A walk in the park ... and a chance to meet Christ

Rubbing graffiti from a public school desktop, scrapping chewing gum from under a table, preparing a wall for painting, and enlisting individuals for HIV testing may not sound like the best way to spend a few vacation days but that’s how some Georgians put feet to their faith this summer.

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Jonathan Rich, right, arts pastor at 1027 Church in downtown Atlanta, engages a New Yorker on a lunch break in Manhattan’s Battery Park in early July. Rich was part of Gallery Church’s “City Uprising” outreach to reach New Yorkers with the gospel.

NEW YORK CITY — On a Monday leading up to the Fourth of July Weekend, Beth McCart found herself in the Bronx, putty knife and can of spackle in hand, as she filled holes in a wall in a clinic that provides mentoring support to children of parents living with HIV/AIDS.

A few miles away in the heart of Manhattan, college student Sarah Beth Clark was painting a stairwell of a four-story walk-up apartment building.

And over in Harlem, Jim Bass and Hill Boyett were standing on a sidewalk passing out brochures and encouraging passersby to enter a clinic for free HIV testing.

The volunteers from Ingleside Baptist Church in Macon, and Clark from First Baptist Church of Snellville, were among 270 volunteers from numerous states who responded to a call to minister in the five boroughs of New York City. The outreach was sponsored by Gallery Church, an up-and-coming inner city congregation sponsored by Ingleside and others nationwide.

Pastor Aaron Coe and his staff worked for most of the past year to identify ministry sites throughout the city where volunteers could provide a community service in the name of Christ. Georgians who participated said seeds were sown that will help the church develop a higher profile among those with whom they served.

“Events like City Uprising – what we are calling this week’s outreach – have a strong future with our congregation,” Coe said as he drove between ministry sites citywide. “We already have dates for 2010 on the calendar and are hoping to have even larger groups from Georgia and other states next summer.”

In addition to the New York event, the congregation sponsored a similar City Uprising in late July in Baltimore, Md., where the church has a second location.

“Whether we are scrapping gum or performing arts ministry in Central Park, we are leaving New Yorkers with a sense of the presence of Gallery Church and that we love them but, more importantly, Jesus loves them. That’s the bottom line in what we are wanting to accomplish,” he added.

Gallery and its members were scattered among 40-plus ministry sites the first week of July. Among the most grateful were the health clinics that strive to test residents for HIV/AIDS. Coe said he and other members determined the clinics were a perfect place for the volunteers to offer their services.

The spread of HIV/AIDS is explosive in portions of New York City. The Bronx, with an estimated 20,000 cases, has the highest death rate of any of the five boroughs due to the poverty among minority populations such as Hispanics and Latinos. Widespread drug abuse – and the sharing of needles – spreads the virus as much as unprotected sex.

“We discovered that one of the biggest needs of the clinics was to get people in off the streets to receive the free tests. So many individuals are living with the disease and have never been tested … you can’t do an adequate job of stopping the spread of the disease if those who have it do not change their risky behavior,” Coe added.

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Sara Beth Clark, a student at Middle Tennessee State University and a member of First Baptist Church of Snellville, center, jests with Sarah Branscom of Murfreesboro, Tenn., left, after painting a five-story stairwell. Nearly a dozen volunteers involved in the project provided a strong witness to the residents and landlord and gave Gallery Church valuable exposure in midtown Manhattan.

“The clinics are there to help the physical need, but we want to be there to help with the spiritual care that comes when individuals are told they are HIV positive. There is probably no greater life-changing event for some people than to be told they have the virus. We, as the church, feel we need to be there when an individual’s world suddenly changes when they get that diagnosis.

“We want to be part of that conversation when people begin to ask the hard questions about life,” he added.

The volunteers provided a simple – yet priceless – community service. They simply stood on sidewalks and handed out leaflets urging individuals to stop briefly for a free HIV screening. At some point, if the opportunity presented itself, they said they were from a local church and would invite them to attend a worship service.

The clinics test up to 10 individuals in an average month, while providing other services. When they are provided funding to pay someone to distribute the leaflets they may administer 10 tests a day. But experience has shown that when volunteers from Gallery provide the service, the clinics will test up to 40 a day.

But there was more to City Uprising than HIV testing. Volunteers worked in public schools to move furniture and scrape bubble gum, paint walls in social services centers like Health People in the South Bronx, and provide arts ministries in Central Park and Battery Park, overlooking the harbor and Statue of Liberty.

Wherever they went, volunteers told strangers about Gallery’s ministry and invited them to attend worship services or small group meetings. Jonathan Rich, pastor of the arts at Atlanta’s 1027 Church, was right at home engaging tourists and city residents in conversation about art in some of the city’s parks.

Armed with a simple notepad and pencil, he asked individuals to make a quick sketch and to explain what they attempted to draw. Then he invited them to come to the church later that week when the sketch and others from throughout the city would be displayed as community art.

“New York City is very arts-centered and people love to view and discuss art in various forms. Gallery’s presence in one of the arts neighborhoods plays into that and is a natural way to reach into the community,” he said.

For more information on Gallery Church or next year’s City Uprising, visit http://gallerychurch.com. To view previous Index story coverage on Gallery Church go to www.christianindex.org/2683.article and www.christianindex.org/4749.article.

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Volunteers from several states, including Georgia, take a break from sprucing up a community outreach center named Helping People in the Bronx. The non-profit center provides support and mentoring for children whose parents are living with the HIV virus. The volunteers learned that while the U.S. government has funneled millions of dollars to AIDS orphans in Africa, it provides no such relief to its own citizens. And the U.S. government does not even track the number of AIDS orphans in the nation, said agency founder Chris Norwood.

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Beth McCart of Ingleside Baptist Church in Macon applies spackle to a wall before it is painted at Helping People, a community outreach to children whose parents are HIV positive or living with AIDS. Prominent Southern Baptist pastor Rick Warren has provided some funding to help the center keep its doors open following government cutbacks.

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New York City residents are encountering Christ through a variety of creative outreach ministries sponsored by Gallery Church. Rather than waiting for individuals to come to the church, congregation members are bringing themselves to residents by becoming involved in ministries in their neighborhoods. Georgia Baptists are among those partnering with the Manhattan congregation.

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Gallery Church pastor Aaron Coe explains ministry assignments to volunteers as they prepare to fan out across New York City’s many neighborhoods. The church has two Manhattan locations in addition to 20 small groups that meet throughout the week.

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Rich Walker of Murfreesboro, Tenn., scrapes gum from under a desk at Rustin High School. Volunteers served in a variety of ministry settings through the church’s first City Uprising event. Gallery Church sponsored a similar event in late July in Baltimore at its first location outside Manhattan.

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More than 300 volunteers from several states and the local congregation met for worship each night of the City Uprising event.

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Stephanie Hill, a member of Long Hollow Baptist Church in Hendersonville, Tenn., joins in a group prayer circle the night before the four-day ministry effort.

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