COMING DECEMBER 2019
Renew our city with the “good news” of Jesus
one relationship at a time
- Gospel Centeredness – The true and beautiful message of Jesus is worth living for and giving out.
- Thriving Neighborhoods – We want to be so good at serving the needs of our neighbors that we would be missed if we left the neighborhood.
- Community as Family – Community should be less like a fraternity and more like a family.
- The Journey of Faith – Faith is not a leap but a climb. It’s a lifelong journey with many steps.
- 3rd Culture People – We value people who willing give up the comforts of their culture to be cultural bridge builders for our the sake of our city
- Relate – In a post Christian city, most of what people know about Jesus is wrong. We want to authentically relate the message of Jesus (Gospel) to those outside the church with our words and more importantly our relationships
- Reshape – When the Gospel directs our lives, it reshapes our attitudes, actions, and affections to look more like Jesus. When this is done in community with others we become the people that God desires for us to be.
- Release – The Gospel can’t not be contained to church on Sunday. It’s spills into all the of our spaces and relationships. So, we want to complete the loop by releasing our church to relate the Gospel of Jesus to their neighbors and networks.
Why this Church?
We live in divided times? You’ve got your Republicans, Democrats, city, suburban, rural, black, white, Asian, Latino, foreign born, and native. All different kinds of people with different viewpoints on the world. There are very few places in our country like Queens, where all this tension can collide on the same city block!
In Queens, there are 138 languages spoken and 48% of people in Queens are foreign born. If Queens, were an independent city it would be the 4th most populace city in America after Los Angeles, Chicago, and Brooklyn. That’s a lot of people with a lot of differences. What is the church to do in a place like this?
Revelation teaches us two things about God’s Kingdom: 1) it ends in a city and 2) it’s amazingly diverse. The picture of Heaven and Queens is strikingly similar except one is united and the other is divided.
Only people renewed by the Gospel of Jesus can make heaven a reality in Queens!
The Pastor
Edward Dhanpat Jr. is a 2nd generation American. His parents immigrated from Guyana in South America. His parents worked hard and that work ethic was passed on to him. He is a native New Yorker and so he gets the complexity of ministry in a difficult city.
He attended NYC public schools most of his life. He completed his undergraduate work (B.A. in Psychology) at CUNY Queens College, and his graduate work (M. Div.) at Bethel Seminary of the East.
He is an ordained minister with over 10 years of full-time ministry experience. He also has 5 years of church planting experience. His wife, Mahwish, is a Pakistani Christian and immigrated to New York City when she was five. He and his wife have a son, Justus, who is almost 7 years old.
His passion is to start a movement of multiethnic and multigenerational churches that seek the prosperity of New York City.
