iServe provides teams of students (8th grade and up) and adults with a 5-day missions experience in New York City. These teams…

• Support the mission of local church plants and missionaries
• Staff volunteer-starved NYC ministry organizations
• Host children/youth/seniors programs in underprivileged neighborhoods
• Complete light construction work
• Learn how to pray for the city’s specific needs, and for your own mission field.

If you are interested in participating in iServe, contact us at newyorkiscalling.com.  We welcome you to attend one of our scheduled events or schedule one that fits your group's calendar.

What to Expect?

The specific projects that you and your team will be working on will be determined by needs and opportunities in the city while you are here, but there are a few things can expect.

Expect to participate in what will be an integral part of a long term project.

NYIC is involved in long term ministry with the people and organizations with whom we partner. When teams come, we line them up to participate in projects that have a continual presence in their communities, so our approach and goals for your group will always defer to what is best for the mission here, not what is best for the group. With that in mind, we focus much more on serving than on evangelism or outreach. Through your team's service, doors are opened for those who live here to share the Gospel. The city is weary of "hit-and-run" evangelism, but is open to spiritual conversation from those who are committed to the city by living here. iServe teams open doors for New Yorkers to have credibility as people who are "living for the good of the city."

Expect to interact with cultures different from your own.

As the largest city in the United States, New York is home to hundreds of ethnicities and languages from all over the world. At NewYorkisCalling, we strive to effectively reach out to all people around us, and in New York that necessarily requires that we reach outside of our own cultures. Learning how missionaries adapt to the multi-cultural aspects of an international city is one of the most blessed offerings of iServe

Expect to be challenged to apply your New York missions experience to life in your own hometown.

We serve New York because we have a heart for the city, and we invite you to join us in loving it the way Jesus would. However, your service in New York is intended to activate your own passion for living out mission—and doing it wherever you call home. You will have opportunity during our Symbols Prayer Walk to listen to God's plan for you.

Expect to learn how to pray for New York’s specific needs.

The Symbols Prayer Walk is perhaps the most popular part of iServe. Both students and adults are able to engage with God and each other on a five-hour expedition through some of the most influential places in the world, and worldwide symbols of wealth, fashion, peace, greed, and busyness. As you walk through New York’s most famous landmarks and consider the influence of the people who live and work there, you will learn how to pray for the mission of God.

• Walking shoes (every pair of shoes must be comfortable!)
• Umbrella, small
• Weather-appropriate clothing
• Pillow, small
• Bed Sheet
• Small Bible
• Small backpack
• Toiletries
• One set of Sunday clothing* usually business casual.
• No knives of any kind, tazers, mace, pepper spray, as NYC has strict laws on security.

*In certain areas that we serve, it is important that we respect local culture and tradition that requires women to wear modest blouses and cover their shoulders down to lower thighs.