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 ›

This past Sunday we started a new series that looks at what it means to follow Jesus. We began by trying to clear up some of the misunderstanding surrounding this thing the church calls discipleship by removing some of the religious baggage.

First we revised some of the language and decided to use the term apprenticeship instead. It’s easier to visualize us becoming students rather than religious zealots, which is the image the old language conjured up for most of us. An apprentice is a student that learns to do what his or her master is good at. In Jesus case, he was good at living the life of the kingdom here on earth. So as his students we’re with him, learning from him, how to get good at living the kingdom life. Read more ›

I know this sounds almost sacrilegious but the Jesus I read about in the gospels was a happy person who really enjoyed life. He was fun to be around. You get the impression he was a life of the party-type.

That’s probably why he got so many dinner invitations and why kids climbed all over him. This Jesus is no sober sourpuss like the one portrayed in medieval paintings. No, he’s worry-free and full of joy. It seems that where he was joy was and his joy stood out. It apparently characterized and energized him, setting him apart from all other human beings.

His foundation

His joy wasn’t simply a strong feeling of happiness. It was a state of mind. A deep abiding sense of well being that comes from being safe, secure, and at home. It was this at-home-ness that formed the foundation of Jesus’ life and was the source of his joy.

Read more ›

For my morning devotions I’ve been reading through the Psalms using the Message, a version of the Bible that reads like the morning newspaper.

This has helped me read what are essentially poems that were put to music and sung in worship services, with fresh eyes. And in doing so I’ve been shocked by how much complaining and gripping is going on. The psalmists were real grousers!

This raises a couple of questions: Can complaining ever be good and how can gripping be worship? Read more ›