Diverse congregation in Manhattan counts members from five continents — but no Jets or Sharks.
By Bobby Ross Jr. | The Christian Chronicle
NEW YORK — A rap song by Eminem played in the lobby of a hostel where guests from around the world stay while visiting this city of 8.5 million.
In a nearby hallway, the hip-hop beat gave way to the four-part harmony of Christians singing “The Old Rugged Cross,” “To Christ Be True” and “I Am Mine No More.”
The Upper West Manhattan Church of Christ worships God in rented space at Hostelling International’s Victorian-style building at the corner of West 103rd Street and Amsterdam Avenue.
The 25-year-old congregation began meeting in a small karate studio in 1998 — in the community that, four decades earlier, inspired the Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim musical “West Side Story.”
More coverage from New York
• In the Bronx, a blessed visit to a Ghanaian immigrant congregation
• This diverse Long Island congregation is full of conversion stories
• United Nations of Faith: Read all the stories
Don’t look for any Jets or Sharks in Upper West Manhattan’s pews, but the church counts members from every continent except Australia and Antarctica.
“It’s ethnically and culturally a very diverse congregation,” said Tim Norman, a domestic missionary who moved to New York with his wife, Tammy, in 2019. “We have five continents represented, and that’s a blessing.
“One thing you learn in New York City, if you come from the South, is that the church is not a Southern White institution,” he added. “It’s a worldwide institution with people of all colors and races and backgrounds, and that’s a refreshing insight.”
This story appears in the October print edition of The Christian Chronicle.
Photo by Audrey Jackson
Faith. Family. Fastballs. 