This is an insider’s story, my personal exploration of how the God
I love is working in the city I love.

In my late thirties, I saw something that awed me. Right here in my home, in gritty, cynical New York City, I saw Christians worshipping God with peace and joy. Yet, as beautiful as this sight was, my first impulse was to run away. After all, I am a liberal New Yorker. And the way I saw it, Christianity and New York City, the two didn’t mix.

But one thought kept me from running: What if? What if what I had seen were real? The possibility was too magnificent to ignore. So I took a small step of faith. And God opened the door to a love and a hope I never knew possible. This New Yorker had found a new life in Jesus Christ and was not going to run.

But I also was not going to run from New York City. Seeking to find what it meant to be both a Christian and a New Yorker, and to reconcile my progressive ideals with a religion that still made me suspicious, I set off on a journey that took me to five boroughs and a few suburbs. I found people of every color, culture, language, and class, loving and worshipping God in their own unique and beautiful ways. I found believers who aspired to Jesus’s model of radical love and who had much to teach me about humility, tolerance, and redemption.

 Lifted Up in New York City is dedicated to these new friends who welcomed me like a sister.

 And, yes, this really is New York City.

 Lanie McNulty, 2009

The Team: Sue Hanna (fine art printer), Maria Matthews (editor), Ilana Lobet (framer), Eddy Bishai (musician), and Angela Workman (vocalist).

The Churches and Ministries: Abounding Grace Ministries, Bethel Gospel Assembly, Cathedral Church of the Intercessor, Christ Tabernacle, Christian Pentecostal Church, Church of the Gateway, Concerts of Prayer Greater New York, Greater A.M.E. Cathedral, Love Gospel Assembly, Manhattan Bible Church, Metro Ministries, Mount Moriah Baptist Church, New Hope Community Church, Shuvah Yisrael Messianic Jewish Synagogue, and Trinity Baptist Church. 

Special thanks to Karin Bravin, Caroline Harrison, Tracey Kemble, Marcus Samuelsson, Keith Boyd and Trinity Baptist Church, Mako Fujimura and the International Arts Movement, and Kirk van der Swaagh and the All Things Project.