Faith Tuesday Launches at Urban Prime with Vision for Christian Unity

VIERA — Christian worship music and gospel messages filled the Sunset Patio at Urban Prime Marketplace and Restaurant earlier this week as the restaurant hosted the inaugural Faith Tuesday, a new monthly gathering designed to create space for public expressions of Christian faith and unity.

Urban Prime contacted Mark Sunderland and the worship team from Calvary Chapel Viera to headline the launch. “We’re from Calvary Chapel Viera, but we’re here representing all Bible-believing churches,” Sunderland said. “There are people from many churches here. If you’re looking for a place, find one.” Members of MPACT Ministries were also set up with a table, inviting local men to connect with the Brevard-based men’s ministry.

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The gathering was shaped in large part by personal experiences with religious persecution among members of the Urban Prime family. Head chef Ercan Ekinci grew up Muslim in Turkey, a country with limited religious freedom, and converted to Christianity after moving to the United States. Ekinci’s business partner, Joseph Assad, is a Coptic Christian born in Lebanon and raised in Egypt.

“I come from the Coptic Church. It is one of the most persecuted churches in the world,” Assad said. “We understand what it’s like to have religious oppression, religious persecution, and no religious freedom.”

Outside of Urban Prime, Assad is an international security consultant and former U.S. Government official whose work has placed him directly in efforts to aid persecuted Christians abroad. He described participating in operations to rescue believers from Iraq and Syria, including assisting Chaldean Christians fleeing ISIS-controlled regions of the Nineveh Plain. “We were helping Chaldean Christians to get out of Iraq when they were from Nineveh, the Nineveh plain, where they were persecuted by ISIS,” he said. “And we could not find a country that would take them.”

Assad said the situation was ultimately resolved by working alongside an emissary from the Slovakian archbishop at the Vatican, helping to reverse policies that had prevented the relocation of displaced Christians from active conflict zones. He said the cooperation across Christian traditions shaped his conviction to create space for open and unified expressions of Christian faith in the United States. “We, in this country have freedoms, and religious freedom is one of our fundamental freedoms,” Assad said.

Faith Tuesday will feature Christian musicians and worship teams from a wide range of churches and traditions. Next month’s gathering will feature a Christian artist who attends Church at Viera and has been heard on Z88.3. A near future event will feature a group from St. John the Evangelist Catholic Community.

The owners said the effort is being launched now with future expansion in mind as the Viera Town Center Park amphitheater across the street moves toward completion. The new lakefront venue is designed to host concerts, community events, and public gatherings. The planned expansion would place Faith Tuesday at the center of developing community gathering space.

Assad acknowledged that hosting Christian events in a public restaurant has not come without criticism. “We’ve had some patrons before we even had this… they said they’re boycotting Urban Prime,” he said. Still, he emphasized that the opposition has not changed the owners’ resolve. “This pales in comparison to our brothers and sisters who are persecuted in Iraq, in Syria, in Egypt, and other parts of the world.”

Faith Tuesday will continue monthly at Urban Prime, with organizers emphasizing unity across denominations and a commitment to open, public expressions of Christian faith.

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