Rebekah in NYC - Tori in Philly

One Thing After Another Points Me Northeastward

For years I have been somewhat mysteriously guided toward the Northeastern United States, a region of rich history, dense population, and global cultural influence, the seat of our federal government and the nerve center of our economy.

ONE SUMMER IN BUFFALO

in 1991 I was assigned my mandatory undergraduate summer internship at a mid-size church in a small town in southeastern Indiana. However, the church went through a staff transition and decided it was not a good time to host a summer intern. I was left without an assignment. I still remember my professor saying that there were not many last-minute internship options left, but I could still could accept a summer assignment with an interesting albeit often overlooked church near Buffalo, New York. I accepted. The summer was a life-changing and eye-opening experience for someone who had never lived outside of the Midwest.

ONE WEEK IN NEW YORK CITY

A couple of years after my summer in New York, I registered for a grad school class entitled "Urban and Cross-Cultural Evangelism" which involved a one-week trip to New York City to learn first-hand from people ministering on the front lines in various urban environments. Once again, I was blown away by the new worlds that were before me and the urgent need for new churches in a region with a population many times what I was used to, yet less churched that any place I had ever visited.

ONE SEASON OF MINISTRY IN NJ & NY

All of this led me to devote several years in the 1990s to this region. I served on a staff team of a new church plant in New Jersey. I also worked with Orchard Group part time assisting with the start-up of several new church plants while also working part-time for a church on Long Island.

ONE WHO WON MY HEART ALONG THE WAY

Rebekah has also experienced a mysterious guidance to this region. Before I met her, Rebekah grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan but ended up in the exact same part of New Jersey where I lived in the 1990s. She moved there to be a live-in nanny with a family of New York City commuters. She showed up at the church where I was serving one Sunday morning. I was greeting people at the front door that day. I liked what I saw! Within a year we were married.

ONE WEEKEND & ONE WEEK IN 2010

Fast forward to 2010. In the spring, I was invited to return to Long Island, New York for the weekend to speak at a church's anniversary banquet. It was a great and memorable occassion. A few months later Rebekah, the kids and I spent our summer vacation at the New Jersey shore. We were able to stay at a house there that belonged to someone we met during our days living in New Jersey. What we intended as merely a vacation ended up, we realized a few months later, stirring our hearts for that region again.

ONE FULL-CIRCLE KIND OF STORY

Once again we realized God was mysteriously guiding us toward the Northeastern United States. When I was recently presented with an opportunity to use my specific gifts to work with Orchard Group to help plant new churches throughout this region and beyond, it really was not difficult to discern that it was part of that guiding.

New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Buffalo and the places between are a vitally important part of our country and world. In many ways, culture flows from the population centers of the Northeast. What happens there effects what happens throughout our country. Yet in many of these places, you will not find a church on every corner like you will in other parts of the country.

We are committed to seeing churches of all forms, from the simple gathering of people in a living room of an urban neighborhood to the large congregation in the suburbs, taking the gospel to the post-Christian culture of this region.

Advance Scouting

This is not a stock photo of Times Square! Rebekah took this while she and Tori were on the road this week in Philadelphia, New Jersey, & New York. They met with a few people and spent time in some of the areas where we might land as our home base once we make our physical move this summer.

I was here in Indiana keeping Lucas and Niles out of trouble and working on setting up some opportunities to meet with people over the next several weeks and ask them to be among our monthly support partners.

NYC Church Plants: Attractional & Missional

Two relatively new churches planted by Orchard Group, using very different approaches, to reach their neighborhoods in New York City:

More of an organic, missional approach: Church of the Incarnation

More of an attractional approach: Forefront Christian Church

Both impacting people in the very heart of what is arguably the most influencial city in the world. Just examples of what we intend to see more and more of in the months and years to come.

Lots of Legal Issues, So Far

I actually never suspected the legal part of this position would be so prominent. So far, I've dabbled with immigration law (for an Indian church planter in New York), tax law, employment law, and corporate law as part of my role. All of those areas have one thing in common: they are not the areas in which I previously practiced! It is as if I am the podiatrist learning on the fly about cardiology -- well, perhaps not quite that dramatic.

Going West En Route to the Northeast

Spending part of this week in Las Vegas visiting old friends in order to share about our new venture and specifically asking them to partner with us. On the one hand, it will be strange asking friends for financial support. On the other hand, I am so compelled by this mission, both because of where it is and because of what it is, that I am excited to share it with people I have journeyed with and asking them to go with us on another leg of the journey together.

Please pray about all of the many conversations I'll be having in Vegas this week.

Vital Mission, Help Needed

We are passionate about New York City and the Northeast in general. We met in New Jersey in 1994 while Greg was part of the team of a new church plant and Rebekah was a nanny. We spent time on Long Island, New York after that with a local church and helping prepare for church plants in New York City. Tori was born there. Recent visits to the region (Greg to Long Island last spring, the whole family to the Jersey shore last summer) confirmed to us that our hearts had never left that region.

If we want to see the culture of North America transformed from a Kingdom perspective, we must begin in centers of influence (cultural, economic, arts, education, government, industry). New York City is the epicenter for such influence in North American (and arguably for the entire globe). As for the Northeast in general (Boston-NYC-Philadelphia-Baltimore-DC), over 60 million people live and work there. Percentages of church participaton are much lower than in other parts of the country.

We are also passionate about church planting in its various forms, including simple churches, regional impact churches, & non-English-speaking churches. See the post below, quoting Tim Keller (perhaps the most knowledgeable person regarding church planting in NYC) about that.

Orchard Group's mission is to plant growing and reproducing churches in New York City and the Northeast. This is a key time of potential expansion for Orchard Group. Greg's role with OG is a culmination of past church planting and legal practice experiences.

We're excited. But we also face a huge challenge right now in raising a significant percentage of funds for our support. We really need ongoing monthly partners who will give gifts as we head into 2011. Please prayerfully consider this -- not just to help us -- but to be part of a mission that is integral to bringing Kingdom transormation to North America and beyond.

You can give online at through the Orchard Group website (select e-giving and follow the links to make a General Fund gift, under the Sub Fund "Greg Hubbard"). You can also send checks to Orchard Group, Inc. (write "Greg Hubbard" in the memo line), 51 Middlesex Street, Unit 101, North Chelmsford, MA 01863. All gifts are tax deductible.

Why Plant Churches in Cities?

"The vigorous, continual planting of new congregations is the single most crucial strategy for the numerical growth of the Body of Christ in any city, the continual corporate renewal and revival of the existing churches in a city, and the reaching of new generations, new residents, new people groups & the unchurched.

Nothing else‐‐not crusades, outreach programs, parachurch ministries, growing mega‐churches, congregational consulting, nor church renewal processes‐‐will have the consistent impact of dynamic, extensive church planting. This is an eyebrow raising statement. But to those who have done any study at all, it is not even controversial.

Why is church planting so crucially important?
Because new churches bring new ideas to the whole Body, new churches are one of the best ways to surface creative, strong leaders for the whole Body, new churches challenge other churches to self‐examination, new churches may be an ‘evangelistic feeder’ for a whole community.

Jesus’ essential call was to plant churches. The Apostle Paul’s whole strategy was to plant URBAN churches. New church planting is the only way that we can be sure we are going to increase the number of believers in a city and one of the best ways to renew the whole Body of Christ. The evidence for this statement is strong ‐Biblically, sociologically, and
historically. In the end, a lack of kingdom‐mindedness may simply blind us to all this evidence. We must beware of that."

- by Dr. Timothy Keller, Redeemer Church Planting Center, New York City

Central Phoenix Project

Phone conference today with Brian Kruckenberg, the planter for a new church project in urban Phoenix. He, like me, is an attorney, so it was an interesting conversation. Read more about "day twelve" church here.