Making Sense of Church | Why Bother with the Church? - Jon Tyson

Church of the City New York

COTC NYC

Religion & Spirituality, Cotc, Churchofthecitynewyork, Cotcnyc, Christianity, Jontyson, Churchofthecity

4.8 • 837 Ratings

🗓️ 8 September 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This Sunday, Pastor Jon kicked off our Fall Sermon Series, Making Sense of Church, by asking the question: Why do we still bother with the Church? The reality is that the Church is a dysfunctional family, but it is still key to the mission of Jesus being carried out in the world, and it cannot be disregarded. We cannot make excuses for the failures of the Church, but also cannot deny the beauty and redemption it has brought; the only question that remains is which future of the Church will you tell with your life? The Church is God’s idea, and it has endured through every time and place since its inception. You need the Church for your growth, and the Church needs you, faithfully living as Jesus’ hands and feet in your context, believing this can be the Church’s finest hour, not its greatest failure.

Transcript

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0:00.0	All right, our teaching text today comes from Matthew 16,
0:05.0	verses 13 through 20 says this.
0:11.0	When Jesus came to the region of Caesariaphi,
0:15.0	he asked his disciples, who do people say the son of man is?
0:20.0	They replied, some say John the baptists others say elijah and still others
0:26.2	jeremiah are one of the prophets but what about you he asked who do you say i am simon peter answered
0:33.7	you are the messiah the son of the living God. Jesus replied, blessed are you, Simon,
0:39.6	son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my father in heaven.
0:46.1	And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades
0:52.8	will not overcome it. I will give you the
0:56.1	keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever
1:00.9	you loose on earth will be loose in heaven. Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was
1:06.8	the Messiah. This is the word of the Lord. We are starting a series called Making Sense
1:14.8	of Church. And today I just want to ask and answer one big question. It's got some
1:22.5	sub points, but one big question. Why do we still bother with the church? What are you doing here? Why did you come
1:35.2	this morning? I'm going to go to church. What is church? I think quite often we haven't spent real time thinking through what the church is.
1:50.7	If you were to ask maybe secular people in our city today, they would say something like this.
1:56.5	The church is the anti-scientific, homophobic, overly political, hypocritical, inwardly focused,
2:03.6	out of touch with reality, sexually abuse covering up, predator shielding, church hurting,
2:09.6	racist, misogynistic, unaccountable, favoritism showing, celebrity-driven, tele-evangelistic,
2:16.5	abusing church on earth.
2:18.4	It promotes crusades, slavery, the Salem witch trials.
	...

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