Carter Conlon

Carter Conlon (born 1953) is a Canadian-born American pastor and author. He is best known as senior pastor of Times Square Church in New York City.

Biography

Conlon was born and raised in Noranda, Quebec. He graduated from Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario where he received a bachelor's degree in law and sociology. In 1987, he left his 12-year career as a police officer to enter full-time ministry. He founded a church, a Christian school, and a food bank in Riceville, Canada. He owned and operated a sheep farm as well. During those years, he also traveled throughout the country—speaking at various churches from Prince Edward Island to Alberta, to the Inuit people in the Arctic.

In 1994, he joined the pastoral staff of Times Square Church at the invitation of founding pastor, David Wilkerson. He was appointed to the office of senior pastor in 2001.

Sensing an urgent need for God’s people to pray, in 2007 he initiated an afternoon of "Prayer in the Square" where, by the third consecutive year, an estimated 60,000 people gathered to pray in the middle of Times Square.

Carter

Carter is a surname which originally meant a person who hauls goods in a cart. It comes from the Gaelic and Celtic word cairt (cart). Being of Gaelic and Celtic origins the name originated in Ireland and Scotland and later migrated to England where it was reduced to its English pronunciation and form. However, this name stems from a few common surnames, the names being McCarthy, McArthur and McCarter.

People with this surname may trace their ancestors back to Ireland, many of these name holders ancestors escaped Ireland during the Irish diaspora heading to Great Britain, the American colonies typically the colonies of New York, Massachusetts, Georgia and Virginia. Other immigrants entered the United States later during the Great Famine of Ireland in the 1840s and later. The Irish counties with the highest amount of families having this surname are Laois, Galway, Meath and Leitrim; Laois seems to be the place where most Carters settled or where the name began in origin. Within the past 150 to 200 years, the Carter surname has been adopted widely by the African American community, either with ethnic black and Irish mixing or taken from slavemasters by former slaves. This name is common among African Americans capable of tracing their roots back to the southern United States from the early 20th century onward.

Times Square Church

Coordinates: 40°45′44″N 73°59′02″W / 40.76222°N 73.98389°W / 40.76222; -73.98389

Times Square Church is an inter-denominational church located at 237 West 51st Street in the Theater District of Manhattan, New York City. A large number of people representing many nationalities gather to worship together every week. Volunteers from the congregation participate in over forty ministries, ranging from feeding the homeless in New York City to staffing an orphanage in South Africa. A major emphasis at Times Square Church is giving aid to the disadvantaged.

Church history

The Times Square Church was founded by Pastor David Wilkerson in 1987. At the time, the area was known as a center of X-rated films, strip clubs, prostitution, and drug addiction. Pastor Wilkerson opened the church in response to what he described as "the physically destitute and spiritually dead people" he saw among the pimps, runaways and crack dealers who populated the area. The Times Square Church briefly held its services in The Town Hall on 43rd Street in Manhattan and then in the Nederlander Theatre on 41st Street. In 1989 the church moved to the former Mark Hellinger Theatre, its current location on 51st Street.

Times Square

Coordinates: 40°45′28″N 73°59′09″W / 40.75773°N 73.985708°W / 40.75773; -73.985708

Times Square is a major commercial intersection and neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue, and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets. Brightly adorned with billboards and advertisements, Times Square is sometimes referred to as The Crossroads of the World,The Center of the Universe, the heart of The Great White Way, and the "heart of the world". One of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections, it is also the hub of the Broadway Theater District and a major center of the world's entertainment industry. Times Square is one of the world's most visited tourist attractions, drawing an estimated 50 million visitors annually. Approximately 330,000 people pass through Times Square daily, many of them tourists; while over 460,000 pedestrians walk through Times Square on its busiest days.

Formerly Longacre Square, Times Square was renamed in 1904 after The New York Times moved its headquarters to the newly erected Times Building, the site of the annual ball drop which began on December 31, 1907, and continues today, attracting over a million visitors to Times Square every New Year's Eve.