The City has been Uprisen.

City Uprising was absolutely incredible! It was last Sunday through Wednesday, and there were about 150 people from different states that came in to do service/evangelism projects throughout the city. I’ll try to give an overview (I promise to do my best to keep it short…or close to short!).

Sunday morning I woke up at 6.41 AM and got out of bed. Then, I tried to decide what to wear…

Just kidding. Now for the real CU update...

Sunday was registration, so the three interns (and Connor) were at the church to greet the teams and give them an overview of what the day was going to hold. From the minute we met the teams, I knew it was going to be a great week! They were some really fun groups, ranging from high school youth through college to a great group of adult ladies from Nashville. I guess the best way to describe Sunday would be to call it a training day. It was great to see Freddy, Aaron, Rachel, and others share their hearts with the participants. Even that night, you could tell that some of the students were starting to get on board with God’s perspective on the city.

On Monday, we did the Futures Project and Electronic Friends. The Futures Project is a really cool community arts project they’ve done a few times. Basically, you ask people to answer 2 questions on a sheet of paper: what are you doing tomorrow and what would you do today if there were no tomorrow. The answers ranged from being pretty sad to being pretty shocking. The person answering also put the name of the neighborhood they live in on the sheets. Jen Brown (Director of the Salt Space) then puts all the slips into like a map of Manhattan according to their neighborhood. The participants were able to use these questions as a gateway to more serious questions about what they were doing in the city and what the Salt Space is. A lot of seeds were planted or watered that day!! Electronic Friends is a project that’s new to CU this summer. Basically, we were offering to take a new Facebook profile picture for people. The goal was for the people to go to the Facebook page for Electronic Friends and read the blurb about electronic community versus true community (like that at the Gallery). We’ll see how effective that project was in the coming weeks!

Tuesday, the teams did service projects throughout the city. Some worked at an HIV clinic doing things around the offices. Some groups did construction type work on mission houses. Some got to do a block party at one of the parks, complete with 300 slices of pizza and a 3-on-3 basketball tournament. Unfortunately, I don’t know a lot of the details on this day because I was helping get things in order for Wednesday.

Wednesday’s project was promoting free HIV screening at different clinics throughout the city. A couple of years ago, the clinics in NYC refused to work with the Gallery because of the way the Church has treated those who lead lifestyles that heighten the chance of infection. Fortunately, one clinic agreed to do work with them three or four years ago, and the event had tremendous success! This year, we partnered with 9 clinics total from Manhattan and the Bronx. None of the clinics are faith-based organizations. So this day’s project was not only about the people that need to be screened for HIV but also about our testimony to the workers of the clinics. As you can imagine, being given 80 postcards about HIV screening and being told to hand them out to strangers is a bit intimidating. But these participants did an amazing job!! I think I heard from at least one person on every team that got to share the gospel at some level with someone that day. We haven’t been able to talk to all the clinics yet, but we know that more than 40 people were tested in just one afternoon because of the effort of these participants and the blessing of God!

It really was a great week. With any event, you’re going to hit bumps in the road, but I think we handled them fairly well. I’m excited to see who we see at the Gallery in the next few weeks because of the over 3,000 Gallery information cards that were passed out.

So there’s a vague overview of my past week!I guess I’ll give a few specifics about me. A few weeks ago or so, I asked for prayer because I wasn’t feeling well. Unfortunately that issue hasn’t gotten better and it looks like I’m going to need to see a doctor. If you haven’t figured this out about me yet, I absolutely hate going to the doctor. Boo. But oh well.

I’m starting to think I should expect to get sick on these summer trips I take, because I’ve gotten sick on every one I’ve taken yet. Probably the funniest one was getting bronchitis in Africa and not knowing it wasn’t just a cough until after I got home! Anyways, that wasn’t the point I was going to make. The point I is that God’s shown me a lot through these physical issues. Probably the most important is admitting that I cannot do these things on my own. I don’t have anywhere near the strength to do everything He has for me without both His help and the help of His people. Also, I’ve come to learn the importance of believing in God’s sovereignty (God’s control over all things). See, I definitely would not have put sickness into the mix for my summer in NYC (unless, of course, there was an attractive guy to bring me whatever works like chicken noodle soup but is cold). But the sick part is what happened. However, I fully believe in God’s control over all aspects of my life, which means I have no doubt that He has allowed this into my life. Not that the sickness is from Him, of course, but that He has allowed it to happen.

And, in my opinion, if God’s allowed something to happen in our lives, then it means two things. First, we are equipped to handle it. He knows our limits and what we can handle. If something is allowed in, He has prepared us to see it through (that doesn’t mean, however, that it won’t challenge and stretch us). Second, it is useful for the Kingdom. If the situation or circumstance weren’t useful for the glory of God and the good of His people, why would He allow it to happen? He wouldn’t. There are far too many things that need to be done for Him to waste His time or ours. So, even though standing and I aren’t really friends today, I think my goal needs to be altered from just getting better. Don’t get me wrong: I would love to be better! But, if God is going to be more glorified through a Christ-like reaction to the sickness than through my health, wouldn’t it be better to pray for my attitudes and reactions to get better instead of just my physical state? Don’t freak out, I’m still going to find a doctor and do all I can to get better. But I think it’s a better idea for my objective to be “live like you’re a Christ-follower, even if you’re not at the top of your game” than just “get better”.

Besides, I tend to be a wordy person, so the first one fits me better anyways.

Next time on So You Think You Can Blog, I’ll try to remember to share a bit about dreams for the future. We’ll see which ones He brings my way!

P.S. Ignore any typos in this post please. I didn't feel like editing it.

P.P.S. I'm really doing fine. Just figured I'd see if an antibiotic or something will help me out!