On Sunday, April 15th Mike and Char Turrigiano celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary. A rare feat indeed considering that America boasts the highest divorce rate in the world, hovering right around 50 percent. Here Mike tries to explain why its worked for them.

This past Saturday, our family and friends threw an awesome party for Char and I celebrating forty happy years together. We’re asked all the time, “What’s your secret?”, as if there’s some magic to it. Well the answer might surprise you… Read more ›

There was this restaurant in the neighborhood where I grew up. It was awful. It barely made any money. Nobody understood how it stayed in business. It never kept regular hours. When it was open the service was shabby and the food bad. The cook and waitresses were allowed to show up and leave whenever the whim hit them.

One day, in the window there was a sign, “Under New Management”. Things suddenly changed for the better. It was like night and day. The new owner cleaned the place up. Laid down new rules. He insisted they serve better food and offer better service; establish better conditions, regular hours and a sense of pride. Before long, business picked up. They made money and the employees even got raises…

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From all indications America is trending towards secularism. Although the number of Americans that claim to believe in God still holds a majority, the fastest growing group in our country considers itself to be “non-religious”. No surprise there for us New Yorkers.

It’s not like there’s a whole bunch of people living here that have never heard the gospel. They used to be churchgoers but are no longer interested in church, period. They come here and just stop going to church. They’ve heard all the arguments and reasons to believe and have rejected them. “Been there, done that and it didn’t work.” So they’re staying away in increasing numbers. Read more ›

Sunday the 26^th will kick-off our annual Lenten tradition that we call “Leap of Faith”.  Leap of Faith is a six week faith experiment where we seek to experience God in ways we never have before.  These “Leaps” are often exciting times of seeing God at work in unexpected ways in the lives of individuals and for our church as a whole.  We usually find our faith stretched and see many amazing answers to prayers.

And so, during the 40 days of Lent, our entire church asks God for really big things – things that we can’t pull-off on our own. We put ourselves out-there to see what God might, and can do for us.  Read more ›

Last Sunday we enjoyed our first service at St. John’s Lutheran Church. It was a joyous celebration of God’s faithfulness to us. And just as there was a cloud of God’s presence that filled the sanctuary when Solomon dedicated the temple, there was a cloud of expectancy hanging in the air as we worshipped together there our new home.

Everyone agrees this is a new beginning and that there’s something exciting pending that God has in store for us. I suspect it has something to do with him continuing to shape us into that community we’ve been dreaming of becoming since we began… that connects well with God, one another and with the world so that the most unlikely, non-religious people will themselves connect with God.

This is who we already are but we have more to go and our faith needs further stretching if we’re going to be a socially attractive and spiritually engaging community. We’ll need even greater confidence in God’s love and dependability as we move forward. Read more ›

As many of you know the NY Board of Education notified our church that they would not be renewing the contract for the elementary school we’ve been renting for the past six years on Sunday mornings and that we had to be out by February 12^th.

I immediately called our Advisory Team to fast and pray, each member covering a day of the week, until he found a new home for our church. Well great news, St. John’s Lutheran, a beautiful old, neo-Gothic-style church located in neighboring Greenpoint, has graciously agreed to allow us to become their tenant congregation! Read more ›

If you’ve read the Wall Street Journal or the NY Times this week you saw that the Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal of the Circuit Court’s ruling that forbids churches from renting public school space for worship services.

This will affect some 160 religious groups in the city. What this means is that as of Feb 12th, we’ll no longer be permitted to rent P.S. 132 for our Sunday morning services.

Now what? Well after getting over the initial shock I got in touch with our Advisory Team to put together a plan. This is what we’ve come up with so far: We’ve initiated a facility search in the Williamsburg and Greenpoint areas. Read more ›

Well, the holidays are now here! Read more ›

A transcript taken from a recent talk Pastor Mike gave at our Family Meeting on October 21, 2011.

Muldoons on 3rd Ave & E 43 St.

Our story begins in Manhattan. At the time we had an alternative church gathering in a midtown office building for twenty-somethings who liked Jesus but didn’t particularly like church. A trend began to develop. Afterwards a bunch of us would go to an Irish pub across the street to hangout and socialize.

It was during this time that we began to build stronger connections not only among ourselves but also with bar staff and patrons. Some of the most impactful movements to God’s kingdom would happen as we hung out and socialized. We began to see God at work right there among people who were not “part of our church” but who nonetheless felt like they belonged to our community because they were becoming our friends. They felt included without question and loved. That’s because they actually were! That’s because everyone – churchgoing or not- was actually on the same page and were simply enjoying the sweet community of God’s Spirit. Read more ›

There is no shortage of noise today. City life is full of noise – car horns, sirens, children at play, phones ringing, TV, radio, music, you name it. Even in our prayer time the tendency is to do all the talking.

It’s almost impossible to get away from noise at all. And when we do, often the awkward silence makes us uncomfortable because we’ve grown so used to noise we want to fill every moment with it.

Sure we hear a lot of things but all the bustle and noise of modern living severely undermines our ability to listen to each other and most of all to God. Yet Jesus said the ability to listen what he has to say to us was the key requisite for everyone who wants to follow him. Read more ›