Impacting Tampa Bay

A new house church led by a local believer in the suburbs of Tampa.  A multi-ethnic discovery group that’s included Hindu, Muslim, and Buddhist seekers along with Christian believers being empowered & trained to lead through hospitality.  A new believer from Iraq. A soccer & bible study night involving Eritrean, Syrian, South American, & other participants. Leaders of an international Christian group trained to better facilitate small group bible discussions. Individual & group conversations about Jesus, as well as bible studies, with Pakistani, Indian, Chinese, and many others.  All of this has taken place in the first two years of Global City Mission’s presence in the Tampa Bay area.

From New York City, Global City Mission has begun expanding our reach to additional global crossroads. Our goal is to build additional teams of disciple-makers and trainers to make an impact for the gospel. One of those cities is the Tampa Bay area.  Sometimes people ask me, “Why Tampa?”  As the city grew on our hearts while back in the Bronx, my family took a drive south to explore the potential of expanding to emerging global cities beyond the Big Apple.  

Tampa was built by immigrants.  In the late 1800’s, Tampa was home to about 5000 residents, but by 1900, 10,000 new immigrants had arrived to call Tampa Bay home. The city in its early years was largely built by Italians, Spaniards, Cubans, and Eastern European Jews. 

Today, Tampa Bay is a re-emerging global city, as the metro area expands to 4 million people & growing. Tampa, St. Petersburg, and an expanse of suburbs stretch across the bay area representing a strategic & important mission field. “Out of the top 50 most populated metropolitan areas in the United States, Tampa is the 50th in the percentage of the population that attends a religious service of any kind” (peoplegroups.info).  Tampa Bay is home to large numbers of Indians, Arabs, Bosnians, South Americans, and many others from the Caribbean, Africa, and other corners of the world. University of South Florida is host to large numbers of international students from China, India, and elsewhere. For many, Tampa Bay may be “off the radar” as a mission field, but Global City Mission is aiming to build a team to advance disciple-making in this dynamic metro area. 

Are you are interested in joining with Global City Mission to help advance a mission initiative in Tampa? If so, we want to hear from you.  

J.Looney
Tampa, FL