While Nathan Creitz was a student at the University of Mobile, he began to sense God’s plan for his life. Involved with campus ministries, Nathan took part in several summer mission trips that led to a series of events, eventually involving him in planting a new church in Boston.
While in Boston, Nathan met a girl named Kim from the Queens borough in New York City. They married, and three years ago Nathan and his young family moved to Queens to plant City Life Church in Ridgewood, N.Y.
“Queens has about 2.3 million people and a hundred different neighborhoods,” Nathan said. “Each of those neighborhoods is in need of Gospel-preaching, believing churches that most of those neighborhoods don’t have at this point. The Lord led us to Ridgewood. Within a mile (of the church), in this neighborhood, there are 100,000 people.”
Nathan has partnered with churches in the past to canvas the neighborhood surrounding the church. Examples include handing out water bottles at a subway stop or packs of gum as people walk the streets – whatever can result in information about the church getting into neighbors’ hands.
“In order to plant this church in this neighborhood, we need to go deep and wide,” Nathan stated. “My family, we can go deep in people’s lives. We can build relationships. We can develop ongoing conversations with people. With 100,000 people around our church, we’re not going to meet everybody. But with a mission team and with people coming to help, we can go wide in the neighborhood. Apart from that deep and wide mentality, we wouldn’t be where we are.”
While Nathan and City Life Church want your physical presence to help reach their community, they could use help in two additional ways. One is through your prayers. It’s not a light task to plant a church, and sometimes it can feel lonely.
Another way is gifts through the Cooperative Program. “We absolutely rely on (Cooperative Program) support,” Nathan explained. “We are grateful to churches who make Cooperative Program giving a priority.”
If you missed our live Periscope Broadcast where State Missionary Chris Mills talked about Church Planting and Collegiate Student Involvement in New York City with Nathan Creitz, click here for the archive – https://youtu.be/wrHOmKHgmEg
Originally posted October 4, 2015 at A18C.org.
by Dogwood