lord, why did you put me with these people?" but tonight we went out to dinner with a member from Gallery church, and spending time with them, talking with them, they are really okay people, and I do have things in common with them.  It went much, much better than I anticipated.