Church of the City New York

This Sunday, Pastor Jon continued our Manifesto of Fruitfulness series by exploring the fruit of evangelism and what it means to share the good news of Jesus with the people around us. In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul describes us as ambassadors for Christ, entrusted with the message of reconciliation. But how we share that message can look different from person to person. Whether through our own testimony, an invitation into community, honest conversations about faith or a prompting from the Holy Spirit, we are called to meet people where they are. Pastor Jon reminded us that evangelism begins with the heart of Jesus, who pursues those who are far from God and welcomes people in the midst of their brokenness. As we learn to share the hope we have found in him, we are called to do so with gentleness and respect, trusting that the work of bringing people to Jesus is not ours to accomplish alone.

New York disciples its people through ambition. Etched into the walls of Moynihan Train Hall, the newly renovated front door to the city, is a single word from the New York State seal: Excelsior. It's Latin for "ever upward," and while meant as civic pride showcasing New York's history of excellence, said honestly, in the context of most people's lives in the city, "ever upward" feels more like a mandate than a cheer.

Most people here live pinned between two unsatisfying options—apathy or ambition—with both ending in defeat.

Jesus offers a third way: fruitfulness. He makes the uncomfortable contrast between what a person produces and what a person's life produces in somebody else, and in turn, the Kingdom.

Over eleven weeks, we will hear from Jon Tyson and other preachers about the 100x life God intends to cultivate in His disciples.

This Sunday, Pastor Jon continued A Manifesto of Fruitfulness, teaching from Galatians 5:13–26 on the fruit of the Spirit.

We are all being formed by something, but we are also being deformed. Sin teaches us to organize our lives around ourselves, while the Spirit transforms us from the inside out. The fruit of the Spirit isn't something we manufacture by trying harder. It is the evidence of a life being transformed by Christ. Fruit comes through union, not imitation; by beholding, not striving; in community, not isolation. As we remain planted in Him, the Spirit slowly forms us into people who reflect the character of Jesus.

This Sunday, Pastor Jon continued our series, A Manifesto of Fruitfulness, teaching from Luke 8:4-15, the parable of the sower. Pastor Jon reminded us that Jesus describes one seed, scattered generously across every kind of ground. The variance wasn't the seed, but the soil. He named the four kinds soil could take: seed stolen before it can root, joy that springs up fast and withers under real pressure, a heart slowly choked by the decade-long apartment search, the co-op board interview, a city built to manufacture not-enough, until there's no margin left to notice God, and soil that receives the word, keeps it, and yields a hundred times what was sown, a harvest so disproportionate to the effort that it can only be received as gift. Jon closed with an invitation: not a program to complete, but a simple surrender of the soil itself. Lord, make us good soil.

This Sunday, Pastor Jon returned from sabbatical and opened a new series called, A Manifesto of Fruitfulness, starting with Jesus's words in John 15: "Abide in me." He named some of the places we try to root our lives instead: self-preservation, achievement, religious performance, and the quiet exhaustion each one leaves behind, especially in a city that trains us to keep building, proving, becoming. But Jesus offers a different picture entirely: a branch doesn't strain to produce fruit, it simply stays connected to the vine, and the fruit follows on its own. Pastor Jon called this his life ambition—becoming, in his words, a "black belt in abiding"—learning to receive the love of Jesus rather than spend a lifetime trying to earn it. The invitation this week is that simple: stop building your life around what you can do for Jesus, and start receiving what he has already done for you.