New Church Partner: Joy Manhattan
This year, we partnered with two new churches! We're excited to announce our new church partner, Joy Manhattan, where Lead Pastor Mark Ro also served on the Redeemer East Side pastoral staff.
Church partnerships are important to us because we want to mobilize Christians toward growing a movement of mercy and justice across the five boroughs. This way, all New Yorkers who need hope will have a chance at finding it.
To celebrate our new partnership, Minhee Cho, a member of the Compassion and Justice team that serves New Yorkers in need, shared more about Joy Manhattan:
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Tell us more about Joy Manhattan. What is unique about your church?
Joy Manhattan is a part of Joy Christian Fellowship, a nondenominational, two-site church with campuses in northern New Jersey and New York City. Our campus was specifically founded to engage and make an impact on the city, recognizing its immense influence across culture, business, and politics, as well as the deep brokenness and loneliness that only Jesus can answer. For many of our members, a majority of whom are second generation Asian Americans, Joy Manhattan also represents an evolution of sorts, taking them from the immigrant church of their parents—where the English-speaking ministry may have felt like an afterthought—and giving them an intentional, standalone community that’s made for and by them.
Why was it important for you to partner with HFNY?
We’ve long admired HFNY and how it connects the greater church on issues of mercy and justice. It can feel daunting to try and address the many nuanced and systemic issues plaguing New York. But through HFNY’s organized outreach opportunities, network trainings, and other resources, our members have been able to deepen their commitment to being a conduit for change.
What are mercy and justice needs that your church or congregation is passionate about?
Our congregation has a wide variety of interests when it comes to bringing more of God’s mercy and justice to the city, but we generally see three buckets that Joy Manhattan members gravitate towards: meeting the immediate needs of people impacted by homelessness and poverty in a way that prioritizes their dignity and restoration; leveraging our work, skills, and places of business for God’s purposes, including generous giving; and deepening our knowledge base on mercy and justice issues so that we can act with conviction, honoring God’s heart for his people.
How do you see God at work for mercy and justice here in our city?
This is a tough question and I think has to be prefaced by the fact that we’re speaking from a position of immense privilege, as individuals and as a church. But even in the presence of difficulties and brokenness that are deeper than our own understanding, God’s heart for New York is so abundant—and triumphant. We see it in the countless stories of breakthrough, just even among our members alone. We see it in the beauty of the gospel and its power, not to make “bad” people good, but to make spiritually dead people come alive.
What is your hope for our city?
Our hope is that more of our fellow New Yorkers would experience the gospel in a real and tangible way that changes them from consumers of the city into lovers and servants. It’s a call that is bigger than one church, and we see ourselves as a small part of what God is doing in Manhattan and beyond.
Are you a church that cares about mercy and justice issues? Learn how to partner with us.