FOLLOW | Apprenticeship - Keithen Schwahn

Church of the City New York

COTC NYC

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 920 Ratings

🗓️ 29 June 2026

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, Pastor Keithen opened our FOLLOW series with a question that kicks off the heart of the series, "Is it possible to be a Christian and not a disciple of Jesus?"

Teaching from Matthew 4:18–22, he argued that discipleship is not simply about believing Jesus' teaching but apprenticing under His way of life. Looking at Jesus' first call of the fishermen, Pastor Keithen showed that Jesus' invitation comes before anyone has proven themselves, calling ordinary people into a life of presence, formation, and mission. In a culture where "follow" has become little more than a social media gesture, he recovered its original meaning: to walk closely with Jesus until His life becomes evident in our own.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	All right, everyone.
0:02.0	If you would please remain standing for the reading of God's Word,
0:07.0	this is a reading from Matthew chapter 4, verse 18.
0:14.0	As Jesus was walking beside the sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers. Simon called Peter and his brother
0:23.7	Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake for they were fishermen. Come follow me, Jesus said,
0:32.7	and I will send you out to fish for people. At once they left their nets and followed him.
0:40.2	Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James, son of Zebedee and his brother John.
0:46.4	They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them,
0:52.1	and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.
0:56.3	This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. How's it going, Church of the City? Good to see you
1:04.4	guys tonight. My name is Keithan. If we haven't had a chance to meet, I'm the pastor that oversees
1:09.4	all things next generation.
1:11.1	So youth of the city and college NYC.
1:14.1	She's this crew over here.
1:16.9	And tonight we are starting a new series in the Gospel of Matthew.
1:23.5	And this is an opportunity, I would say, for our church to get behind the same vision over the
1:30.2	summer. Some people hit the summer and they're ready to just phone it in, to just kind of go on
1:35.0	autopilot because of how intense the normal rhythms of life are. But I believe that God has
1:42.2	something unique for us this summer if we're going to
1:44.4	lean in and hear all that he has for us.
1:47.8	To set up this series, we wanted to put this question, it kind of sits at the core of
1:53.2	what we're trying to address with this series in front of you tonight, and it's this.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 26 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from COTC NYC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of COTC NYC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.