Lausanne World Pulse – Urban Articles – Greater New York and the Five Boroughs: Prayer, Part 1

By Mac Pier
July 2009

The astonishing fact of our time is that the majority of the world’s six billion people now live and work in sizeable cities. Moreover, we live at the time of the greatest migration in human history. The southern hemisphere is moving north, East is coming West, and everyone is coming to New York! I remember well the day several years ago when, sitting in Manhattan, I read a New York Times report that 133 nations had been found living together in one Queens zip code. – Ray Bakke1

Of the more than eight million people who speak more than 170 languages and hail from more than one hundred countries, New Yorkers can be divided roughly into three types: native New Yorkers give the region its solidity; commuters give New York its velocity; and immigrants give New York its dreams. This two-part article will document the partial realization of the 4,000-year-old dream given to Abraham on a starry night in the Middle East—that all the nations would be blessed. All the nations now reside in the neighborhoods of Greater New York.

God promised to bless the nations through Abraham and, as Abraham’s spiritual descendants, God is blessing the nations through modern-day believers. God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:1–3 uses what I believe are the two most important words in the Bible uttered by God—“I will”:

I will make your name great. (v. 1)
I will give you a land. (v. 2)
I will bless all the peoples of the earth through you. (v. 3)

Modern-day New York City is at an historical crossroads between God’s promise to Abraham and the ultimate fulfillment of God’s plan: the New Jerusalem described in Revelation 21. The final metaphor used in the Bible to describe God’s people is a city—we all have an urban future.

New York City is at an historical crossroads between God’s promise to Abraham and the

ultimate fulfillment of God’s plan.

For those of us who are serious about biblical and world history, we need to seriously ponder the extraordinary facts about Greater New York at the dawn of the twenty-first century. New York City:

  • is the largest Jewish city in the world
  • is one of the largest Muslim cities outside the Muslim world
  • contains one of the communities (Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn) with the highest density of Africans of any community in the world
  • contains the largest enclave of immigrants in the Western world in Chinatown (Manhattan and Flushing, Queens)
  • is nearly as large as Chicago and Los Angeles combined
  • is (Metropolitian New York, that is) larger than Dallas, San Francisco, Atlanta, Seattle, Boston, Phoenix, Minneapolis, Miami, and Las Vegas combined
  • is one of the most international cities in human history when considering population and density
  • has one of the most international churches in human history; representatives from every continent on earth worship in its borders

The events of 11 September 2001 (9/11) drew New York City into even sharper focus. In his book Perspectives on the World Christian Movement,2 Ralph Winter suggests that every four hundred years there is a global shaping event that radically changes the trajectory of the Church. Beginning with the crucifixion (A.D. 33), followed by the invasion of the Barbarians and the burning of Rome (A.D. 410), the invasion of the Vikings and capturing Dublin (A.D. 834), the Crusades (A.D. 1095–1291), and the missionary work of Hudson Taylor to the Inland of China (1853) and William Carey to the Indian coast (1793), each 400-year epoch represents the geographic progression of the gospel.

Dr. Mac Pier is president of the New York City Leadership Center and Concerts of Prayer Greater New York. After working on staff with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, he eventually served as founder and mobilizer of the united prayer movement of 6,200 churches throughout New York City, Long Island, northern New Jersey, and Fairfield County, Connecticut. His leadership has led to Concerts of Prayer being described as one of the most developed urban prayer and pastoral networks in the world. Pier’s latest book, Spiritual Leadership in the Global City (New Hope Publishers) was released in 2008.