Manifesto of Frutifulness | The Fruit of the Gifts - Dr. Ron Walborn

This Sunday, Pastor Ron Walborn continued our Manifesto of Fruitfulness series by looking at the fruit of spiritual gifts in 1 Peter 4:7–11. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are not ours to keep or use for our own recognition. They are gifts of God's grace, entrusted to us to serve others, strengthen the Church and participate in his mission in the city. Pastor Ron reminded us that we need both the fruit and the gifts of the Spirit: the character of Jesus and his power at work through His people. Discovering our gifts doesn't begin with having everything figured out, it begins with obedience, as we step out to serve, grow in practice and learn to recognize what God is doing in and through us. The invitation is to fan into flame what God has entrusted to us, keeping Jesus, not the gifts themselves, at the center.

This Sunday, Pastor Billy continued our Manifesto of Fruitfulness series by exploring the fruit of praise and asking who or what receives our worship. In Hebrews 13, we are called to offer God a sacrifice of praise, but praise is more than words spoken when life is going well. It is a choice to declare God's worth in the midst of uncertainty, to practice gratitude when complaint comes more naturally and to speak openly about what he has done. Through the stories of Scripture, Pastor Billy reminded us that praise does not deny our circumstances or depend on a particular outcome. It is a response to who God is and what he has already done for us. As our lives are shaped by gratitude and our own encounters with Jesus, praise moves beyond private worship and becomes a public witness to the goodness and faithfulness of God.

This Sunday, Pastor Jon continued our Manifesto of Fruitfulness series by exploring the fruit of evangelism and what it means to share the good news of Jesus with the people around us. In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul describes us as ambassadors for Christ, entrusted with the message of reconciliation. But how we share that message can look different from person to person. Whether through our own testimony, an invitation into community, honest conversations about faith or a prompting from the Holy Spirit, we are called to meet people where they are. Pastor Jon reminded us that evangelism begins with the heart of Jesus, who pursues those who are far from God and welcomes people in the midst of their brokenness. As we learn to share the hope we have found in him, we are called to do so with gentleness and respect, trusting that the work of bringing people to Jesus is not ours to accomplish alone.

New York disciples its people through ambition. Etched into the walls of Moynihan Train Hall, the newly renovated front door to the city, is a single word from the New York State seal: Excelsior. It's Latin for "ever upward," and while meant as civic pride showcasing New York's history of excellence, said honestly, in the context of most people's lives in the city, "ever upward" feels more like a mandate than a cheer. Most people here live pinned between two unsatisfying options—apathy or ambition—with both ending in defeat. Jesus offers a third way: fruitfulness. He makes the uncomfortable contrast between what a person produces and what a person's life produces in somebody else, and in turn, the Kingdom. Over eleven weeks, we will hear from Jon Tyson and other preachers about the 100x life God intends to cultivate in His disciples.

This Sunday, Pastor Jon continued A Manifesto of Fruitfulness, teaching from Galatians 5:13–26 on the fruit of the Spirit. We are all being formed by something, but we are also being deformed. Sin teaches us to organize our lives around ourselves, while the Spirit transforms us from the inside out. The fruit of the Spirit isn't something we manufacture by trying harder. It is the evidence of a life being transformed by Christ. Fruit comes through union, not imitation; by beholding, not striving; in community, not isolation. As we remain planted in Him, the Spirit slowly forms us into people who reflect the character of Jesus.

This Sunday, Pastor Jon continued our series, A Manifesto of Fruitfulness, teaching from Luke 8:4-15, the parable of the sower. Pastor Jon reminded us that Jesus describes one seed, scattered generously across every kind of ground. The variance wasn't the seed, but the soil. He named the four kinds soil could take: seed stolen before it can root, joy that springs up fast and withers under real pressure, a heart slowly choked by the decade-long apartment search, the co-op board interview, a city built to manufacture not-enough, until there's no margin left to notice God, and soil that receives the word, keeps it, and yields a hundred times what was sown, a harvest so disproportionate to the effort that it can only be received as gift. Jon closed with an invitation: not a program to complete, but a simple surrender of the soil itself. Lord, make us good soil.

This Sunday, Pastor Jon returned from sabbatical and opened a new series called, A Manifesto of Fruitfulness, starting with Jesus's words in John 15: "Abide in me." He named some of the places we try to root our lives instead: self-preservation, achievement, religious performance, and the quiet exhaustion each one leaves behind, especially in a city that trains us to keep building, proving, becoming. But Jesus offers a different picture entirely: a branch doesn't strain to produce fruit, it simply stays connected to the vine, and the fruit follows on its own. Pastor Jon called this his life ambition—becoming, in his words, a "black belt in abiding"—learning to receive the love of Jesus rather than spend a lifetime trying to earn it. The invitation this week is that simple: stop building your life around what you can do for Jesus, and start receiving what he has already done for you.

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.

This Sunday, Pastor Reagan continued our FOLLOW series with a teaching on worship. She began with the story of a woman who poured an entire jar of expensive perfume over Jesus. Where the disciples saw waste; Jesus saw worship. But the question beneath the story is not simply what we are willing to give Jesus, it is what we believe He is worth. Pastor Reagan traced worship back to the act of beholding—to giving our attention to Jesus long enough for our vision of Him to be enlarged. Mary's extravagant offering was not an isolated moment of devotion. It was the natural response of a life that had come to see Jesus as worthy, and when Jesus becomes our highest good, our lives begin to reorder around Him.

This Sunday, Pastor Tim continued our FOLLOW series with Jesus' difficult words to the Pharisees in Matthew 23. Rather than using the passage to confront everyone else, he invited us to ask a more personal question: Where does Jesus want to confront me? Pastor Tim explored how hypocrisy can take root when our outward lives become disconnected from what is happening within us, and how easily we can notice the failures of others while overlooking our own. Jesus' confrontation is not meant to leave us in shame, rather it is an invitation into honesty, mercy, and freedom. Allowig God to form in us what we cannot produce on our own.