New York City Young Professionals
To thrive and be at their best, young professional Christians need many strong relationships with peers in the city. The bond of friendship between Christians works wonders for Christian growth, joy and a dynamic experience in an otherwise stressful city.
Christian Union New York Young Professionals exists to strengthen Christian professionals in New York City and to make the gospel of Jesus Christ known among the people they work and live beside. Its vision rests on three purposes: a warm embrace of Christians who are new to the city, spiritual strength among those who make their lives here, and the saturation of the city’s professional districts with the gospel. Each purpose supports the others, and all of them depend on God, who alone gives the growth. The Social Team Co-Leaders serve this vision at its starting point, since for many newcomers, friendship is the first thing they find in the ministry.
1. Warm Embrace of NYC Newcomers
Each year, recent college graduates arrive in New York City to begin their careers. Many come without family nearby, without a church, and without the Christian friends who shaped their faith in college. The demands of a new job, the cost and pace of the city, and a culture that treats faith as a private matter all press on them at once. Young adults in this season are especially vulnerable to secularization. Some who arrive with a sincere faith drift from it within a few years, not because they decided against Christ, but because no one drew them in.
Most newcomers take time to settle into a church. It is common to visit several congregations and to change churches more than once in the first years in the city. The search is healthy, but it can leave a person without steady Christian friendship for a long stretch, and friendship is one of the chief ways God grows His people. “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another” (Proverbs 27:17). The writer of Hebrews urges believers, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:24–25). Friends who pray together, open the Scriptures together, and hold one another to the call of Christ make faithfulness far more likely in a city that does little to encourage it.
By Christian Union’s estimate, roughly 70,000 young professionals in New York City, meaning college graduates under 30, are churchgoers: about 35,000 Protestants and about 35,000 Catholics who attend church twice a month or more. Christian Union New York aims to contact every young adult Christian who moves to the city, from every denominational background, and to welcome each one into a vibrant Christian community that holds steady while he or she finds a church home. Protestants, Pentecostals, Catholics, and Orthodox Christians are all intentionally included. The goal is to reach, connect, and involve as many of these young professionals as possible.
2. Spiritual Strength of Historic Proportions
Christian Union New York Young Professionals seeks to be a place where Christian college graduates , of every denomination and church affiliation, are inspired, challenged, supported, and equipped to live wholeheartedly for Jesus Christ. Its particular focus is professionals in their 20s and 30s. From the Scriptures, the ministry challenges them to live 100 percent for Jesus Christ and invites them into Daniel, Shepherd, or Pauline Spirituality. The mission is to see that that large numbers will seek the Lord wholeheartedly at the level of Daniel Spirituality or beyond, a rhythm that includes morning and evening devotion, an intensified Sunday, fasting from food on Wednesdays and Fridays, a monthly all-day seeking of God, a conference twice a year, and an annual extraordinary seeking of God. The promise behind this pursuit is plain: “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).
Spiritual strength also means growth in the gifts and callings God gives. Participants are exposed to the gifts of the Holy Spirit and have the opportunity to grow both in ministering to others and in receiving ministry, including healing and deliverance. They are given room to grow as Christian leaders and to fulfill their callings in their professions, their churches, and their city. Throughout, the ministry emphasizes love, friendship, and Christian unity, because devotion to God that lacks love for others falls short of what Christ asks of His people.
When large numbers of Christians seek God wholeheartedly, outpourings of the Holy Spirit follow, and when such outpourings occur again and again in the same region, that is revival. Communities change dramatically in these seasons, as they did in America’s great awakenings and in movements around the world. New York has its own example. On September 23, 1857, Jeremiah Lanphier opened a noon prayer meeting on Fulton Street in Lower Manhattan; within weeks it had become a daily gathering, and the movement of prayer that grew from it, the Businessmen’s Revival of 1857–58, reached cities across the nation. In the Welsh Revival of 1904–05, towns and mining valleys saw marked declines in drunkenness and crime. God has done this before, and He rewards those who seek Him. As the writer of Hebrews puts it, “whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).
3. Evangelism Saturation Where the Whole City Knows About Jesus
New York’s professionals are among the most secular, unreached people groups in America. Roughly 500,000 young professionals live and work in the city, many of them in the professional districts of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Christian Union New York’s aim is that every New Yorker, and especially each of these young professionals, has three to five attractive opportunities to hear the gospel every year, offered in settings that are thoughtful, hospitable, and worth their time. Paul’s questions still frame the task: “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” (Romans 10:14).
The goal is that Jesus Christ becomes the number one subject of conversation among them, discussed in offices, over meals, and among friends, because the Christians around them live and speak in a way that invites the question. That requires that every non-Christian young professional in the city knows at least one out-and-out Christian: a colleague, neighbor, or friend whose devotion to Christ is plain and whose life gives the gospel a fair hearing. Peter describes that kind of Christian: “in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15).
The stakes reach well beyond the city. Many of New York’s young professionals will go on to help lead the nation’s businesses, law, finance, media, arts, and public institutions, and their collective influence touches the lives of many. When they come to know Christ and live for Him, the blessing extends to people they will never meet. Christian Union New York pursues this work in confidence that God desires to reach them and is able to do it.
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While most of Christian Union’s work in New York City is directed toward Young Professionals, the ministry hosts many additional Special Events for All Ages
Christian Union offers special events and opportunities for Christian growth and discipleship. This includes dinners with special speakers and lectures, social events, trips, and Saturday seminars for Christian growth.
A revived and kingdom-minded New York City can begin to turn the heart of the entire nation back to the Lord. To some, this might sound unlikely. But the Lord has done it before. A prayer meeting for businessmen in Manhattan, started in 1857 by Jeremiah Lanphier, grew and multiplied in supernatural ways, ultimately leading to over a million people becoming Christians in the USA out of a population of 30 million.
This is why Christian Union New York exists.The multiplicative power of connecting spiritually vibrant, high-level leaders in every sector of society in NYC can transform the city.
Through seeking God together and stepping out in bold faith, the city-wide and national impact of Spirit-filled key leaders working in tandem cannot be overstated.
CU New York is open to any Christian professional living in the area, and not just alumni of Christian Union’s University ministries. All who want to seek God and meet like-minded friends are welcomed to join.
Get Connected
More information regarding our NYC opportunities:
- For questions or to learn more about Christian Union New York please contact us at: Sonya.polino@christianunion.org.
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