By Deryck Barson

Last Monday I played golf with two men in their 70’s. The golf could have been a lot better, but the conversations were incredible as I asked and listened to two agnostics muse about God, church and the meaning of life. I invited one of them to come and critique my message that Sunday. Almost surprisingly, he came. It was the first time he had been in a church service since his early childhood. The most amazing, vulnerable, God-saturated conversation followed over lunch… It is this passion for the lost, for the gospel, for Christ that has begun to throb more and more, as we have centered our community around Christ and Him crucified.

The last year for us has been a delightful explosion of ideas, insights, vision and formation. Our journey in New York has been an adventure of note, the privilege of a lifetime and an opportunity to run with some of the most incredible friends that one can find. One of the intriguing journeys has been the discovery of running in our own armor while at the same time seeing a culture transform right in front of our eyes – both are stories of change, both intersect at a key incarnational juncture.  What I mean by this is two-fold…

Firstly, the aspect on “our own armor”: Too often today we live (even as followers of Christ) within the narcissistic world of me, myself and I – so that at the end of the day, when push comes to shove, we are defenders of our position, place and power. On the other hand, we see an emergence of a crowd or generation phenomena – where we do things simply because (often subconsciously so) others do it that way. Often, we vacillate between these two worlds (evidencing a kind of ‘growing up’ process as in the home). There comes a time, however, to emerge into the formation of the DNA that God has put inside each of us. David, when offered Saul’s armor to protect and help him in the battle against the giant, Goliath, chose rather to fight with a different armor – strategy and power. He was neither egotistical nor polemic in his relations with Saul, but humbly fought with a confidence in his God that he knew so well armed with a slingshot he’d learnt to use in the fields of life as a shepherd boy.

We can see change either as something to be feared or as an opportunity for the gospel.

Secondly, it’s been an incredible journey to “watch the movie” of New York unfold before our eyes… while simultaneously being on set. The last ten years have been significant in our city. We have been at the center and forefront of terrorism with 9/11 striking our heart; evidenced the rapid expedition of globalization and the economic crash beginning last year with an epicenter on Wall Street; an incredible political transition in our land; as well as the nuances and reaches of Postmodernity that have incarnated our city’s mood and framework. Furthermore we are more aptly post-everything: post-secular, postmodern, post-Christian. So the ubiquity of change has been like the air we breathe. This has been shocking, exciting, unsettling, opportunistic and even confusing to many. Others, however, have been oblivious to the temperature change – laggards trailing Rogers’ innovative bell curve.

In 1970, Alvin Toffler wrote a profound book called ‘Future Shock’, the premise being that ‘too much change in too short a period of time’ rocks our world leaving people overwhelmed, disorientated, disconnected – future shocked! This is due to the enormous structural, technological and philosophical shifts (to name but a few). Change is a given – we are all aging, as does the personnel around us, it’s evidenced in our towns and cities.  It was Heraclitus who said “Everything is flux.” Change is a given, progress is not.

The only thing that stays the same is God. Everything around us is changing. We can see this in creation as well as in culture. We know too that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. Neither does the gospel itself change. We can all see change either as something to be feared or an opportunity for the gospel.

Jesus – the change-agent that is forever the same.

In New York, we’ve chosen to see the incredible opportunities that are all around us.  We’ve needed to change. I needed to change. We’ve needed to grow and stay soft in the hands of the Father, not living reactionary, independently or positioning ourselves to be obtuse. It’s been with a tender heart, that we’ve needed to do two things: 1. walk in our unique DNA as individuals and as a local church and 2. Study, incarnate and understand our changing context – a society evidencing a wardrobe change like a rock star between sets.

What has been helpful to note is the formulation of this uniqueness, which is both innate as well as fashioned. Before we can function as specialists and experts in our own right, we need to understand process. Taking a leaf out of the medical journal, before one can become a specialist, one is required to first become a GP. It is only after one becomes a General Practitioner (one who understands the body holistically) that one can become a heart specialist or a neurosurgeon. For us, the unseen years of foundation building have been so important, ensuring we do not compromise in the light of true integrity, effectiveness and longevity. That being said, in the middle of 2008, we felt as a church that God was saying that a solid foundation had been laid, and it was now time to put up a building on that foundation – just not the old stereotypical church building image that springs to most of our minds, but something fresh, creative… a key intersection of the gospel in our community and city.

We came to New York from a wonderful church in South Africa, full of zeal and confidence in our God, the privilege of a healthy church experience and model of ecclesiology. Part of our journey has been realizing that, while the values that we hold to are good and unchanging, how that looks on the ground has to be appropriate to our context. Our suburban small town in SA is vastly different to the highly urban setting we find ourselves in – in a totally different nation and in a city of magnitude and huge influence, New York. We’ve needed to look afresh at the wonder and profundity of Christ, at our particular context, and then thirdly at how we best communicate Christ into this context. It has required much change, not so much questioning what is biblical or unbiblical, but rather the a-biblical intersection with our context. What I mean by this is that there is a lot of room biblically for ‘how’ we do church… do you all meet together on Sunday’s, Saturday’s, morning, evening, number of prayer meetings, how and what takes place within those ‘corporate’ times. This is not the same when it comes to the message of the gospel, of Christ – this does not and need not change. What we have needed to address in a post-everything world is our need of a greater revelation of Christ and His message, and how to holistically incarnate that within our unique setting of cultural nuances. This has been a thrilling adventure and journey for us, that has resulted in a deeper passion for Christ, our city and His glorious gospel. Simple pragmatic pointers would miss the point and never suffice, but a conversation in every community around Christ will reveal incredible treasures to use a-biblical methods that flex and adjust with the times as culture forever changes in proclaiming and revealing the wonder of who God is to a thirsty world around us.

Why do we do what we do the way we do it?

Practically, with the message taking on the cultural garb of our setting as it were, we have needed to become more professional (in terms of signage, media, musicality etc), a little more organized, as well as deepening theology, more intellectual presentation of the truths of God to most adequately and appropriately reach this city. We have needed to fight the “knee-jerk” reaction to anything that seems organizational and business-like and embrace aspects that help in getting the gospel out. Our leadership style has had to change from a hands on approach (necessary in initial pioneering), to a more open-handed one, placing our emphasis on the incredible message, on displaying Christ and Him crucified as best as we can – allowing our leaders, the friends we run with to run in their uniqueness, together scripting what the “building” will look like in our specific context. We have simplified the amount of meetings and areas of focus to be able to do a few things better. For us this has meant facilitating a Sunday morning well, eradicating cringe factors that would hinder the message, delivering everything (from worship, to the sermon to the coffee and hospitality) with a God-glorifying excellence. Two other key areas have been life-groups and missional living – equipping every believer to be and share the gospel in the city, every day in their workplace and community. More and more we have evaluated what we are doing through the eyes of the visitor – those who don’t know God, the skeptical agnostic, the disillusioned Christian – endeavoring to judge our success in how they are being reached, affected, transformed etc. This is in sharp juxtaposition to a pragmatic, watered-down, more “seeker-sensitive” approach. Our message (in terms of theological understanding and grasp of philosophical and apologetic arguments) has had to radically improve and deepen. It has been a wonderful process of thinking through “why do we do what we do the way we do it” on every level, sometimes going around the mountain and returning to our starting place, or at other times making huge changes. The fruit is early, but encouraging. There is a spring in our leaders’ steps and a sparkle in the eye of our people. The ratio of the church is beginning to reflect a higher portion of unbelievers and cynical believers who are a little disenfranchised with church and more new believers and weak believers (which makes for an exciting and sometime messy bunch of people!) This adds color and is more like the church in Acts than a perfect little bonsai tree – perfectly manicured but a dwarf of its full intent.

Within this flexibility, let us remember the biblical order set within Scripture of loving God and neighbor, the Word and the Spirit, grace and truth, etc We need both, not only our preference, and those in their order. A deeper incarnational revelation of Christ coming in grace AND truth will evidence more of the glory of God on the streets of New York, London, Paris, Welkom, Addis Abba and Hillcrest.

In the end, life is all about Jesus, not clichéd but real – being changed into the likeness of the one that never does… it’s who our neighbors are looking for, the change-agent that is forever the same.