Be a Christian in New York

You can use your vocation for missions on a mission field. No really, you can! You read it right. You can use whatever vocation you are in, that you are passionate about, and that God has called you to for missions and even on a mission field. One of my dear friends from college is doing this very thing. He is moving his family to the missions field where he will continue to work in his own vocation (which is not vocational ministry, in case that was not clear yet). “How does that work?” you might ask. Well, for him it involves really two things: serving the local Church in a place that desperately needs more grounded and mature Christians and by being an evangelist (missionary) in his vocation/workplace in the new country he is moving to where the Gospel is not as readily available as it is in places like the United States. To put it simply, he is moving to another country, where the Gospel is more desperately needed, to be a good Christian. That my friends is missions, he is a missionary, and believe it or not you are called to do the exact same thing.

My aunt Shelly was a single missionary to Kenya and Tanzania her entire adult life. After I surrendered to the ministry at the age of twelve I asked her what her call to ministry was like. Keep in mind that at the time for me a call to ministry was something I saw in my youthful ignorance as dramatic. Like Moses at the burning bush being called to go and rescue God’s people from Pharaoh, I saw it as a holy ground sort of moment. Which is why my aunts answer shocked me and confused me at the time. She simply replied that she heard a sermon on the Great Commission and understood the passage to be addressing anyone who decides to follow Christ, which meant her. So naturally she gave her entire life to spreading the Gospel in east Africa. She told me that the Great Commission makes every Christian a missionary, and that it is only a matter of obedience verses disobedience. Weighty stuff right? The scary part of all of this is that she is right! The Great Commission is for all of Christ’s followers, which means you, as Jesus said, are to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:16-20).

Now, what you are probably wondering is how do vocational missions and the call of all disciples to the missionary task have to do with being a Christian in New York? I am glad you asked. When I moved to New York in March of 2025, one of the difficulties about pastoring in the City that I was warned of was that people, especially young families having kids, do not stay in the city long. That often people prefer not to bring up a family here and that few people stay in the city for the long-run. They leave a place that desperately needs them to stay. Herein lies the title of this blog and my appeal: stay. That’s it that’s the message, you can close this browser now. Stay! Commit yourself to being a Christian in New York City, a place that desperately needs the Gospel and that needs people to use their vocation for the advancement of the Gospel. Stay. Commit to this mission field, stick it out for the long haul, see the Gospel opportunity in this city and commit to being a missionary here, because it is needed. Commit to plugging into your local Church and serving it as a faithful Christian. Commit to use your vocation for the sake of the Gospel. Commit to being a Christian in New York City!

But wait there is more! I actually lied to you when I said that my main appeal is to stay, I have a second appeal with this post and it is to go! If you live somewhere that is well reached by the Gospel, that has Churches on every corner that are full and healthy, why not move to a place where the Church and the Gospel need healthy and evangelistic Christians? Maybe even somewhere like New York City? This was part of my family’s motivation in moving from the middle of the Bible-Belt to Brooklyn New York. I could be another pastor and another Christian in a place where there are hundreds of big healthy Churches full of thousands of Christians and dozens of well trained “seminarified” (my own word, like it?) pastors, or I could go be a Christian and a pastor somewhere with a greater need. The problem with the Bible-Belt in my opinion is that its a hoarder. It hoards more than it sends. What Churches need in places like where my friend is moving to, or places like New York, are not Churches with the capacity to send to instead stockpile Christians and elder qualified men, but to hit the eject button on their pews! My second appeal is go! Go somewhere the Gospel is not. Go be an evangelist in your own vocation in a place where good Christians are hard to come by. Go move where the Church is struggling to grow and come along side a pastor and his congregation to advance the Gospel in that difficult place. Maybe even go and be a Christian in New York City.