First Sunday in the Big Apple

Awoke at 8:30 a.m. Put on the business-gray suit for fun, with a blue and silver tie. Grabbed my five-pound Bible and walked to the subway, the Red line, train #1. Road to 50th Street and went to Times Square Church. Met a pleasant fellow and traveled with his friends to brunch at an open-air restaurant in "Hell's Kitchen" (a neighborhood in Manhattan).

On the way to church, a preacher was preaching on the train. He was preaching a salvation message, talking about how man was created in the image of God. I was surprised to see him get off in front of me and walk into the same building I went into. The church is beautiful. It must have been an old theatre that has been converted. It's crazy how many levels of winding staircases there are down to other "annexes" of the church. I'm not used to underground stuff. In Louisiana, if you have a basement, you're swimming in mud.

Pastor David Wilkerson was with his son, who is sick, in Texas. Pastor Carter Conlon preached about "When Signs Point the Wrong Direction." He opened with the Matthew Chapter Five premise that we are salt and light. We are God's "signs" to the world that He is real. He connected this with the story of Lot's wife, who was turned to a pillar of salt for looking back on Sodom as it burned. Pastor Conlon described how the salt can "lose its savor" or "become absurd" according to Matthew Chapter Five. Why did God choose to turn Lot's wife into a pillar of salt, specifically? She was the salt of the earth...but she had become absurd through disobeying God. She turned to salt while looking back at Sodom...the place God was trying to deliver her from. She should have had her eyes lifted up to the mountains (Psalm 121) to the place she was escaping. Instead, she became a "sign", but she was pointing the wrong direction.

In summary, the message was that the bride of Christ is facing the "wrong direction." We are supposed to be the salt of the earth (preserving, making thirsty, adding flavor), but we have become absurd through not facing the Lord, but rather looking back and pointing to the world. Very good sermon.

The church was labeled "interdenominational" on the outside, and it truly was a blessing to see what was for me the most interracial, interdenominational, interethnic (etc.) group of people ever worshiping Jesus Christ. I've been wanting to go to TSC for so long, now I have to wait till next week to hear Pastor Wilkerson preach.

Brunch. It's something everyone does on Sundays, from 12-2. We stopped at an outdoor grill and had eggs benedict (poached egges with canadian bacon, toast, hollandaise, and spinach). Delicious.

Tonight I might go with a couple people to Brooklyn or something...explore a little more. I start work tomorrow. I'm rather anxious. I wish the first day would be over already so I could...oh, well, but it always turns out fine.