Christ Church NYC

09/07/2026

A Message from Eric Park about Labor Day:

As we observe Labor Day in a world where most of one's waking hours are spent engaged in some form of paid or unpaid labor, I am reminded that one of our most essential and urgent spiritual disciplines is to practice the kind of active prayer that infuses and punctuates our daily work, thereby nurturing an attentiveness to God’s presence in the midst of even our most mundane daily tasks.

I am speaking of the kind of prayer that transforms a long commute into an extended communion with the Holy Spirit; the kind of prayer that converts an office into a sanctuary or a kitchen table into a Eucharistic altar; the kind of prayer that helps us to name our resentment toward a difficult coworker and then reshapes that resentment into creative and dynamic patience.

If we allow even our most difficult work to become prayerful space, then perhaps we can practice the kind of approach to labor that Colossians 3:23 seems to envision: “Whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord and not for your masters.”

This Labor Day, I am praying for people I know and their work:

For those who love their work and those who feel trapped in a job that has become unpleasant or even oppressive for them.

For those who find themselves painfully unemployed or frustratingly underemployed.

For employers and employees entrusted with the often-challenging task of maintaining a fair and just work environment.

Most of all, I am praying that all of us will approach our work—whatever that particular work might be—as an opportunity to incarnate the integrity of a well-lived life, so that all with whom we work might glimpse in our conduct and demeanor a portion of the good heart that God is forming within us.

I hope that all of you are able to experience a meaningful and energizing Labor Day.

Artwork:
"Hard Working Man" by Cameron Hampton
"Hard Working Women" by Mauro Chiarla

09/06/2026

This Fall at Christ Church -

Week of September 3, 2026

09/06/2026

Sunday at Christ Church - September 6, 2026 -

Sunday Worship Service - September 6, 2026

09/04/2026

This Weekend in Worship at Christ Church NYC:
Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost—September 6, 2026

We would love to see you in person at one of our Sunday Morning worship services this Sunday (9:00 AM and 11:00 AM) at Christ Church NYC, a United Methodist congregation on the corner of Park Avenue and 60th Street. If you are far outside of the city and in need of a church connection, we invite you to participate in the 11:00 AM livestreamed Sunday service via the church’s website: christchurchnyc.org. (Experience the livestream in real time on Sunday morning or watch the recording later on.)

• At 9AM, we will worship in the quiet and meditative intimacy of our chapel.

• At 11AM, our worship in the sanctuary this Sunday will include the music ministry of Dr. Steve Pilkington (organist) and Paul Speiser (soloist).

•Sunday School and nursery care is offered for children at the 11AM service.

•We will celebrate Holy Communion at both services. At 11AM, our church’s children will lead us to the table.

•At both services, Eric Park will offer a sermon entitled, “The Poetry of Peacemaking,” focusing on Matthew 18:15-20—a biblical moment in which Jesus offers a teaching about the stewardship of conflict that is simultaneously practical in its application, poetic in its cadence, and unapologetically theological in its content: "If a brother or sister sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone..." (Matthew 18:15). Through his teaching about conflict, Jesus invites us into what I have come to call the poetry of peacemaking. Such peacemaking is rooted in a love in which we refuse to reduce the people with whom we are in conflict to nothing more than objectified antagonists on the other side of an issue. In this love and poetry, even our stewardship of conflict is transformed by the reconciling grace of God.

Join us this Sunday as we worship God, as we reconnect with one another, and as we ponder what it might mean to care for our conflicts in a way that reflects God's gracious commitment to a world that is often in conflict with its Creator.

(Artwork: "Healing the Rift" by Francesco Ruspoli)

09/04/2026

September 4, 2026

09/03/2026

Here is an article from United Methodist News about the church's response to the catastrophic floods in Nepal-Tibet.

As always, the best way for individual United Methodist Churches to help right now is to donate generously to the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), which, as this article indicates, is presently and diligently at work to provide supplies, advocacy, and partnership to areas devastated by the flooding.

There is a link to UMCOR's "International Disaster Response Advance" in the "How To Help" box within the article. The link will take you to a donation page.

Churches and mission partners are responding after catastrophic floods along the Nepal-Tibet border, as Asian Christian leaders call for prayer, humanitarian support and sustained solidarity with affected communities.

09/03/2026

This Fall at Christ Church - https://mailchi.mp/d8ede4162d0a/faithmatters-7231807

08/30/2026

Sunday at Christ Church - August 30, 2026 -

Sunday Worship Service - August 30, 2026

08/28/2026

This Weekend in Worship at Christ Church NYC:
Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost—August 30, 2026

We would love to see you in person at one of our Sunday Morning worship services this Sunday (9:00 AM and 11:00 AM) at Christ Church NYC, a United Methodist congregation on the corner of Park Avenue and 60th Street. If you are far outside of the city and in need of a church connection, we invite you to participate in the 11:00 AM livestreamed Sunday service via the church’s website: christchurchnyc.org. (Experience the livestream in real time on Sunday morning or watch the recording later on.)

• At 9AM, we will worship in the quiet and meditative intimacy of our chapel, gathering eventually around the table of Holy Communion.

• At 11AM, our worship in the sanctuary this Sunday will include a team of stellar musicians, including Ashley Everhart (saxophonist), Amir Farid (pianist), Steve Pilkington (organist), and vocal quartet Megan Henry, Cara Search, Matthew Henry, and Paul Speiser.

•Sunday School and nursery care is offered for children at the 11AM service.

•At both services, Eric Park will offer a sermon entitled, “Shoes Off, Please,” based upon Exodus 3:1-15—a biblical moment in which an ordinary portion of shrubbery burns brightly with the flame of God’s revelation in a “place beyond the wilderness.” Think about it: A burning bush making a remote wilderness into holy ground. A God who “comes down” into human suffering. And everything changing for an unsuspecting shepherd named Moses and the oppressed people he will eventually lead. It inspires us to ask: Is there still holy ground for us in our various “places beyond the wilderness”? Are there still souls and circumstances around us that become holy ground because of the presence and activity of God? And, if so, what might it mean for us to travel reverently upon that ground and to engage with the One who makes it holy?

Join us this Sunday as the liturgy helps us to pray, as the music helps us to sing, as a spirit of community helps us to connect, and as Scripture helps us to ponder the holy ground that God’s redemptive presence continues to create.

(Artwork: “Moses and the Burning Bush” by Hoe Yen Tam)

08/24/2026

A Word About Meaningful Hope,
offered by Eric Park:

Given the grimness of so many current circumstances and conversations, I find myself praying regularly and desperately for a widely-experienced awakening of authentic and unadulterated hope.

By "hope," of course, I do not mean an anemic wishful thinking designed only to pacify unsettledness. Nor do I mean a nebulous promise of pie in the sky that irresponsibly sidesteps the harsh realities and daunting responsibilities of the here and now.

Rather, I am speaking of the stubborn and energizing conviction that none of the world's brokenness is beyond the redemptive scope of God's weeping and resurrecting grace; that manifestations of evil and injustice, while very real, do not represent the defining word over our trajectory; and that while we, as individual souls, may not be able to change the entirety of the world, we can always illuminate our portion of it with the reflected radiance of the One whom Scripture describes as "the true light, which enlightens everyone" (John 1:9).

My prayer is that God’s always-dynamic Spirit will lead us more deeply into the kind of prophetic and enlivening hope to which I am making reference, so that we might resist both cynicism and despair in order to become agents of steady integrity and compassion. When a life is lived with this transformative and rugged hope, perhaps that life stands a much better chance of bearing consistent witness to God’s promises of redemption, even when their fulfillment seems far away.

I am grateful to stand alongside you, friends, as together we cultivate a hope that deepens both our vision and our commitment concerning what Mary Oliver describes as this "one wild and precious life."

(Artwork: “Hope” by Zhanna Shiletc)