Church of the City New York

CREATIVE MINORITY: PARTICIPATION - This past Sunday, Pastor Jon preached about the importance of the way we as Christians participate in our culture. We must show up in hard places with the presence of Jesus Christ and welcome the vulnerable to push against the darkness with light and faith.

This past Sunday, Pastor Suzy challenged us to ponder what we do when our narratives, ethics and practices as Christ-followers come into conflict with the many authorities of the world. She exhorted us to remember that as Christ-followers, our one true allegiance is to God, and when we live as a creative minority and choose to be exiles, we can be light in dark places, in the world but not of it.

This past Sunday, Pastor Jon preached about examining our own tangible practices as we continue to develop into the likeness of Jesus. We can continue to form as disciples by developing our practices of abiding in Jesus, discerning where He wants us to move, and interceding on behalf of others privately and publicly.

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 mus...

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,...

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 cov...

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 enabl...

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 Ma...

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 o...

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...

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 an...

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.

BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART- This past Sunday, Pastor Ashley Anderson preached about how to cultivate a pure heart. Purity is leveraging all desires for God's kingdom's purpose, allowing his will on earth to be the single driving force of every decision that we make. We cultivate pure hearts by aching for encounters with God, fleeing from sin, and embracing confession.

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...

This past Sunday, Pastor Suzy preached about what it looks like to prayerfully join Jesus in his mission to seek and save those who are far from God. Luke 10:1-4 tells us that we are to: look, ask, go, and sacrifice — to see with compassion the harvest, to ask the Lord to raise workers up, and to go ourselves willingly, knowing that Jesus sends us to where He is already going.

This past Sunday, Pastor Dimas Salaberrios preached a powerful word about prioritizing prayer. As humans, we were built to need constant communication with God and to flourish in intimacy with him. In Daniel 6:1-11, Daniel distinguished himself in Babylon by consistently tapping into the spirit of God, and by prioritizing God over man's decree. Prioritizing prayer is hard work, and at times, can f...