NYC #3 – Flushing, Queens
How does God look at the cities? At NYC? At the borough of Queens, where our church has been called by God to serve?
Did you know?
Queens is one of the most ethnically diverse urban areas in the world.
The percentage of people in Queens who are foreign born is 48.5%.
Queens has more spoken languages than anywhere in the world – more than 160.
Of those over the age of five residing in Queens, 56.16% speak a language other than English in the home.
The population of Queens is 2,405,464. Of the 109 square miles of land in Queens, the population density calculates into 22,068 persons per square mile.
Queens is the home to 49.6% of NYC’s Asian population. Among the five boroughs, Queens has the largest population of Chinese, Indian, Korean, Filipino, Bangladeshi, and Pakistani Americans.
Queens has 738 religious organizations, and 49.4% of the Queens population is connected to a religious congregation – Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist.
What about Flushing?
Flushing is 69.2% Asian – 49,830 of its 72,008 population.
Flushing is home to one of the largest and fastest-growing Chinatowns in the world, with more than 30,000 residents born in China alone, the largest by this metric outside of Asia.
The cultural heart of Flushing Chinatown is Main Street between Kissena Boulevard and Roosevelt Avenue, the third busiest intersection in NYC (behind Times Square and Herald Square).
Flushing is among the most religiously diverse communities in America, a model for religious pluralism, hosting 414 religious sites, more than most other NYC neighborhoods.
The Flushing Remonstrance signed by colonists in 1657 is considered a precursor to the United States Constitution’s provision on freedom of religion in the Bill of Rights. The signers protested the Dutch colonial authorities’ persecution of Quakers.
Why are all these fascinating facts and figures important?
This frames the vision of our church – to serve as a church of all nations for all nations. And this describes our mission – who we must be reaching for Christ.
Let us be among those, as former U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt said, who are “daring greatly”.
~ Pastor Dave
