In NYC, community can often be commoditized as a product to be consumed, purchased, or invited into. But the gospel creates a different kind of community more aptly described as a spiritual family.

It’s not merely characterized by social connection or shared interest (e.g. spin class, professional network). It’s not defined by performance and elitism. Rather, a gospel-centered community is characterized by a biblical idea known as covenant, a commitment to one another based on God’s faithfulness and unmerited love to us. What qualifies us is not our power, privilege, or pedigree but our brokenness.

The community we aspire to fosters acceptance and belonging in a way that begins to heal our shame and insecurity. It melts away our tendencies toward proving and pretending. It encourages loving people across difference. Ultimately, it helps us to see God more fully and clearly.

The good news of the gospel can easily become old news. Many of the problems we face in life often stem from a truncated understanding and superficial application of the gospel. But when we rediscover the beauty of the gospel, it has the power — not to make “bad” people good — but to make spiritually dead people come alive. In other words, the gospel changes who we are and not just what we do. It is character transformation and not just behavior modification.

Over time, the gospel rewires our sense of identity. Instead of finding meaning and worth in “functional saviors” like people’s approval, financial security, or romantic love, the gospel produces unshakeable security, deep comfort, and boundless joy in who we are in Jesus Christ.

The gospel not only says that our identity is found in Jesus Christ, but that Jesus through his Spirit is also in us. God dwells within us, and we can experience his living presence through his Word, in prayerful conversation and communion, and with the worshipping fellowship of broken people.

While the free grace of God is incompatible with earning or meriting his favor, it’s a costly grace that inspires action and effort. God’s extravagant mercy necessarily produces radical discipleship — a holistic discipleship that incorporates the centrality of the Word & prayer, a robust theology of the body, the emotional life, and an expansive view of the Spirit’s work in both ordinary and extraordinary means.

When the gospel penetrates our hearts, it begins to change us from consumers of the city into lovers and servants. Engaging is necessarily proactive. It is not withdrawing out of fear. It is not triumphalist out of pride and a preoccupation with results. It is not ignoring out of apathy and busyness. It is humble and learns from others in mutuality.

Thin discipleship is satisfied with individual spirituality; thick discipleship extends beyond the self through a commitment to evangelism & missions, compassion & justice, and cultural discipleship (e.g. our vocations).

It’s a call that is bigger than one church, and we see ourselves as a small part of what God is doing in Manhattan and beyond.