August! Already!!! School is starting back, and I look back in disbelief at how fast this summer has passed. So much has happened in such a short amount of time that I’m having a hard time piecing it all together in the order it happened. The summer simply seems like a massive rubber band ball of intertwined events making it difficult to sort out in my head. Yet I know one thing: summer ’11 was amazing.
God has blessed the Gallery Church tremendously this summer with about 200 people coming to NYC to serve alongside us to take the Gospel to the people of this city. I am amazed by the Kingdom impact that I have been privilege to be a part of this summer. NYC is hard soil, but we have gained some major traction and had some huge wins in reaching out to our neighborhood.
The youth outreach program, which is led by our incredible worship and youth leader Chris Mills, started meeting this past spring semester in a McDonald’s and met a few weeks into the summer. We ended the year with an incredible block party that collaboration between the mission teams and our members made possible. Over 400 people came to the block party! We made some great connections there and were really able to show the community that our church loves them.
To end the summer, we had our very first VBS. A team from FBC Goodletsville in TN built the set, planned the VBS, and put it on. It was a huge service to the mom’s in the church, but we also had about half of the kids attending come in from the neighborhood!
Now we are about to make some major transitions in our space with condensing and building out office space.
Those are just a couple of the highlights from this summer. God has been so good to us every step of the way. I’m constantly amazed at how God works despite my lack of ability and/or knowledge. I’ve seen time and again how God loves to show Himself as provider, the all-sufficient one, and my strength in the midst of weakness.
I continue to come back to the Scripture that God showed me when I first arrived in NYC: Psalm 73:26 – “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Let us always remember this.
BMoore
