A friend of ours interviewed us on camera last year about our ministry in NYC. We invite ya’ll to watch it and hear a piece of the heart God has given us for NYC and college students!
From the Empire Bash: Jon & Regina Video Interview from Adrian Pei on Vimeo.
Here’s a clip of a talk that Regina gave to 80+ staff of Campus Crusade for Christ from the Cross 09 national conference. Staff came to NYC, mostly from the mid-south and mid-west regions of the US, for 3 days to learn and do ministry in a culture that is not of their own. Regina had a chance to intro the idea of crossing cultures as recorded below. Let us know what you think!
Highlights include:
1) Fall Retreat updates
2) Cross 09 in NYC
Thanks for reading!
It’s been a whirlwind start of the fall semester. Highlights include:
1) Summer Project and CSU recap
2) Fall Semester Startups
3) Two stories from the field
Thanks for reading!
Here’s a picture of most of our students leaders throughout the metro ministry. Pray that they would lead well.
Regina and I have hit the ground running since mid August. I love the start of the semester because of all of busyness and excitement. Pray that God would continue to protect our marriage in the midst of all the craziness.
Columbia University - Students shown at the activities fair.
We have 7 Epic staff now assigned to the New York City team (two of the staff are raising support full time). This year I’ll be a co-director for the team. I told Regina that just means more meetings to go to and I was right! Regina is coaching Cooper Union and we’re helping to launch a ministry at Hunter College together.
We had one of many opportunities to share the gospel with students on campus together. We met a student who wanted to know more about Jesus from the summer project initiatives. He’s a junior at Hunter College studying Psychology. Regina and I by God’s grace shared the gospel with him. He said he wants to know more and study the bible before he commits his life to anything. Please pray that God would continue to work in his life.
The Epic team is launching ministries at 5 campuses this fall at Hunter, Baruch, NYU, Stony Brook, and Queens College while staffing Columbia and Cooper Union. Please pray that many will hear about Jesus, see Him in our involved student’s lives, and come to faith in Him alone.
Thanks so much for your prayers and support!
Regina and I co-directed one of four tracks of Tribeca Summer Project. It was a blast! 100+ students and staff from all over the country came to New York City to participate in an urban missions project. Our vision was “Captured by Christ to pursue transformation for ourselves and the people of the city”. The four tracks include:
15 people participated with the Epic track from California, Texas, and the East coast. For five weeks we ministered on 6 college campuses in NYC, partnered with existing mercy ministries in the city, studied the word, and learned more of our identity in Christ as Asian Americans.
Our students walked away with a deeper sense of the gospel in their lives, awareness of the felt needs of a cities like New York, and practical training on how to share Jesus with others in their sphere of influence. One of our staff, Sarah, shared this from her blog:
Last week was our final times on campus and the Lord really used our entire team to share the gospel! We planned a “free pizza and drinks” lunch event at Hunter College in hopes to launch Epic there this fall. We had about 35-40 students come out (which is amazing considering that there are so fewer students taking summer school classes)! God led us to meet many who are interested in Epic, and the most exciting thing was that there were students who have a desire to seek out who Christ is.
I had a chance to meet a guy (we’ll call him David), who had a deep desire to know more about Christianity. Simon, Jon, Leslie, Lara and I got to eat lunch with him a few days after meeting him at the pizza event and even got to do the Soularium survey with him. David knows that he wants more than what this life has to offer, and has a desire to find truth for his life..but isn’t sure where to turn to. He is soaking everything in and wants to join a bible study in the fall! Please pray for David as he continues to seek out God!
Thank you so much for your prayers and support throughout this time. Through the whole project, 11 people have professed faith in Jesus and hundreds of others have engaged in gospel content. Please continue to pray for all of the people we talked with as well as our staff and students as they continue schooling in the fall. Below are some links to videos and photos of the project. Enjoy!
Click on this link for large photos of the Epic track: Click here
Regina and I, along with Glennis, will be directing a summer project here in NYC [as we mentioned in a previous post]. I’m excited about what has come to fruition so far. As I pray and seek the Lord over this project, I can see more and more of God’s heart for restoring brokenness in our lives and for cities. I wanted to share the following video recruiting ’script’ that Regina wrote to promo the Epic track of Tribeca summer project. Please pray with us as we plan and seek God’s power to bring his word to the masses!
We can’t make it to your campus, but wanted to personally invite you to consider spending the summer with us in New York City.
You’ve probably seen New York City in multiple movies and television shows.
Heck, maybe you even grew up here, or in the area.
So, unless you’ve been hiding in a cave for the past 20 years, you know that there’s something about New York that draws people to it like moths to a light.
New York is the unofficial capital of the world. We’re not just saying that because we’re really into our city; we’re saying that because millions of other people are. This is the “Mecca,” if you will, of so many things that shape the culture of our nation, and ultimately, our planet.
It’s where the best and the brightest come to test their mettle in everything, from finance to fashion, fine arts to culinary arts, writing to acting, and so much more. Frank Sinatra said it best: “if I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.”
The natural outcome of this geographical convergence of talent and brilliance is that New York City sets the cultural pace for the rest of the world. It’s not hard to imagine, then, that if this city is revolutionized by the love and hope that Jesus Christ offers, the rest of the world will be, also.
That’s why we’ll be here with the Tribeca Summer Project this summer. Our project will have four foci, or tracks: one for reaching the city’s college students, another for reaching artists and the art community; a third for reaching the inner city, and the fourth for reaching the city’s Asian American community.
We will be working specifically with the Asian American track – and what that means is not that we’ll only share the Gospel with Asian Americans, [“sorry, you’re not Asian, I can’t tell you about Jesus”], but that we’ll be giving special focus to the strengths and challenges that come with being both Asian and American, helping each other grow in our ability to lead and minister effectively.
So, if you have a heart for seeing God’s love and grace transform the lives of artists, Asian Americans, college students, and the marginalized and underserved – if you want to grow in your leadership and ministry abilities – if you want to experience God working through you to impact the city that impacts the world, then come join us this summer in New York City.
You won’t regret it.
jonathan | 
02 1st, 2010| 
