ONGOING ACTIVITIES

Outreach to the Business Community
Since 1984, scores of Bible study groups have been initiated for men and women by the New York Fellowship throughout downtown and midtown areas of New York City and the tri-state metropolitan area. Dinner groups meet regularly at the New York Fellowship Hospitality House on East 32nd Street. The New Canaan Society, a weekly men's study group of some 250 men in Connecticut, and the NCS Manhattan Chapter of some 100 men, was founded in collaboration with leadership from the New York Fellowship. Individual pastoral care and spiritual direction is a key element of our focus with business leaders.

Leadership Development
Dozens of college-age men and women, and seminarians, have spent a summer or one to two years associated with the New York Fellowship for the purpose of spiritual growth and service to the poor. Most of these young adults have since moved on to develop projects or ministries in other areas. These include: the director of a foundation for abandoned boys in the Midwest, the founder of a street ministry in Nashville, Tennessee, a physician's assistant who travels to help the poor of the third world, a social service counselor, the director of a men's transitional center who later went on to run faith-based initiatives for the Bush Administration, a director and staff associate for FOCUS (a ministry to private high school students), and others who have gone on to pastor churches or work in other service venues.

Diplomats and Public Officials
New York’s unique access to leaders from the United Nations has provided countless opportunities for hosting foreign diplomats, who are then able to return to their countries with the Christian message, where it has often been suppressed. The New York Fellowship has ongoing relationships with leaders in the National Prayer Breakfast movement in Washington, D.C., the International Convocation of Faith, Values, and Leadership Forum in Europe, as well as having helped to initiate the Annual Governor and First Lady's Prayer Breakfast in Albany, N.Y, which drews crowds of 1000 to 2000 attendees from 1996 to 2006. 

Crisis Counseling
In the wake of September 11th, NYF director B.J. Weber spent countless days and hours at the family grief center established at the N.Y. Armory, just a few blocks from the NYF office. Prayer and spiritual support were also offered on a daily basis to NYC firefighters, during their long season spent recoiling from the trauma of their loss. The New York Fellowship has always maintained a spirit of availability to allow its director to respond immediately to whatever emergency needs arise—whether to help a young mother of four who suddenly finds herself widowed with no financial means, or to provide emergency counseling to a marriage reeling in crisis from sudden emotional disaster.

Professional Sports Chaplaincy
From 1980 to 2001, B.J. Weber spent many Sunday mornings speaking at chapel services for the Mets, Giants, Jets, other visiting professional teams, but most singularly focused as Chaplain for the New York Yankees. B.J. served for a decade as a board member of Baseball Chapel, Inc, where he helped organize the national planning strategy for baseball chapel programs throughout the country. His personal friendships with many pro-players continue to open up unique doors for outreach and create opportunities for players to share their testimonies of faith.

Outreach to Urban Underprivileged Kids
Motivated by the success of the Chicago Little League, founded by NYF friend Bob Muzikowski, the New York Fellowship in 1993 assisted a coalition of volunteers to start the first chartered Little League that Harlem had in 25 years. Many hundreds of underprivileged children now participate free of charge, with equipment and uniforms provided.

NYF initiatives and relationships with other organization and churches have resulted in the development of tutoring, vacation Bible school, camping opportunities, and field trips for these East Harlem children. Since 1993, the NYF has operated an annual Kids to Camp scholarship campaign which sends needy, urban youth to one week of sleep-away camp, where they learn about how a relationship with God can sustain the challenges of their lives.

Retreats
The New York Fellowship provides leadership for weekend men's retreats which the New Canaan Society initiates in various locales both regionally and nationally. The New York Fellowship also hosts monastic retreats for national business leaders. Some of these retreats take place at an historic Trappist monastery where an atmosphere of solitude, silence, prayer and meditation lay the foundation for times of study and dialogue. The men involved attest that these retreats offer life-changing and profound experiences, unparalleled by anything else they have done.

Benevolence/Street Ministry
Based on B.J. Weber's five years (1979-1984) of street ministry in Times Square, the NYF has created opportunities for young single men to carry on this work about which he cares so deeply. From 1990 to 1993, NYF interns ran a feeding program, social service assistance center, and Bible studies for the homeless, based out of a church in Manhattan’s lower east side. From 1993 to 1997, B.J. functioned as an advisor in the development of a faith-based government funded men's transitional center, and in 1997 launched the Urban Youth Outreach to mentor inner city at-risk youth in Brooklyn.