Church of the City New York

A compelling exploration of biblical repentance as far more than guilt or regret. The message examines why shame, defensiveness, church culture, and fear make honesty difficult, contrasting worldly sorrow with godly sorrow. It traces repentance through Scripture, David’s example, loving confrontation, confession, restoration, and the freedom and refreshment found in turning back toward God.

Raegan Griffith, a youth pastor focused on Christian discipleship and spiritual formation, explores how God cultivates fruitfulness through every season of life. Drawing from Ecclesiastes, she reframes winter as grief and waiting, spring as courageous dependence, summer as abundance, and fall as surrender. The conversation touches on rest, pruning, hope, and offering each season to God’s larger work.

Dr. Ron Walborn, a pastoral leader and ministry educator, explores spiritual gifts as grace-powered tools for serving others. He discusses balancing spiritual fruit with supernatural power, learning from past abuses, and cultivating healthy gift ministry. The conversation covers discovering gifts in community, growing from obedience into recognized ministry, and pursuing Jesus above the gifts themselves.

Billy Sprague, executive pastor and Christian discipleship teacher, explores praise as a costly, public response to God’s character rather than a reaction to favorable circumstances. He discusses worship in pain, Paul and Silas in prison, public testimony, and how gratitude can become a witness. Practical challenges include a complaining fast, daily spoken gratitude, and sharing stories of God’s faithfulness.

What does it mean to live a fruitful life? This message explores evangelism as an expression of spiritual fruit, from sharing personal stories and inviting others into community to thoughtful conversations and Spirit-led moments. It considers God’s pursuit of people in brokenness, the call to represent Christ as ambassadors of reconciliation, and the importance of patience, gentleness, respect, and inner preparation.

Sam Gibson launches a series on fruitfulness by contrasting New York’s relentless drive for upward mobility with Jesus’ invitation to a different way of living. The message explores eternity, suffering, relationships, money, time, desire, work, and daily choices, urging listeners to see ordinary life through heaven’s values and pursue lasting significance.

A compelling exploration of Galatians 5 and the Spirit’s fruit, from love, joy, and peace to the deeper formation of Christlike character. The message contrasts flesh-driven chaos with new life through the Spirit, emphasizing abiding over striving, union over imitation, and community over isolation. It also examines why character matters more than spiritual gifts and how a transformed church can become a counterculture of love.

A vivid journey through the parable of the sower explores why spiritual growth flourishes in some hearts but withers in others. The message examines distraction, anxiety, wealth, pleasure, social approval, shallow faith, and the demanding cost of following Jesus. It closes with an invitation to surrender, persevere, and become soil capable of an extraordinary harvest.

In a city driven by “ever upward” ambition, a different path emerges between apathy and achievement. Explore Jesus’ vine-and-branch invitation, the practice of abiding, and a life shaped by Scripture, grace, joyful obedience, sacrificial community, and love. The conversation also confronts modern substitutes like self-preservation, authenticity, performance, and success.

This Sunday, Pastor Billy closed our FOLLOW series by asking what it would look like to take Jesus' command to go and make disciples seriously—not as a monumental assignment reserved for pastors or people who have it all together, but as an ordinary part of following Jesus. He began with the sobering stat: The average Christian will make one new disciple every 26 years. With nearly 6 million lost New Yorkers, this approach to discipleship is not sustainable. God's discipleship plan is "you!" Pastor Billy said. You already have relationships, access, and places of influence no pastor could replicate. The invitation is to make yourself known as a Christian, ask God for one person to disciple, and look for opportunities to lean in. We do not change heart, Jesus does. Our part is to be faithful with the person He has already placed in front of us.