Preaching Change, 'New Day' Seeks Active Flock
As published in the Norwood News:
On a Sunday last month, in a temporarily converted funeral home in Bedford Park, the Rev. Doug Cunningham preached about change. Standing without a podium or pulpit and speaking without notes, he talked about changing unhealthy lifestyles, government, public schools, the church’s attitudes toward homosexuality and the changes God can make in your life.
This was the first ever worship service of New Day United Methodist Church, a small but passionate group of Christians in search of a permanent home, an open-minded congregation and every opportunity to bring their justice-based message to the north Bronx.
“Jesus confronted injustice, I think that’s why he was executed,” said Cunningham, founder and pastor of New Day. “The church has been too silent for too long.”
For the past 15 years, Cunningham, 52, has worked as a pastor, first in Baltimore and later in Brooklyn, where his family moved shortly before 9/11. Cunningham started his ministerial career as a human rights advocate and missionary in his wife’s home country of the Philippines.
In November 2006, he submitted a proposal for a new, socially-minded parish to the superintendent of the local district (which includes New York City) of the national United Methodist Church (UMC). “I’ve felt that this is my calling for several years,” he said.
The 2006 proposal set in motion a process of conferences, research and negotiation with UMC leadership, which allowed Cunningham to refine his initial proposal, he said. This past summer, UMC issued grant money to get New Day off the ground.
In search of diversity, New Day leaders reviewed census data and visited neighborhoods around New York City. Norwood and Bedford Park came out ahead of Jamaica, Queens and Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
“The two most striking things about the area were the ethnic and cultural diversity and the number of community organizations,” Cunningham said. “This is not a passive community.”
Last month’s service featured live music performed on a keyboard, drums, cello and saxophone. Song lyrics, in English and Spanish, were projected onto a wall at the front of the room. New Day’s music leader, Jorge Lockward, encouraged everyone to take part even if they didn’t speak the language. “God understands even when you sing ‘la la la’,” he told the room.
Later, Cunningham’s daughter Lisa, who teaches history at a south Bronx high school, performed a spoken word testimonial about the role of God in her life.
Future services will also include “liturgical dance,” or dance for worship. It will be taught by ministerial candidate Sheila Beckford, who, along with Lockward and the Cunninghams, make up the church’s founding team. “Dance is a ministry just as important as sermon or prayer,” she said. “Dance crosses boundaries. You don’t have to speak the same language I speak for movement to move you.”
The 21 people who joined the founders and musicians at New Day’s first service were a mix of local residents and visitors from as far afield as Cunningham’s former parish in Baltimore.
Cynthia Smith, 29, moved to her home on the Grand Concourse four years ago. Since then she has traveled to her former neighborhood in Brooklyn to attend church. She took part in the focus group that helped plan New Day and was posted at the door to greet people for the first service.
“I love the fact that it’s diverse and the fact that everyone’s welcome,” Smith said.
New Day’s fund-raising efforts continue. The church recently received additional sponsorship from the UMC’s General Board of Church and Society, which, according to its Web site, speaks out on a long list of human rights issues, including immigration reform, gun control and AIDS relief worldwide.
Cunningham doesn’t see New Day in competition with the established churches already in the neighborhood. “We’re looking mainly for people who are not going to church,” he said. “We’re looking for boundary-crossing people, not people who will be satisfied in their enclave; people who are progressive, justice-oriented and open to new things.”
Lockward was pleased with New Day’s debut. “I measure a service by how long people want to linger afterwards,” he said. It was almost 1 p.m., an hour after service ended, and he was talking to several people at once and just starting to clean up.
tagged with: Bedford Park, Bronx, Craft 1, New Day Church, Norwood News
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