{"id":31586,"date":"2015-05-26T00:15:20","date_gmt":"2015-05-26T03:15:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=31586"},"modified":"2016-11-25T00:19:45","modified_gmt":"2016-11-25T03:19:45","slug":"times-square-church-hosts-fleet-week-sailors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2015\/05\/26\/times-square-church-hosts-fleet-week-sailors\/","title":{"rendered":"Times Square Church Hosts Fleet Week Sailors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.christianfighterpilot.com\/images\/navyfleet.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"321\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A Navy <a href=\"http:\/\/www.navy.mil\/submit\/display.asp?story_id=87299\">public affairs article<\/a> talks about the services of the (New York) Times Square Church hosting services for 2,000 during fleet week &#8212; including US service members in town for the event:\u00a0 <!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>TSC&#8217;s Fleet Week Salute Service offered New Yorkers and visitors alike an opportunity to thank Sailors, Coast Guardsmen and Marines in attendance for their service and sacrifice, as well as a chance to extend prayers of support and protection to those serving abroad.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In what appears to be an awkwardly worded paraphrase, the article says<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A relationship with a higher being is an important outlet and escape for service members, said Lt. Phillip Coffman, a Navy Chaplain&#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>An &#8220;escape&#8221; is something that enables someone to take a break from reality or routine; it is a &#8220;temporary distraction&#8221;. Religious faith, and the &#8220;relationship with a higher being&#8221; that goes along with it for Christians, is not an &#8220;escape&#8221; because\u00a0faith is <em>part of<\/em> a Christian&#8217;s reality and routine; it is not a distraction. That said, religious services themselves are often a welcome interruption to the high ops tempo of certain phases of military service, and that appears to have been the case for the troops in New York during fleet week.<\/p>\n<p>One of a few service members spoke of the importance of such services in their lives:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Marine Corps Sgt. Alan Garcia added, &#8220;Church is a big priority in my life. Something that&#8217;s been taught to me is that you can always make time for church. We like to think we are busy, but there is always time in our lives&#8230;&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That&#8217;s an admirable perspective, and its good to hear a US Marine speak publicly and positively about the role of faith in his life &#8212; just like others, including <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2015\/05\/22\/air-force-rebuffs-mikey-weinstein-demand-for-general-olsons-court-martial\/\">General Craig Olson<\/a>, have.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\">Photo credit: \u00a0Fireman Recruit Chelsea DeLuna greets the congregation of Times Square Church at a Sunday service for Fleet Week New York, May 24&#8230; (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Ryan L. Wampler\/Released)<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-like\" data-share=\"true\" data-show-faces=\"true\" data-size=\"small\" data-action=\"like\" data-layout=\"standard\"><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\"><strong>ADVERTISEMENT<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><!-- blogpost --><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-ad-slot=\"2728423835\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6450825356098669\"><\/ins><script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/script><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Navy public affairs article talks about the services of the (New York) Times Square Church hosting services for 2,000 during fleet week &#8212; including US service members in town for the event:\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[5125,5284,96,149,2,36,5124,17,10,171,5123],"class_list":["post-31586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-alan-garcia","tag-chaplain","tag-christian","tag-marines","tag-military","tag-navy","tag-phillip-coffman","tag-religious-expression","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom","tag-times-square-church"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31586\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}