Church Of The City New York

This past Sunday, we continued our Creative Minority series, and Pastor Olivia challenged us to consider ethics and how we make decisions in our lives. Christian ethics must be a response from our hearts to the grace, character, and love of God, putting a spotlight on our Savior, and forming us in a way counter to our culture, especially in the areas of money, sex, and power. As Christians, we must ask ourselves: how can I love generously, faithfully, sacrificially, and humbly so that the world is enticed to ask follow-up questions for which the gospel is the answer? Ultimately, the Christian ethic is love from beginning to end.

This past Sunday, Pastor Jon continued our Creative Minority series by talking about the importance of the stories we believe in. Living in a time of warring narratives, we must deeply root ourselves in the one, true narrative that Jesus Christ is Lord. By routing our actions, thoughts, and expectations through the person of Jesus, our lives will become compelling stories that display the Gospel, and shake the world from spiritual sleep.  

This past Sunday, Pastor Jon launched our new sermon series, A Creative Minority, and laid the groundwork for how we can begin to grow a new kind of community in our current moment. If we build a web of stubbornly loyal relationships, we can then knit them together in a living network of persons who are committed to practicing the way of Jesus for the renewal of the world. Communities built on covenantal relationships like this can create nets that have the power to capture the hearts of those around us and reveal Jesus like never before. 

This past Sunday, Pastor Jon cast a vision for where our church's confidence needs to be rooted going into the new year. When we go beyond stating our belief in God and place our trust in Him, we develop an unshakeable confidence in His divine ability. Setting our hearts rightly before God, and prioritizing His presence in our habits, will allow us to attain a hidden source of life that will enable us to flourish no matter our circumstances.  

For the last Sunday of 2020, Pastor Jon walked us back through this year that has been full of disruption and division, and revealed that our current world mirrors the one Jesus was born into. He pointed us to Mary who, despite her difficult circumstances, pondered the work of God around her and in her, and treasured these things up in her heart. Pastor Jon encouraged us to finish the year like Mary by taking time to remember God's faithfulness in our church, our city, and our lives, and store these things up in our hearts as we prepare for the new year.         

This Past Sunday, Pastor Jon wrapped up our Advent series by talking about the defiant love of God that is manifested in Jesus the Messiah. By looking at Isaiah 61, we learn that Jesus is the prophesied Servant of the Lord who would come to restore the world and usher in a celebration of redemption. Pastor Jon reminded us that once we receive the renewing love of Jesus, we are called to join Him on mission, and be the ministers of His scandalous, radical, love here on earth. 

This Past Sunday, Pastor Susy brought good news in her message in the midst of our Advent series, talking about the great joy that is available to us all through Jesus Christ. After such a difficult year, and an uncertain future ahead of us, it is more important than ever for us to find the source of a lasting, defiant Joy. Proverbs 13:12 defines joy as the fulfillment of a longing, stating, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”

This Sunday, Pastor John continued our advent series by talking about having defiant peace. When we look to our own selves or earthly systems for peace, we will be met with darkness and despair. But God shines light in the most surprising places. Ultimately, we have defiant peace inside us because we have the Prince of Peace inside us.

 To wrap up our series on disruptive discipleship, Pastor Jon preached on Jesus's closing metaphor for the Beatitudes: that those who embody Jesus's kingdom are the salt and light of the world. To be salt is to be radically devoted to Jesus and His teachings in a culture of compromises. To be light is to engage in boundary-crossing missions into dark places that Jesus calls us to. In being salt and light with purity and integrity, we can become potent disciples of our times, that our cities and communities need.

 This past Sunday, Pastor Jon taught on Christ’s words of blessing over those who are persecuted and His calling to rejoice in the midst of it. In a world that is offended by righteousness and claims of Christ’s exclusivity as the way to freedom, our efforts to follow Jesus and cling to His words will increasingly set us against the current of our culture. Yet in this we rejoice, remembering that we are exiles in this world and following Christ’s example of enduring persecution with joy and humility.

This past Sunday, Pastor Jon Tyson preached about Jesus’ call to be peacemakers (Matthew 5:9). At a time when the world thought leadership meant violence and military prowess, Jesus declared that peacemakers were the children of God.

This past Sunday, Dr. Derwin Gray, lead pastor of Transformation Church in South Carolina, preached on the fifth beatitude: “Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy.” In the divisive times we are living in, he encourages us to take up a mantle of mercy, and through the parable of the Good Samaritan, shares with us how to truly love our neighbors as ourselves.

This past Sunday, Pastor Jon examined the fourth beatitude and its vision for righteousness as both personal holiness and social justice. In the midst of our current cultural decline, he exhorts us to become people who are desperate to see biblical righteousness break into our world today.

This past Sunday, Pastor Suzy illuminated the third beatitude in Jesus's Sermon on the Mount, blessed are the meek, and walked us through how to become more like Jesus by posturing ourselves toward meekness so that we can inherit the New Jerusalem.

This past Sunday, Pastor Olivia, our new pastor of discipleship and formation, shed light on Christ’s blessing and invitation to enter into redemptive mourning. As we mourn the brokenness of this world, as well as our individual and collective experiences of it, we are comforted by the promise and hope of Christ’s resurrection life.

This past Sunday, Pastor Jon reminded us of the importance of maintaining our relationship with God by recognizing our spiritual bankruptcy. Being welcomed into the kingdom of God requires us to relinquish our pride and choose humility, else we are blind to what is above us.

This week, Pastor Jon set the foundation for our season-long study of Jesus’ teaching of the Beatitudes. In the face of the crises around us, we need to be rooted more deeply than ever in the core teachings of Jesus about discipleship and the Kingdom of God.

This week, Pastor Jon cast a vision for our church as we head into the fall season. We are tired, but resolved to regroup and rebuild through pressing deeper into our core values--Presence, Formation, and Mission. However, in this season, we are taking these values to a deeper level. We are pursuing the tangible presence of God, understanding that no human solutions can rescue us from our cultural trauma; we are committed to counter formation, recognizing that there is no neutral ground and fighting against culture's attempting to pull us away from becoming like Jesus; and we are pursuing sacrificial mission, adopting the "I sacrifice, we win" mentality of Christ and embracing the high cost of living for the good of this city. New York needs a community of champions, and now is not the time to shrink back but to rise up.