After a chat with a friend about churches in America, I came across a site that lists 100 largest U.S. churches in 2007 from Outreach Magazine report. To my amazement, there are three churches listed in New York: Time Square Church, Christian Cultural Center and The Greater Allen A.M.E. Cathedral of New York. It is my great interest to learn more about these once I finish my time at CCGCLI. The top 100 churches have average weekly congregation numbers from 6,000 to Lakewood Church's (by Joel Osteen) 47,000 attendees.
As I researched the churches in New York on the web, I took particular interest in David Wilkerson's ministry, who founded his Time Square Church 50 years ago preaching to gangs of New York. A famous book and video based on Nicky Cruz's conversion (once gang member now evangelist) called "The Cross and the Switchblade" were written and produced in 1963 and 1970 respectively.
There's also a controversial book "The Vision" by Wilkerson, which I have yet to get a chance to thoroughly examine.
Today, the Time Square Church has an average attendees of 8,000 ranking it 60th in the U.S. according to the 2007 Outreach Magazine report.
It is not because of the size of these churches that amazed me, it is the fact that of all the mega churches I've heard in the U.S. I had never heard of one in New York until now. They were always in California, Texas and Georgia, and so on. Seems that my departure from CCGCLI and my attention in the city is long overdue.
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