Church of the City New York

This Resurrection Sunday, Pastor Jon asked a question most of us don't say out loud: what happens to hope when it dies? He opened with the concept of "hope theory" — the idea that hope requires a vision, a pathway, and a sense that you can actually get there — and traced what happens when that vision collapses. The disciples on the road to Emmaus knew that feeling. They had built everything around Jesus, and then watched Him die. Walking away from Jerusalem, they said the most honest thing in the passage, "we had hoped..." Into that exact moment, Jesus shows up, not to people with their lives together, but to two people walking in the wrong direction. His next move of opening the Scriptures, sitting down at the table, breaking bread is less a lesson in theology, than an invitation back to life. All the information in the world doesn't close that gap. What changes everything is relationship with the risen Savior.

This Sunday, Pastor Jon concluded the "Come to Me" series by asking a question worth sitting with: why Jesus? He pointed to a cultural moment where confident secularism is losing its footing, and the Christianity quietly growing is not the therapeutic, accommodating kind — it's the traditional, committed, and costly one. From there, Pastor Jon offered three reasons to come to Jesus: longing, forgiveness, and rest. He challenged us with the idea of "miswanting": the gap between what we think will satisfy us and what actually does, and made the case that Jesus doesn't shame us for our desires, but wants to save us from the lesser loves we've been chasing. Jesus's invitation in Matthew 11 is not to a system or a philosophy. it's to a person. One you come to, and keep coming to.

This Sunday, Pastor Keithen taught from John 11 and made the case that most of us, have gotten the story badly wrong. He opened with a telling moment from an "Ask the Pastor" session at a high school on the Upper East Side. Every question the students asked him was about who gets into heaven. Not one was about Jesus. From there, he traced the two answers to eternity we've inherited — secularism, which says death is just the end, and a kind of religious gnosticism, which says the physical world is bad and the goal of faith is to escape it. Pastor Keithen argued that neither is what Jesus actually taught. In John 11, standing outside the tomb of his dead friend Lazarus, Jesus doesn't offer Martha a better destination. He weeps. He raises Lazarus bodily from the dead. And before he does, he says the most staggering thing anyone in that world had ever heard: I am the resurrection and the life. He wasn't pointing her toward a place she'd go one day. He was telling her the hope she'd been waiting for was standing right in front of her. Our eternal destiny isn't something transactional, it's relational. And because resurrection is true, it changes how we live right now, not just what happens after.

This week, Pastor Tim Brown unpacks one of Jesus' most profound declarations — Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life — and gets to the heart of what it means to follow Him. The Christian life is not a transaction with God, a performance for His approval, or a checklist of spiritual obligations. It's a relationship, and there's a sobering difference between knowing about God and truly knowing Him. If you want to know what God is truly like, look at Jesus. His weeping at the tomb of His friend, His washing a betrayer's feet, His forgiving the condemned. He is a compassionate Father worth following, and worth knowing. Pastor Tim concluded with the most invitation to follow Jesus. In Him is life.

This week Pastor Jon taught from John 10:11-21, where Jesus declares "I am the good shepherd" and asked a question that cuts straight to the heart of modern life: who is actually forming you? From global trust collapsing in institutions to Jesus exposing the Pharisees in John 9, the cycle of bad shepherding is always the same, they scatter when the cost gets real. Jesus differentiates Himself from these poor leaders, and proves to be the ultimate Good Shepherd. He is the shepherd who laid His life down by choice His sheep. Pastor Jon encouraged us to choose wisely who shepherds us, and invited us to Christ's abundant path.

This Sunday, Pastor Jon taught from John 10:1–10, where Jesus declares "I am the door," and meets us in one of our most quietly carried human aches -- our desire to belong. When the world offers an exclusive inclusivity, "you're welcome in, as long as you conform," mentality, Jesus offers the inverse. His door is open to anyone, and through His door isn't merely entry, but protection, freedom, and abundance.

This Sunday, Pastor Jon taught from John 15 and offered a different diagnosis for burnout. While our instinct is often to assume we've simply given too much, he challenged us with another possibility: the problem isn't output but source. We haven't been drawing from the right one. When Jesus calls himself the True Vine, it's one of the most sweeping claims He ever makes. From that foundation, Pastor Jon walked through what abiding actually looks like. It's not about a longer quiet time or more spiritual disciplines, it's about a relationship. Using his own early days dating his now-wife, Christy, as an illustration, he reminded us that abiding is less about effort and more about the security and overflow of a relationship you're already in. That's the kind of intimacy Jesus is inviting us into, and for those who remain in His love and rely on the Spirit's power, the promise is fruit that lasts.

This Sunday, Pastor Jon continued our Come to Me series with a teaching on Jesus' declaration in John 8:12: "I am the light of the world." Jesus' radical claim has both personal and universal implications for us today. Our human tendency may be to impute goodness to ourselves and attribute darkness to others, but the reality is that each of us have darkness in our own hearts that must be dealt with. Jesus leaves all of us with the compelling invitation is to join Him in the light.

This week, Pastor Suzy continued our "Come to Me" series exploring Jesus as the bread of life. She challenged us to consider what's really satisfying us, recognizing things that often comes to mind (kids, relationships, work) often fade, leaving a deeper longing only God can fill. In John 6, Jesus declares "I am the Bread of life," positioning himself as the true bread from heaven who meets our deepest hungers. Pastor Suzy outlined four movements to receive Jesus as the bread of life: invitation, dependence, communion, and feasting. Like the Israelites collecting manna daily, we need to keep coming back to Jesus. The invitation is to see our longings not as problems to solve, but as hunger pointing us toward God. Jesus doesn't just want to sustain us, He wants to be with us. Our unfulfilled desires aren't a sign that something is wrong; rather they're meant to create hunger for the one who made us. Jesus invites us to come to Him daily.

This Sunday, Pastor Jon kicked off our new series on the "I Am" statements in the Gospel of John with three words that help us make sense of history and our own lives: Messiah, Church, and Kingdom. Jesus is the Messiah, the relationship we were made for. In the midst of our shame, weariness, and brokenness, He invites us to find true rest in Him. Jesus forms the Church, a counter-cultural community that embodies humility, gentleness, and love. And Jesus invites us into the Kingdom, a cause worth giving our lives to, restoring what is broken and giving dignity to the overlooked. Like the woman at the well, our response is to invite others: "Come and see." Over the next eight weeks, this series will equip us to share this hope with the people around us and our city.

What happens when God's presence comes into a city? In this conversation, Pastor Jon and Pastor Sam close out our "God Comes Where He's Wanted" series by teaching on the altar of the region. After exploring the altars of the heart, church, and family, we now address what can seem most daunting, moving from personal peace to embracing God's heart for an entire region. Only when we are heartbroken over our city and places will we begin to prayerfully build the altar of our region. We have to keep contending for our region in faith, declaring that we want Him here until He comes.

A special podcast episode featuring a conversation between Pastor Jon and his dad on multigenerational faithfulness and prayer.

This Sunday, Pastor Jon continued our God Comes Where He's Wanted series with a teaching on the altar of the church, teaching from Acts 6:1–7. He reminded us that the church is meant to be the place where God dwells, yet we often miss His presence not through rejection, but through neglect. When we fill our lives, hunger for God can quietly fade. Drawing from Scripture, Pastor Jon highlighted prayer and the Word as the foundations that sustain God's presence among His people. Prayer restores our identity, sharpens discernment, and releases freedom, while the Word is living and active, releasing promises and shaping the future God has prepared for us. This teaching calls us back to devotion, inviting us to open our hearts again and allow God to rekindle what may have grown cold.

This Sunday, Pastor Keithen Schwahn continued our sermon series, God Comes Where He's Wanted, with a teaching on the altar of the home, drawing from the story of Gideon in Judges 6 and the words of Jesus in Matthew 18. We need to confront the brokenness of the altar of the home in our culture and take responsibility for the next generation. In Judges 6, we see the great danger of generational drift when vision is not matched with action, reminding us that renewal begins with tearing down the idols that compete for our devotion. As God restores Gideon's identity and calls him into partnership, we are urged to pursue fully integrated lives marked by obedience and faithfulness to remove idols. In Matthew 18, we are reminded of Jesus' deep care for children, and we are all invited to fight for the future of the church by blessing young people, breaking generational cycles, and intentionally passing on faith.

This Sunday, Pastor Sam Gibson kicked off our January series, God Comes Where He's Wanted, with a teaching on the central importance of the altar of the heart. Scripture and revival history remind us that God moves where He is deeply desired, and that hunger for His presence is the true catalyst for renewal. While we cannot control when or how God moves, we are invited to cultivate hearts that welcome Him. Though our hearts are often damaged by this world and can become dull or divided, as we yield to God's healing and return to daily dependence on the Gospel and God's Word, we make room for the Holy Spirit to renew us and allow God's life to flow through us once again.