Uprooting Their Texas Life to Plant a Church in Post-Christian NYC

“Why do I have no family in New York City, no experience in New York City, no history in New York City, but yet I feel like I belong in it, in my gut?”

That’s the question Garrett Raburn found himself asking a few years ago. It shocked his wife, Gabi, who thought they had “settled down” in Fort Worth, Texas.

Hear their story of adventure in this fifth and final episode of our series on missionaries.

You can connect with us through email at gps@billygraham.org or on Billy Graham Radio on Facebook.

Transcript

MUSIC STARTS

Gabi Raburn:
00:00:00 So, we got married in 2016. We bought a house. I have a twin sister. She lived 15 minutes down the road. She got married. So I’m thinking, great, like, we’re settled.
 
Michael Shurbutt: Gabi Raburn and her husband Garrett were newlyweds with two good jobs, two cars, a house, and all the comforts of a suburban life in Texas. Then Garrett shocked his wife with an idea that seemed to come out of nowhere.

Gabi:
00:00:25 He said, “Babe, how cool would it be to do ministry in New York?” And I was like, “What?! What are you talking about? Like, we do ministry in Fort Worth and we live here.”

Michael: Garrett felt a pull towards New York City that he couldn’t quite explain. So he and his wife had a big decision to make: stay in their comfort zone, or move 1,500 miles away and essentially become missionaries in the biggest city in the U.S. I’m Michael Shurbutt.

Jim Kirkland: And I’m Jim Kirkland. You’re listening to the fifth and final episode of our November series on missionaries. Today we’re taking a look at missionary life right here in the United States—in particular, New York City. This is GPS: God. People. Stories., it’s an outreach of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

Billy Graham often preached about the importance of journeying out to tell people about Jesus.



Billy Graham:
00:01:19 The greatest commission that Christ ever gave was to “go into all the world and preach the gospel.” Jesus Christ knew that the Gospel and the Gospel alone would solve the problems and ills of the world.

Jim: We’ll hear more from Billy Graham in a few minutes. First, I want to remind you, if you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to GPS, that way you’ll never miss an episode. You can subscribe to GPS: God. People. Stories. wherever you listen to podcasts.

Michael: And here’s a link you might find helpful—for yourself or to share with a friend or family member—FindPeaceWithGod.net. That’s our website that explains the Christian faith, and if you have questions, you can talk with one of our trained chat coaches, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Again, that’s FindPeaceWithGod.net.

Intro: GPS: God. People. Stories.

MUSIC TRANSITION

Garrett Raburn:
00:02:19 I grew up initially in east Texas.
 
Gabi:
00:02:21 I grew up in Florida, actually, and then moved to Illinois around the Chicagoland suburb area when I was 10.
 
Michael: Garrett and Gabi Raburn grew up in Christian homes, but there were some differences in how they internalized their faith. 

Gabi:
00:02:35 I would say I accepted Christ when I was in middle school, but always had, you know, God, church kind of humming in the background. My dad was a police officer, so I was always very much on the straight and narrow, couldn’t get away with much with him watching over us.
 
Garrett:
00:02:48 My dad was not a police officer, but he would’ve made a great one because he was definitely enforcing the boundaries. So, he kept me, I would say, and I mean this literally, out of jail. Like he kept me from making, you know, larger-scale mistakes as a young guy, but everything I could do without him kicking me out of the house, I pretty much did.
 
Jim: Garrett moved around a lot when he was young. His parents were divorced, and his family was blended and reblended several times. But faith in God was a constant and that was thanks to his dad. 

Garrett:
00:03:19 My dad was extremely present and engaged despite the circumstance, and faith was a great deal of what he emphasized. He led me to the Lord in prayer when I was 9 years old. And that sealed for me an identity as a Christian, a self-presentation as a Christian. Unfortunately, the one thing it didn’t do is cause me to make a real and sincere decision, I think, because I’ve got about 10 years after that of just evidence of not having the Holy Spirit.
 
Jim: Looking back on his teenage years, Garrett described himself as ‘everything that’s wrong with high school … in a person.’

Garrett:
00:03:56 I was definitely trouble with girls. I was trying to sleep around. I was extremely flirtatious. I was narcissistic. So everything, every conversation would turn to be about me and just kind of was wrong, you know? I played sports, had a sports car, it was kind of everything that’s wrong with high school in a person, you know. So some mild partying, you know, drinking, experimenting with substances, and things like that, and definitely had friends and definitely enjoyed life and perhaps to an outside observer, they might have winked at it and been like, Ah, you know, teenage stuff, you know, kid stuff, but my heart was pretty well given over to self and whatever felt fun.

Michael: Garrett played baseball in college and attended a couple of different schools before landing at Texas A&M. 

Jim: It’s pretty common for students to stray away from their faith during their college years, but for Garrett, however, the opposite happened.

Garrett:
00:04:42 I was already feeling the stirrings of like, I think I want to be somebody different than I was in high school. I didn’t really know how to do that. I wasn’t necessarily sure that God was the key, but I was ready for something new when I first went to college—and I probably couldn’t have said it any less vague than that, but that’s where I was at. And then, one thing leads to another and I kind of go through this half-in, half-out phase where I’m kind of hanging around church and interested in the things of God and new feelings are stirring about God and life and all this, and yet the momentum of my old habits still kind of had some sway and there was just back-and-forth kind of a thing.

Jim: Garrett kept spending time with Christian students and ended up in a small group for the first time in his life. As he read the Bible and shared his life with the other guys in his group, God drew Garrett closer and closer. 


Garrett:
00:05:28 There was a time when I looked up and realized I’m all in with Jesus Christ and nothing else is going to work for me. But it happened—it was more of a realization in retrospect than like, This is happening right now. I just kind of looked back and realized just like I’m not who I was six months ago. I’m definitely not who I was two years ago. And around junior/senior in college, I even knew that not only was Christ the only thing that I wanted driving my life, but I also knew only helping other people see that, facilitating faith, encouraging people in that direction—in other words, ministry, a call to ministry, it all came on at the same time. And by the time I left college, my immediate plan was to go to seminary. I knew that I was supposed to minister in the local church for the rest of my life. It was pretty clear that—I remember saying at the time, I don’t think anything else will get me out of bed in the morning with any joy other than to serve God directly in those ways.

Michael: While Garrett graduated from college and got his first job at a church, Gabi was at Texas Christian University studying to become a nurse. Their paths crossed in Fort Worth when Gabi was a senior in college.

Gabi:
00:06:27 In my senior year at TCU, I started going to a church in Fort Worth called Watermark church, and Garrett was already there serving as the young adults pastor for this ministry called The Porch. They started in Dallas, Garrett brought the ministry over to the Fort Worth campus, and I wanted to get involved and wanted to serve. And so, we were just friends, acquaintances, really. I was still in school finishing up my nursing degree, and, so there was like nothing romantic at all.

Michael: But when Gabi graduated from college and she and Garrett found themselves in the same stage of life, the mutual respect and admiration they had for each other grew into something more.

Garrett:
00:07:06 So I asked her on a date and that was that.

Gabi:
00:07:08 It was quick. We dated for six months; we were engaged for six months. So it was the whole courtship, I guess, was like a year.

Jim: They became Mr. and Mrs. Raburn in 2016 and started building a life together in Fort Worth. 

Gabi:
00:07:21 We bought a house. I have a twin sister. She lived 15 minutes down the road. She got married. So I’m thinking, great, like, we’re settled. Like, we’re going to raise our family here; we’ve got family close by; his family’s a few hours’ drive away, you know, we’re good. Garrett was working as the young adults pastor at the local church, and I was attending; I was serving. I was working as a pediatric nurse at the local hospital, like, it just felt like we were settled.

Jim: So, what happened next really caught Gabi off guard.

Gabi:
00:07:49 About what, six months into marriage, I think, I, you know, came into our bedroom and Garrett was reading a book.

Garrett:
00:07:54 I’m reading this book, “Why God Made Cities,” by Tim Keller, and, you know, he had given his life and much of his ministry to stirring up urban church planting and all this. And so of course, after reading that book, it sounded like the most strategic use of a life was to move to an urban area and give your life to influence for Jesus Christ.

Gabi:
00:08:09 And he’s telling me about it and he said, “Babe, how cool would it be to do ministry in New York?” And I was like, “What?! What are you talking about?” Like, “We do ministry in Fort Worth and we live here.”

Michael: Gabi didn’t know what to make of Garrett’s big idea. They had a great life in Texas¬—and her husband was suddenly talking about leaving it all behind.

Jim: Garrett had loved cities from the time he was a little boy from east Texas. He specifically loved visiting Dallas when he was on vacation.

Garrett:
00:08:39 I thought it was the grandest, hugest, most amazing—like, I would stare out the windshield until like the big buildings, like I could see the big buildings, you know?

Jim: Now, New York City is about seven times the size of Dallas … and of course there are a lot of other differences too, among them the religious landscape. In 2019, Barna research ranked New York among the top 20 “Most Post-Christian Cities in America.”

Michael: And in 2016, around the time Gabi and Garrett were debating whether to move, New York made Barna’s top 10 list of America’s “Churchless Cities.” Garrett was itching to go there and be part of the urban-church-planting movement within the U.S.

Garrett:
00:09:19 I just always had a love for cities. And then I found a love for Christ when I was in college. And when those two combined, I read this book and it’s about the love of Christ, the love of cities, and my worlds kind of come together. And all of a sudden, in a strange way, I felt like, why do I have no family in New York City? No experience in New York City, no history in New York City, but yet I feel like I belong in it, in my gut. And then we entered into the tale as old as time of the missionary husband who wants to leave, and the wife who is caught completely off guard.

Gabi:
00:09:51 I really like the suburbs. I like the country. I like the slow life. I really very much—[laugh] I like a slow-paced life. It’s my personality.

Michael: But Gabi couldn’t ignore her husband’s dream—and maybe even call from God—to help spread the Gospel of Christ in New York. So the newlyweds entered into an 18-month period of prayer, discussion, and discernment to figure out whether to stay or go.

Jim: In the end, it wasn’t a specific call to New York City that led Gabi out of her comfort zone. It was a call to be there for Garrett.

Gabi:
00:10:24 I came to the conclusion of, you know, I feel called to support my husband in ministry, and I’ve always felt called to support him in this ministry, whatever ministry he’s doing. I feel called to support him, and I felt flexible and sincerely open to this journey.

Jim: And so, a year-and-a-half after Garrett had mentioned his wild idea, he and Gabi sold their house, sold their two cars, and most of their belongings, and headed Northeast on a 1,500-mile journey to the Big Apple.

Garrett:
00:10:54 June 1, we were here in New York City, drove into town with, you know, our—you’ve heard it before, you know, ‘We drove into town with a dollar and a dream’ and, you know, all our stuff was in this U-Haul. And, that’s what we did. So it was June of 2019 when we moved into Brooklyn.

Michael: Just across the East River from Manhattan, Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City’s five boroughs.

Jim: Yeah, if Brooklyn and the other boroughs were their own city, Brooklyn would be the third-largest city in the country, just behind Los Angeles and Chicago. Two-and-a-half million people from every race, religion, and culture that you can think of are all packed into an area of about 100 square miles.

Michael: And the Raburns weren’t navigating all of that on their own. They had gotten connected with the Send Network—part of the North American Mission Board—and through that network, they met the leaders of Bridge Church NYC, which was 5 years old at the time.

Jim: Gabi and Garrett began a year-long internship with Bridge Church in Brooklyn. The Send Network also found temporary housing for them.

Garrett:
00:11:59 So there’s something called the David Dean Mission House that’s in South Park Slope in Brooklyn. People had had a vision for that to be church-planter housing. They knew, you know, someone had thought about us before we thought about New York. Someone thought about us and thought, we know that there’s going to be church planters who need to get an apartment in New York City, and that is very hard to do because, you know, landlords, they say, Oh, why is this guy applying for an apartment, or why is this couple applying for an apartment when they have jobs they just quit in Texas? I need to see that you have a New York job before I give you my apartment. So getting an apartment is a huge deal. Well, we didn’t even have to worry with that because the David Dean was there. It also helped keep our expenses low because they don’t charge as much as a regular apartment. So it was just a fantastic resource.

Jim: Then came an adjustment period. The Raburns had left behind a three-bedroom, 1,800-square-foot house in Texas. Their new home consisted of two studio apartments cobbled together to make a one-bedroom.

Garrett:
00:12:54 It became a one-bedroom, two-bathroom, two kitchenettes, and we’re probably looking at around 650 square feet. 

Michael: Gabi found a job at a pediatric clinic on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, about 10 miles away from their apartment and an hourlong commute on the subway.

Gabi:
00:13:13 I had never taken public transit before, never taken the subway, never taken the bus. I was so proud of myself when I took the bus by myself. I came home and I was like—it was a big deal.

Michael: After about a year at the mission house, Gabi and Garrett found their own apartment to rent.

Jim: By that time, the COVID pandemic was hitting the city hard, and it put their plans to launch a new church on hold. 

Michael: In the meantime, they began to gather together a small group of friends inside a house church—including a fellow Texan who had moved to New York from Fort Worth. 

Jim: Their group grew from three to ten and eventually … about 30. 

Garrett:
00:13:46 We get to about 30 and decide it’s time to officially launch services, even though they tell you you’re supposed to be about double that size. I know the church planter so-called book says don’t launch till you have 75. And I see the reasons for that, because, you know, your Sunday service is going to take a lot of your resources, and if people are having to serve every week, that’s not good. If everybody’s volunteering, who’s in the seats? There’s a lot of practical reasons why they say don’t launch officially until you have 75 people, but after waiting out a pandemic a year-and-a-half, I just felt like we were either going to launch or our vision was going to fizzle. I didn’t know how much longer we could hang on to even to our 30 people if we didn’t start taking steps forward. So we went for it in September of 2021.
 
Jim: They called it Mission City Church and held their first services at 5 p.m. on Sundays inside another church—Next Step Community Church—which is in the heart of Brooklyn.

Garrett:
00:14:31 The pastoral team there was just incredible to open their doors. They knew we were launching soon and needed a space, and, we’re in a tight spot. We’d actually rented a theater, but it fell through and then all of a sudden, Next Step Community Church took us in and we had services there for six months. We then rented a school cafeteria on the sixth floor of a Seventh Day Adventist school—all this is in downtown Brooklyn, and we were there for the better part of a year, and then a place at Brooklyn Music School opened up and we’re now renting Brooklyn Music School.
 
Michael: If you’ve ever served at a church that doesn’t have its own building, you know the amount of labor that goes into setting up and tearing down each week—and holding any kind of special event can be particularly challenging.

Garrett:
00:15:09 You’ll do more logistical lifting for less discipleship here. Like, if you want to, say, have an event, you know, at a typical church or one that’s like, maybe where many of these listeners to this podcast are, or like the one we come from, to do an event was easy. We had a building; we controlled it. You just made sure none of the other ministries had it. You picked your night on the calendar and you did it.
 
Michael: Not so easy when you don’t own the building. Mission City Church typically needs to rent out a totally different space if they have a non-Sunday event. That can cost a lot of money, and there are just more steps to take … literally.

Garrett:
00:15:45 One time we needed a curtain hung to block something in a room we were renting, and we just needed a curtain hung, and it needed this crossbar that was like minim seven feet long or something. Well, it couldn’t be mailed to our P.O. Box ’cause we don’t have anywhere to mail it. So we had it mailed to our apartment, and then you’re like, OK, is the landlord going to be OK with a big old, you know, thing sitting in our lobby for a couple days? So we’re like, All right, sure. And then OK, but now I have to get it from our home to the church and it won’t fit in the trunk of an Uber ’cause it’s too long. So you call an Uber, and then Uber drives away. You’re like, All right, I’m walking. So now, you’re walking a mile, I don’t know, 15 minutes, something like that, through Brooklyn with a 7-foot cardboard package on your shoulder, drawing weird looks, sweating. Or you’re like, Well, it’s cold outside, so that means you have your big jacket on and you’re sweating under that. All this just to hang a curtain, to block a distraction in a room that you’ve rented, to have an event for a couple hours. So you’re just going to do more. You’ve gotta have a long patience for logistical lifting, to do less discipleship, to get to the hearts of the people to do the same work.

Jim: It really can be exhausting to do ministry in Brooklyn. So Garrett and Gabi are thrilled and thankful whenever they get to see God move in people’s lives.

Michael: Since the church officially opened its doors two years ago, God has brought people from all walks of life to Mission City Church. About 50 to 60 people show up each Sunday at 11, and there are several new faces every week.

Jim: Some of the visitors hear about the church by word-of-mouth. Others spot their ads on social media.

Garrett:
00:17:19 Sometimes people, they’ll say, Well, I found you on Instagram. And I’ll say, Did you find us or did we find you? [chuckle] And sometimes they’ll say, You found me … with an ad! And I was like, All right, well, I’m glad it worked! So anyway, we meet people through all those avenues—and sometimes just right off the street, you know? Every once in a while—this happened actually last Sunday, you know, we said, How’d you find us? And the guy said, I just saw the sign and felt like I should turn in.

Jim: That’s also what happened with a young woman a couple of years ago.

Garrett:
00:17:44 She lived nearby. She saw our sign. She turns in. And she traveled a lot, so we, you know, we didn’t see a lot of her, but about every month or six weeks, she would just keep coming back.

Michael: Garrett could see that she was deeply spiritual and looking for something more. Sometimes they wouldn’t see her for a few months, but she always came back.

Jim: Now, anyone is welcome at Mission City Church, but those who decide to become members have to take several significant steps.

Garrett:
00:18:09 We kind of have a high standard for membership. We ask everyone to sign a member covenant, be agreed upon on certain doctrines. We got a strong doctrinal backbone. We ask everybody to meet weekly in small groups, you know. And so there’s a significant—and by ask, I mean it’s part of membership, you know, if you stop doing it, then it’s a significant choice with the way we set the church up.
 
Jim: The young woman Garrett was talking about kept coming back off and on for about a year. Garrett and Gabi were always happy to see her when she returned, but they weren’t sure if she would ever be interested in becoming a member.

Garrett:
00:18:42 And then one day she just handed me one of our member covenants, signed, and said she wanted to get into a small group. So just like that, I called Gabi, like, “Hey, she just joined the church today. Did you see that?”
 
Michael: True to her word, the woman joined a small group through the church.

Garrett:
00:18:54 And as she got around a group of Christian women who were able to get access and she gave them just total access to her life, they were able to start coaching her through how she thinks about not just spirituality and faith in general, but her relational choices and, you know, just all of all of the ways that a person starts to put one foot in front of the other and walk with God. She did that and it’s just a real, it’s one of God’s great, I guess, trophies, if you will, of just grace and how He just drew someone to Himself in a new and fresh way and help them start putting their faith into action.
 
Michael: The Raburns have been blessed to witness many other stories of changed lives during the two years Mission City Church has been up and running.

Jim: Garrett describes Mission City as a “commuter church,” where the members come from all over the city and surrounding area. That’s one factor that led Garrett and Gabi to recently move out of New York City proper and into a home in Hoboken, New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan.

Michael: The decision was largely a financial one, as Brooklyn rents skyrocketed after a brief dip during the pandemic. And, the Raburns don’t mind the extra space, especially since welcoming a baby girl into the family in 2021.

Jim: They still spend a lot of time in Manhattan and Brooklyn, for work and for church, and their heart is very much in NYC.

Garrett:
00:20:10 You couldn’t drag me out of here, you know? So to be honest, I love it. I’m addicted to it. It’s a joy, it’s a challenge. And I love it. There’s a sense in which, you know, when God calls you into a work, or it can feel, it overlaps some with adventure, you know? And, when God calls you into a certain kind of work, all of a sudden you can just tell in your heart that’s the water you’re supposed to walk on by His miraculous grace. And anything else would be the boat, you know? And so this is our water for now, and it’s where we want to walk.

MUSIC TRANSITION

Jim: We just heard from Garrett and Gabi Raburn, whose faith in God led them from the suburbs of Fort Worth, Texas, to the heart of New York City.

Michael: The Raburns are a great example of how following Christ can be a real adventure. And we don’t want to end this episode without inviting you along for the ride. 

Jim: If you haven’t yet put your faith in Christ and you are feeling the call to do so right now, or if you happen to have some questions about who Jesus is, or any other spiritual topic, we have a place that you can go for answers. It’s FindPeaceWithGod.net. That’s FindPeaceWithGod.net. 

MUSIC STARTS

Voice-over: You’re listening to GPS: God. People. Stories., a podcast production of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

Billy Graham:
00:21:34 The greatest commission that Christ ever gave was to “go into all the world and preach the gospel.”

Voice-over: Billy Graham …

Billy Graham:
00:21:40 Jesus Christ knew that the Gospel and the Gospel alone would solve the problems and ills of the world. The Gospel alone has light for a world of darkness. We are to go out to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ and out of the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ comes all the social revolution that the world has known in the past few hundred years. The Gospel recognizes the tremendous fact of sin and proposes an adequate remedy. “Let not your heart be troubled,” said Jesus. Humanity wants comfort in its sorrow, a light in its darkness, peace in its turmoil, rest in its weariness, and healing in its sickness and diseases. The Gospel gives all of this to man and more.

MUSIC FADES

Jim: If you want to experience what the Gospel of Jesus Christ has to offer you, invite Christ into your life today. You can go to FindPeaceWithGod.net and click on “Begin a relationship with Jesus Christ.” Or, if you’d like to talk with someone, they’re waiting for you. Call our 24-hour prayer line at 855-255-PRAY. That’s 855-255-P-R-A-Y. 

Michael: We hope you’ve had a chance to listen to all five episodes in our November series on missionaries. If you missed any, be sure to go back and have a listen.

Jim: We have been learning the story of Garrett and Gabi Raburn. Garrett is the lead pastor of Mission City Church in Brooklyn, New York. Speaking of New York, there’s a pretty good chance you may have seen New York City on TV last week, with watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade as part of your holiday routine. But for many New Yorkers, this time of year is far from festive. The city is facing multiple crises right now: busloads of migrants are rolling in, homeless shelters are at capacity as temperatures begin to drop below freezing, and this is just to name a few of the current issues.

Michael: We asked Garrett about his hopes for the future as he and his church continue to serve in New York City.

Garrett:
00:23:40 The city is a weird place of just some of the heights of human riches and the depths of human struggle are all just combined right here. And our hope would be that there would be a sense that every human being could find at an immediate level what they need to navigate life, but at a more deep level, what they need to navigate eternity—and that’s of course, a connection with God through Christ.

Michael: Amen. And we want to thank the Raburn family and each of the missionaries who shared their stories with us this month. And thank you for listening and for sharing these episodes. Be sure to subscribe to GPS, so you don’t miss out when we come back in 2024. I’m Michael Shurbutt. 

MUSIC STARTS

Jim: And I’m Jim Kirkland. GPS: God. People. Stories., it’s an outreach of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association—Always Good News.

CLOSING MUSIC

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