FaithStreet Blog

Going Mobile

kurioscreative — Fri, 03 May 2013 13:29:00 -0400

A HUGE step in the right direction. You may have heard that more and more people are using the internet from their smart phones. Not one to be left behind, FaithStreet just went mobile-friendly. Now, when you visit FaithStreet.com from your phone, it will be prettier, easier to use, and an all-around better experience.

Not like you needed another reason to create a great looking profile for your church, but now we take away the headache and hassle of optimizing your website for iPhone and Android visitors. If you have a FaithStreet profile, you have a mobile profile.

A big thanks to Chamara Paul, an incredibly talented HackStar here at TechStars who made this mobile experience possible.

#progress

Broadcast and Conversation

kurioscreative — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 09:01:00 -0400

If communities of faith are the original social networks (and I think that they are), why hasn’t the internet accelerated growth and maturation? This is a time unlike any other in history, but for the most part, churches continue to communicate like they always have.

Here at FaithStreet, we think there is a huge opportunity for churches to not only use the internet to broadcast a message but to engage in dialogue and conversation. Facebook and Twitter have provided early platforms. The Jesus Daily page on Facebook has massive numbers of fans and engagement. Twitter is reaching out to pastors.

Unfortunately, the overwhelming church use of new media channels is treating them more like pulpits and less like living rooms. It’s not that the first is wrong but that the opportunity for community is so much larger if you bring people into your “living room”.

This isn’t FaithStreet today. But tomorrow we’ll be a little closer. And a little more each day thereafter. We hope you’ll continue along with us.

To stay up to date on upcoming features and progress, sign up for FaithStreet.

FaithStreet & TechStars

kurioscreative — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 09:01:48 -0400

We have huge news for everyone, and it’s already taken way too long to share. FaithStreet has been invited to the TechStars NYC 2013 class (here’s a mention in Forbes). This is one of the most exciting times in the history of our company. What is TechStars? Basically, some of the smartest minds in technology, business, and media are gathered together to help make our humble company a success. Of the 1700+ companies that applied from all over the world, FaithStreet was one of 12 selected for this three month, mentor-driven accelerator program.

But what does this really mean? Sean, Ryan, and I are going to be pushed to build a better service, create more value for you, and grow FaithStreet in ways that we could only have dreamed of before. It’s going to be awesome.

Most importantly, we could not have gotten here without all of you, and we’d like to say a big thank you to everyone.

This is only the beginning.

We're looking for a FaithStreet Associate!

seanwcoughlin — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 18:11:00 -0400

FaithStreet is currently going through the TechStars NYC program, the #1 startup accelerator in the World.

We’re innovating in a huge, underserved space, and we are making big progress.

We’re looking for someone to help us keep up with an intense workload. You’ll help us with hire for key technical positions, do market research, handle scheduling with mentors and investors and lots of other stuff. You’ll probably do some stuff you’re overqualified for and a lot of stuff you’re underqualified for…

We’re looking for a problem-solver: an organized, motivated person, maybe with a legal, banking or business background. This person might be looking to change careers and break into the startup world or headed to B-school in the fall. We work out of the TechStars office at 36 Cooper Square (above the Village Voice in the East Village) with 10 other ridiculously awesome companies.

This is a 4 month position with the opportunity for full-time after TechStars. You’ll make 15 years worth of connections in 3 months, and see how an early stage startup is built. And you’ll help us build it.

If you want to take a leap on FaithStreet, please send an email to jobs@faithstreet.com and tell us why you want to work with us.

FaithStreet Wants You

kurioscreative — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 10:54:00 -0400

Dear FaithStreet Community,

We’re thrilled to announce a big milestone in the history of our young company: We’re Hiring!

FaithStreet is hiring one web developer and one web designer. If you are interested in either position, or if you’d like to refer someone who may be interested, please reply to this email or complete the form here. We’d also encourage you to post our jobs on social media or in your church’s newsletter.

In the last 6 months, FaithStreet has grown from a few hundred churches in New York City to over 11,000 churches in all 50 states and more than 3,000 cities. We’ve connected tens of thousands to a new Christian community, and we’re just getting started. We’re looking for two exceptional people to join our team. Both positions are full-time with great pay. Both positions are NYC-based. (We’re happy to help the right people relocate.)

For more details on each position, visit our jobs page.

We hope to hear from many of you. Please reply directly to this email with any questions

Grace & peace,
The FaithStreet Team

P.S. We’re also currently raising a round of outside investment. If you’re an investor, and you share our mission of bringing great technology to Christian communities, let us know.

This is an edition of Word on the ‘Street, the official FaithStreet newsletter. If you’d like to receive weekly updates, sign up on FaithStreet.com.

Now with Twitter Cards

kurioscreative — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 13:47:00 -0400

For those of us on Twitter, sharing links to churches on FaithStreet just got a little bit better. As you can see from the picture above, we were just approved for Twitter Cards. Every time you share a church (or event) on Twitter, your followers will see content directly from your page beyond the 140 character limit. Think of this as a tweet enhancement.

Try tweeting a link to your profile and see for yourself!

Events

kurioscreative — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 12:37:00 -0500

Churches can now share events on their profile. When a church seeker visits a church profile, this is a great way to give them other opportunities besides the Sunday morning service to discover your church. This is a great way to keep church members updated as well!

Events are a big part of the church community, and we’re happy that we can help you communicate them better.

Search by Service Time

kurioscreative — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 17:06:00 -0500

You may have seen it already, but you can now search for churches by service time on FaithStreet. For both early-risers and those who enjoy a 1pm brunch, this makes it easier than ever to find a church.

Internship Opportunity: "Public Relations and Marketing Intern"

kurioscreative — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 18:56:00 -0500

Reporting To

Company Overview: FaithStreet (www.faithstreet.com) is building a service that makes it easy for anyone to connect with a great church or Christian community. For churches, FaithStreet provides a great-looking, easy-to-use web presence designed especially for newcomers. For church seekers, FaithStreet is creating a personalized connection experience that will take the confusion and uncertainty out of finding a great church.

We’re growing rapidly. In the last 2 months, over 7,000 churches have created profiles on FaithStreet, and we have already connected thousands of people to great Christian communities.We need people who are excited about our mission and want a challenging learning experience.

Internship Overview:
This is a great opportunity to learn full-scale public relations for an early-stage tech startup. This internship will build skills relevant for pursuing a career in public relations and marketing on the agency side, or the company side. You will be working directly with the Chief Marketing Office and the CEO, and you will gain extremely valuable hands-on experience researching, designing, and executing a PR program at a young, exciting tech startup. We do not currently have a PR plan, so you will design and help execute that plan. Everything that you do will directly contribute to the growth and success of FaithStreet. There is no “busy” work. We’ll evaluate your performance based on the relationships you build and the stories you successfully pitch for FaithStreet.

Recent Press:
We’ve received some solid coverage, and we’re seeking to build on early momentum. You’ll help us design a strategy to reach different kinds of media (social media, web, print, TV, et al) in new markets.PandoDaily: FaithStreet Lives At the Corner of Tech and Christianity
Huffington Post: FaithStreet Connects Communities
the Blaze: FaithStreet Connects People to Churches
Christian Union Magazine: Taking A Leap on FaithStreet
We Are NY Tech: Sean Coughlin, CEO of FaithStreet
Episcopal Church Press Release: Episcopal Church Partners With FaithStreet
MTV Press: What Religion 2.0 Might Look Like…

Requirements:

15 hours per week minimum, with the potential for more. Very flexible hours.
Starting date of Jan 7, 2013 with minimum commitment of 4 months, max 6 months
Work Remotely, but communicate via Skype and email.
If you live in the NYC area we welcome you to come work from our office when possible

Responsibilities:

Work with the Chief Marketing officer to design a PR strategy
Research Christian and “mainstream” media properties and journalists at the national, regional and local levels
Write “pitches” to journalists, bloggers and publishers
Draft of actual stories or press releases that will be sent to journalists
Research journalists’,bloggers’, and other influencers’ use of social media, and then use our social media properties to make connections and introductions
Support all functions of public relations and media relations needs

Qualifications:

Excellent organizational skills
Excellent Internet Research Skills
Strong communication skills, both written and verbal
Ability to handle multiple projects simultaneously
Familiarity with spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel or Google Docs
Persistence and a Positive Attitude

Apply:

If you are interested please send an email to FaithStreet CEO Sean Coughlin at sean@faithstreet.com
Please include your resume and a brief statement about “Why I Want to Work at FaithStreet”

Internship Opportunity: "Web Research and Data Intern"

kurioscreative — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 18:52:00 -0500

Reporting To: Chief Marketing Officer & CEOCompany Overview: FaithStreet (www.faithstreet.com) is building a service that makes it easy for anyone to connect with a great church or Christian community. For churches, FaithStreet provides a great-looking, easy-to-use web presence designed especially for newcomers. For church seekers, FaithStreet is creating a personalized connection experience that will take the confusion and uncertainty out of finding a great church.

We’re growing rapidly. In the last 2 months, over 7,000 churches have created profiles on FaithStreet, and we have already connected thousands of people to great Christian communities.We need people who are excited about our mission and want a challenging learning experience.

Internship Overview:

One of our biggest challenges is that information about churches has never been organized in a systematic way. We are working hard to organize this information, and we think it is a very big and exciting problem to solve. The problem is much bigger than simply identifying and categorizing all of the churches in the United States. We want to understand how these churches communicate with the world through social media properties, their websites, etc. We also want to understand and map how churches relate to one another through both formal networks (denomination, church networks, local associations, etc) and informal friendships and relationships.You will be doing research that has never been done, and you will be creating valuable data sets that are going to help grow our company and bring millions of people into church communities who might not have otherwise done so. It’s exciting work with the potential to have an incredible impact.

Requirements

You should have a passion for helping churches use the internet to more effectively reach people, and for helping people find the right church home.
You must be a web junkie. You have to enjoy spending hours online doing research and get a thrill out of finding and organizing this information.
You must be detail oriented and very well organized.
You must be great at using Google and other online research tools to find information.
You must be familiar with Google Docs Spreadsheets program (similar to Excel)
Starting date of Jan 7, 2013 with minimum commitment of 4 months, max 6 months
15 hours per week minimum, with the potential for more. Very flexible hours.
You will work remotely, but if you’re in the NYC area we hope you’ll come work with us in our office occaisionally.

Responsibilities

Work with the Chief Marketing officer to design research projects, and understand how these projects fit into the broader goals of the company, including the business goals
Communicate daily via Skype or email with Chief Marketing Officer on progress
You may have the opportunity to do business development on behalf of FaithStreet based on the research you complete. This will depend on your skills and interest.

Apply:

To apply, please send an email to FaithStreet CEO Sean Coughlin at sean@faithstreet.com
Please include your resume, and a brief statement about “Why I Want to Work at FaithStreet”

FaithStreet partners with the Episcopal Church FaithStreet is...

kurioscreative — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 11:20:00 -0500

FaithStreet partners with the Episcopal Church

FaithStreet is thrilled to announce a new partnership with the Episcopal Church and their 7,500 congregations. The Episcopal Church is one of the most diverse and most influential church networks in our faith, and we’re honored to work alongside them.

Here’s an excerpt from our press reslease, which can be read-in-full here.

The Episcopal Church
Office of Public Affairs

Monday, November 12, 2012

A partnership between the Episcopal Church and FaithStreet paves the way for congregations to connect their church with church seekers through an innovative church locator that offers much more than a search engine.

“Our partnership with FaithStreet will give our congregations a new tool to promote their churches,” commented Anne Rudig, Episcopal Church Director of Communication. “FaithStreet not only locates a church, but works with a congregation to present the mission and ministry done there in ways easily understood by a seeker. It goes beyond address and contact info to providing an ethos or ‘vibe’ of particular churches.”

If your regional or national church network would like to partner with FaithStreet, please contact us at faithstreet@faithstreet.com

FaithStreet Goes National

kurioscreative — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 13:56:00 -0400

If you’ve visited the FaithStreet site recently, you may have noticed some big changes. We have officially “gone national”, meaning you can now find a church anywhere in the country. Even better, if you’ve already found our FaithStreet to be helpful here in New York City, you can now share the site with your friends and family all across the United States.

Invite your friends

Our goal with these changes is to provide the best church discovery experience possible. Each of us (Sean, Ryan, and I) have at one point or another struggled to find a church, and we are committed to helping others through that problem. Say you’re moving to San Diego from Atlanta. Now, all you need to do is type in your location and you’ll be presented with a list of churches nearby. As we grow, we’ll be adding better and more personalized search features, like service times and vibe, so be on the lookout for find a church to call home even easier.

For the church leaders out there, you get some serious love with this release and your church profile just got some pretty sweet upgrades. Now you can do things like add a pastor and create service times for your church. And so much more. You’ll have to sign in to see. Many of the new features seek to remove the anxiety of the “first-time visit” for newcomers. Once a visitor discovers your church on FaithStreet, he or she can contact you directly from the profile or go to your website and engage further. Your FaithStreet profile isn’t designed to replace your existing outreach efforts, but to help people discover the things that you’re doing and learn about who you are.

The best way you can help us is to tell as many people as you can about FaithStreet by doing things like sharing on Facebook and Twitter and talking to your pastor or church leader about signing up.

- Glenn

NYC Faith + Tech

kurioscreative — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:53:00 -0500

FaithStreet is sponsoring a Meetup Group called “NYC Faith+Tech,” which is focused on the intersection of faith and technology.

We helped start the group along with Ainsley O’Connell, and the group is really taking on a life of it’s own. We meet the 2nd Monday of every month at Grace Church NYC at 10th & Broadway in Manhattan. Grace Church has been an awesome supporter of the group and what we’re trying to do.

This month we had a great presentation by FaithStreet advisor John Doherty. Here’s a link to the slide deck from John’s SEO 101 Presentation. We had about 40 people at the meetup, and John put on a great presentation.

This is a great way to meet other people who share an interest in the intersection of Faith + Technology, to learn, and to network. Come out next month and meet us!

The Restoration of Grace Church

kurioscreative — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 12:34:00 -0500

Grace Church NYC, located at Broadway and East 10th St. in Manhattan, is a National Historic Landmark and is one of the most famous structures in the New York City. The historic Episcopal church was initially organized in 1808, and the current church structure was consecrated in 1846.

After more than 160 years, the beautiful structure was in need of major repairs. Over the past several years the current Rector of Grace Church, The Rev. Donald Waring, has been leading a major restoration of the church in order to make the required structural and architectural repairs.

Rev. Waring has been keeping his church community and the public updated on the progress of the restoration by posting updates and even videos on his church’s website. Here is a video of Rev. Waring explaining the installation of massive pieces of limestone “tracery” for the restoration of the beautiful “Te Deum” window, which rises above the church alter. Other videos can be seen here.

The extent of the restoration is truly impressive. Grace Church’s stained glass windows were installed in the 1870’s and 1880’s, and many, such as the “Te Deum Window,” are highly intricate and irreplaceable works of art. Some of them consist of thousands of individual pieces of glass held together by lead strips known as “tracery.” Nine of these windows have been removed so that the stained glass can be cleaned and restored, and so that the marble tracery can be replaced with limestone, which will last longer than marble.

As part of the restoration initiative, Grace is also installing a new pipe organ. The pipe organ is being constructed by Taylor and Boody Organbuilders of Staunton, Virginia. Rev. Waring has said that the new organ will be not only “a majestic musical instrument, but also a mechanical marvel and a work of art.” Rev. Waring says that Taylor and Boody “use the time honored methods of the craft that have allowed the life spans of organs in Europe to be measured in centuries, not decades.”

This view towards investing for the long-term is expensive, but Rev. Waring and the Grace Church leadership have been sucessful at developing a plan to restore the important and historic church, mobilizing the church community behind the plan, and then (most imporantly) successfully executing on the plan. This is a great case-study for other historic churches facing similar structural issues.

Updates

kurioscreative — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:12:00 -0500

Today we implemented a few new design updates and features on FaithStreet.com

Here are some highlights:

1) Made changes to the look and feel of the site header and home page

-These include adding new icons to the header for the “Blog,” “About Us,” and “Explore” links

2) Implemented design changes to the church profile pages

-Added Social Sharing buttons (Facebook, Twitter, Google+)

-Re-prioritized information on the profile page

3) Increased the number of NYC churches in our database to 2,000 churches, which is now by far the most comprehensive resource for information about churches in NYC—but we still have a long way to go.

We are constantly working on improvements and refinements to both the functionality and design of FaithStreet, and you can expect many more improvements and updates over the coming months. If you have any comments or suggestions we would love to hear them.

FaithStreet

51 New Churches in the Last 30 days

kurioscreative — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:02:00 -0500

Here’s a list of the 51 new churches who’ve joined FaithStreet in the last 30 days. We’re honored to work with them and all of the 166 New York Churches on FaithStreet. Click on their name to see their FaithStreet profile.

Christ Church Bay Ridge

First Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn

St. James Church

Gustavus Adolphus Lutheran Church

St. John’s Episcopal Church

Church of St. Luke and St. Matthew

Gospel Faith Mission International

Glorious Morning Star Cherubim & Seraphim Church

The Church of the Revelation

Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture

St. Anthony’s Church

Metro Baptist Church

Grace NYC

St. Stanislaus Kostka

Chinatown Outreach Ministry

Chelsea Community Church

Immanuel & First Spanish United Methodist Church

Redeemer Evangelical Lutheran Church

Greenpoint Reformed Church

Hipster Church

Trinity Grace - East Village

Church of the Good Shepherd

St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery

Justice House of Prayer

The Church of the Good Shepherd

Urban Harvest Church

United Bengali Church of America

St. Stephen of Hungary Parish

New Life Christian Center

Christ the Savior Church

Emanuel Presbyterian Church

Old First Reformed Church

Astoria Community Church

Movement NYC

Christ Church Clinton Hill

Sion Iglesia Luterana (Zion Lutheran Church)

Grace Fellowship Church

Trinity Lutheran Church of Manhattan

Bethany Reformed Memorial Church

Liberty Church - Union Square

St. George Coptic Orthodox Church

Bronx Bethany Church of the Nazarene

Restoration Community Church

Antioch Baptist Church Jamaica

Mount Neboh Baptist Church

Trinity Grace Brooklyn

Grace Baptist Church

Bellerose Baptist Church

The ROCK Brooklyn

Times Square Church

Advent-Gravescend Church

Abolition of Human Trafficking Event This Saturday, 12/3,...

kurioscreative — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 13:37:00 -0500

Abolition of Human Trafficking Event

This Saturday, 12/3, 12:30-3:30. Great example of Christians from different churches and neighborhoods working together.

FaithStreet Progress Report: November 14, 2011 The past few...

kurioscreative — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 19:24:00 -0500

FaithStreet Progress Report: November 14, 2011

The past few months have been an exciting time for FaithStreet, and we have made a lot of quiet progress towards our goal of building a platform that helps New Yorkers (and visitors) find and connect with any church in NYC.

The FaithStreet Team: Hard at work at FaithStreet World Headquarters, Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Quick Progress Report:

CTO/ co-founder Glenn Ericksen joined the team
Re-launching new and improved FaithStreet platform in early December
120 NYC Churches have signed up for FaithStreet
Working with Redeemer Presbyterian Church’s Entrepreneurship Initiative
Brought on 3 fantastic interns
480 Facebook likes—Help us get to 500!
Helped start and sponsor NYC Faith+Tech Meetup (70 members in first two months)
Won Ultra Light Startups August Pitch Contest

Over the past 15 years, many powerful and transformative web services have been created using the power of the internet, but (incredibly), no one has succeeded in building a web service around the idea of uniting churches and Christians on a single platform. That is what FaithStreet is trying to do.

We believe that ours is a huge and immensely important vision, but we are more confident than ever that we are going to succeed in building a world-class web service that helps people looking for a church find and connect with churches in their city, and that helps ALL Christian churches harness the power of the internet and online social networks to do effective online outreach. Building a vibrant, city-wide Christian community around the FaithStreet platform is essential to accomplishing those goals, and we are very hopeful that we can achieve that. Beyond those things—Who knows?

We started working on building FaithStreet in May of 2010, which means we have been working on executing on our vision for more than a year and a half. It has been a lot of hard, yet deeply rewarding WORK, and it has often felt like pushing a very large rock uphill. If you have been checking in on our website (www.faithstreet.com) over the past 6 months, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell that we have been doing much, because so much of our progress has been about LEARNING, building relationships, and finding the right technical partner who believes in our vision and who has the talents and drive to help us fulfill it.

But, visible progress is going to appear soon. Within the next month, FaithStreet will be launching a completely new and redesigned website that is going to be vastly superior to our current platform. We will also, for the first time, be completely in control of our technology. We are building the new platform ourselves, as opposed to having a 3rd party developer to build it—as is the case with our current site. This is going to be a fundamental change for us, and will enable us to continuously build and test new features. We are really, really excited about that. Stay tuned!

Here are some other things that we have done recently:

-As of today, we have 480 facebook “likes.” Would you please help us get to 500 by “LIKING” our page on Facebook? We would love you forever…and ever.

-In October, we welcomed aboard our CTO/Co-Founder Glenn Ericksen. This was a HUGE step for FaithStreet, and we are all pretty excited about it. With the addition of Glenn, we now have 3 full-time employees. Here’s our blog post announcing Glenn’s addition to the team: http://blog.faithstreet.com/say-hello-to-the-new-faithstreet-cto

-With Glenn onboard, we’ve been working on hard on building the new platform (in Rails) for about two months. We started from SCRATCH, and we are adding some really interesting functionality that is going to empower church communities to do outreach on behalf of their churches, and provide much more useful and interesting information for people looking for churches.

-We have 120 churches in NYC who are now managing their church’s FaithStreet profile. These churches are an extremely diverse group, which is exactly what we want FaithStreet to be all about. These churches include Catholic churches, Episcopal churches, Presbyterian churches, Non-Denominational churches, Baptist churches, historic churches, church plants, French-speaking churches, Spanish-speaking churches, large churches, tiny churches, churches in all five boroughs, and everything in between. It’s amazing.

-We started an internship program, and this fall we have had three awesome interns that have been doing great work for us. Here’s our blog post on our interns: http://blog.faithstreet.com/meet-the-faithstreet-interns

-We’ve been participating in Redeemer Church’s Entrepreneurship Initiative, which has already been hugely helpful to us. We are learning a lot from the director of Ei, Calvin Chin, and we’re looking forward to learning a lot more. Learn more about Ei’s Business Plan Competition here.

-In September, we help start and sponsored the NYC Faith+Tech Meetup Group to gather together people who have an interest in the intersection of faith and technology. We now have more than 70 members in the group. We just had our first meetup (at Grace Church on Broadway and 10th—Thank you Grace Church!) in October, and our next meetup is tomorrow. We are expecting at least 30 people. All are welcome!

-In August, we won the Ultra Light Startups pitch event, which was pretty exciting and great for developing relationships in the NYC Tech Community.

If you made it this far, Thanks! And thanks for all of your support.

The FaithStreet Team: Sean, Ryan and Glenn

Finding Christian Community in NYC and “The Meaning of...

kurioscreative — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 14:30:00 -0500

Finding Christian Community in NYC and “The Meaning of Marriage”

Bethany Jenkins, President and Founder of The Park Forum (@theParkForum), reflects on her journey to New York City and how Timothy and Kathy Keller’s “The Meaning of Marriage” speaks to both married people and singles.
Bethany is a featured guest at the next NYC Faith+Tech Meetup on Tuesday, November 15th. Please join us at Grace Church at 7pm. For more information click here.

By Bethany Jenkins, FaithStreet Guest Contributor

On July 5, 2004, ten months after a broken engagement, I got on a train with all my bags in tow and moved from Washington, D.C., to New York City. As the skyline of the city came into view, I remember wondering whether I’d ever feel at home here. Although I had a few friends here already, only one of them was a Christian – and I barely knew her. In contrast, I had left a rich and loving community in DC. Through my broken engagement and the death of a close friend a few months prior to that (who passed away on her one-month wedding anniversary), our small church community had become my family. I was convinced that my community in DC was unique and that I would never be able to replicate it in NYC.Today, eight years later, I am thankful to say that I was wrong – my community in NYC has, in fact, eclipsed my community in DC. When I got to New York, I immediately started attending Redeemer Presbyterian Church and, having received a strong biblical foundation from my church in DC, I jumped into co-leading a woman’s fellowship group. For the past two years, since starting The Park Forum, I’ve been meeting with Kathy Keller nearly every Monday for lunch to talk about theology and life. Of course, as a single woman, we’ve talked about marriage and dating. So, when Tim and Kathy were preparing to launch their book, The Meaning of Marriage, they asked me to co-moderate the discussion from “the single perspective.”

After I read the book, I put it down and thought, “This is the most beautiful and thoughtful and wonderful picture of marriage that I have ever seen.” Then, however, I remembered that I was still single. Now what? Unfortunately, the typical church answer is about serving the church, which usually takes the form of passing out programs or putting out chairs. Yes, these are great ways to serve. Yet, I knew that marriage was more than mopping floors and paying bills – no matter how necessary those things are. So, I took the different chapters and considered what the shadow of each aspect of marriage in the book may look like in the single life.“Loving the Stranger” is about confronting our own self-centeredness by relating to someone totally different from us. I thought, “I can do that now.” I can love the unlovable and the annoying and the disagreeable right now – the world (especially New York!) is full of people like that. “Embracing the Other” is about recognizing gender differences and submitting to the Lord’s design. I can do that now. I can pursue a godly femininity that loves my brothers in Christ. “The Essence of Marriage” is about keeping the covenant of marriage even when it’s tough or when the feelings aren’t there. I can do that now. I can choose people in my life – my parents, my brothers, my sister-in-law, my small group – and I can choose to love them forever no matter what – even when they hurt me and when I know they’ll hurt me again. And when all of these relationships get tough and I don’t know how I’ll make it through, I can turn to “The Power of Marriage,” which is the Holy Spirit. It’s not like there is a special Holy Spirit for marriage. I already have Him in my heart. He has the power to change the relationships that I am in right now. So whether or not I ever get married, “The Mission of Marriage” is my mission as well – that is, to set my sights on Jesus and head toward the throne and lift up my family and friends up to holiness and righteousness, as we worship the Lord together. After all, as I discovered, marriage is no different in kind from the rest of the Christian life; it’s just different in intensity.

Leaders Speak: Pastor Chris Travis of Everyday Christian...

kurioscreative — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 14:36:00 -0500

Leaders Speak: Pastor Chris Travis of Everyday Christian Church

In this Leaders Speak installment, FaithStreet superstar intern Anna Wilhelm (@AnnaBee8) interviews Pastor Chris Travis (@ChrisTravisNYC) of Everyday Christian Church, a new church plant in Upper Manhattan. Pastor Travis talks about being called to NYC, the struggles and rewards of church planting, and much more.

You used to pastor a church in Cincinnati. How and when did God call you to NYC? How did you, your family, and your church respond?

God’s been talking to my wife Lindsay and I for years and years about moving to NYC, in a dozen different ways. My family is from this part of the country. Lindsay is an actress in musical theater, so this is the place to be. About four years ago, after a lot of prayer and advice-seeking, we felt like it was the right time. My first impulse was to find a position on staff with a church (I worked in ministry in Cincinnati at the time), but we began to feel that we needed to get here first and put a finger on the pulse of the city before we decided what type of ministry would be appropriate. For the first two years we lived here I taught math at a public school in Harlem. Our church family in Cincinnati was sad to see us go, and it was painful to leave, but they were also incredibly supportive and have become one of Everyday Church’s biggest partners.

You’ve also written a book titled Unnamed: Unsuspecting Heroes Singled Out By God. What inspired you to write it?

Standard Publishing was crafting a Vacation Bible School (VBS) curriculum with a super hero theme, based on a few stories in the Bible about unnamed heroes. The fact that there were stories in the Bible about people who did significant things for God, but who aren’t named in the Scripture, just fascinated me. It haunted me. Why would God include so many of these stories, but not mention their names? I slowly began to realize it was because their stories are our stories. Most of us will never be famous, but we can be significantly used by God nonetheless.

Incidentally, I didn’t say everything I have to say about significance in that book. My second book, Insignificant: Why You Matter in the Surprising Way God is Changing the World, explores significance from a biblical perspective, and shares some of my bizarre, frightening, and exhilarating experiences teaching in Harlem. Insignificant is expected to released in August 2012 by Bethany House, a division of Baker Publishing.

In what ways do you approach ministry differently here in NYC than you did in Ohio?

Our approach is intensely relational. At the moment, we do not meet to worship, in the typical sense, every Sunday. We meet in Home Groups, where we share life, a meal, communion, discussion about the Bible, and prayers for one another. We currently meet to worship once per month and we are planning to increase that to every other week in January. As we read the Bible, relationships are so critical to God’s plan for our renewal that as leaders, we feel a burden to shepherd people into strong, loving, faith-based circles of relationships, where we can practice the Bible and live all the “one anothers” we find in Scripture.

What is the greatest struggle of church planting? What is the greatest reward?

The greatest struggle is staying dependent on God. The tempation to trust in our own understanding—to simply think things through—or to work in our own strength, rather than depend upon God to come through is very strong. We have to constantly and vigilantly remind ourselves about Whose church this is, Who’s in charge, and Who it’s all for.

The greatest reward is to see God move. Whether that’s been drawing Spanish-speakers into our community (in spite of the fact we have none on staff), giving us favor with local leaders, prompting people to make big decisions for Jesus, or providing more than enough resources, the story of Everyday Church is a story about God. Our story is a story about how God started something that I don’t even fully understand, how he knit together our team and our core participants, how He continues to open doors and prompts people to act. I don’t really care what else happens along the way— if I get to be a partner with God, that’s as good as it gets.