By five o’clock we were on the streets. “There’s no formula for inviting them in,” Steve Oth, a wise and experienced missionary, advised us. “You’ve just got to love them into the church.” And so we did – for three and a half hours, literally hundreds of people were “loved” into Christ’s presence.
The night ended with the celebration of the Eucharist. How fitting: for Christ took on flesh again that Monday night – our flesh – and we became his feet, his hands, his presence to all these people. I guess we brought Christmas early to the Big Apple this year.