Posted on September 16, 2009 - by Stephen Murray

New York Trip: Part II

Ok, so these updates are not exactly daily – but there’s a lot going on that keeps us really busy so that’s my excuse. It’s Tuesday afternoon as I write this, I’m sitting in our apartment’s living room still enjoying the amazing view of Manhattan. We’ve been here for a week now and it’s still a bit surreal to wake up in the morning, get up to go make coffee, and see the Manhattan skyline stare you in the face across the Hudson – my guess is that it will still be surreal in 5 weeks time when we leave.

So what have we been up to? Let me back-track to last week. Wednesday through to Friday saw us attend the Global Cities Initiative Conference with 400 other leaders from around the world. Tim Keller spoke in the plenary sessions each morning about planting gospel-centered churches that start movements of renewal in global cities. There were lots of other breakout sessions in the afternoons about networking on a city-wide level and planting multiplying churches. Keller’s talks in the mornings were superb (we’d heard a lot of it before but he just seems to make it fresh and compelling each time he opens his mouth).

Slowly we’ve gotten to meet the rest of the church planters attending the Fall Intensive with us. Amongst us we represent the following countries:

Cape Town, South Africa

Pretoria, South Africa

Barcelona, Spain

Mexico City, Mexico

Seoul, South Korea

Monterrey, Mexico

Rome, Italy

Dublin, Ireland

London, England

Paris, France

Budapest, Hungary

We’re quite a diverse bunch but all committed to gospel-centered church planting in global cities. On Saturday we all met up at the Redeemer Church Planting Center’s offices which are on Broadway in the middle of Manhattan. We had an introductory lunch and got introduced to each other and the staff. On Sunday then we we’re required to attend two Redeemer services: One on the upper west side and one on the upper east side. It was a frantic rush to get to these two services and we only just made the sermon on each occasion where we heard Dave Bisgrove and Tim Keller preach respectively.

That evening we visited a church plant, Resurrection Presbyterian, in Brooklyn where we heard this really great young guy by the name of Vito Aiuto preach (one of the best sermons I’ve heard all year).

Monday morning saw the Fall Intensive classes start. We had sessions with Dave Bisgrove (one of the Redeemer pastors) and Vito Aiuto where we got to ask them questions about their churches and philosophies of ministry. Vito was super engaging and really gave us down to earth insight into the life of a new planter.

This morning I had to give a presentation about the church planting work we’re involved in back in Cape Town and we got hear about our flatmates (and now friends) Endre and Eneh’s work in Budapest, Hungary. After that Al Barth (who many of you know) took us through a session on the spiritual dynamics of gospel-renewal. We visited Columbia University this afternoon, and Union Theological Seminary in particular where we spent the afternoon with two of the Redeemer staff talking through the pastor’s devotional life. They day had a very devotional focus in general and I think we’re all feeling deeply grateful for the mercy shown us in Christ Jesus as we’ve explored it in depth today.

So yes, we’re fairly busy. We’re about to have supper with some of the planters (Robin is making curry). We’ll let you know more as we experience more. I’ll try to be more regular so that I don’t have to write such long posts in future. Hope you’re all well – we’re loving NYC but we still miss our beautiful Cape Town (and I think our presentation this morning made some of the guys wish they were planting in Cape Town!). Later…