The Christian Church in New York City

Since my time in my high school youth group, I have held very dearly the privilege of involving myself in the local church. You can not truly know something without delving deep into the things that make it real. Like it or not, religion, like the the food we eat and the music we listen to, is foundational. As I grow roots in this city, they are still shallow, and I can not presume to have any of it "figured out." Some of you have asked me about my experience with the church here. Please know that my tendency and preference is to experience things from the inside out.
In this case, I write as an observer.

The streets here are lined with churches - some small, others large, Gothic edifices with Latin inscriptions and Roman numerals dating them long before any of the surrounding buildings had even been conceived. What goes on inside them? Many are open to the public, almost acting as museums while offering worship services. St. Patrick's Cathedral on Madison Ave is a great example. They offer somewhere around 5 masses a day; one in the afternoon is in Spanish. I like to go there on Sunday afternoons and read, reflect and pray. The cavernous spaces catch all the tourist's noise and create an odd sense of peace. Old First Reformed Church in Park Slope offers an ongoing collection of chamber music performances geared toward children in addition to standard services and Sunday school classes, althought I have never been inside. Another church meets in a small space above a corner store down the road from us, at the corner of Dean Street and Nostrand Avenue in Crown Heights. Saturday and Sunday nights it pumps out boisterous, high intensity praise music that nearly lures me upstairs every time I pass it (and I don't even like praise songs). Across the street on the opposing corner, the large and austeer Bedford Presbyteriam Church makes no noise. Sometimes I wonder if anyone even goes in.

I have walked in reformed Christian circles for long enough to know that a discussion of the New York church would be incomplete without Redeemer. I visited the church at its Hunter College Auditorium meeting and heard Tim Keller preach. He was every bit as impressive and unassuming as I imagined he would be. My fiancee Amber and I listened to some lectures that he and his wife gave for premarital counseling so I knew what to expect. Sitting in the back of the theater listening to him preach was almost the same as hearing him on the computer. The music is billed as traditional, although I am not sure which tradition they are aiming for. A brass quintet accompanies an organist, and a song leader sings from the lectern, apparently not through a microphone. The singing on the part of those attending was minimal and forlorn. I have decided not to return until Amber and I are looking for churches together in April.

Park Slope Presbyterian Church
My friend Sarah took me to this church when I first got here, and it has been my first choice ever since. They meet in a school, much like the church I worked at in Gainesville and attended for 6 years, but not in the auditorium like most. When you enter John Jay High School on 7th Avenue in Park Slope, you are ushered upstairs, through foam green hallways and stairwells, past the large auditorium into the cafeteria. The room is dirty and obstructed by large collumns, but it is well lit and deep.

Each morning members of the church set up chairs and the musicians bring their equipment with them. The pastoral staff wears traditional robes. They partake of communion each Sunday. They greet each other by name and pass the peace. The atmosphere is full of the joy and frustration created by large numbers of young children chattering and dancing in the makeshift aisles. For all the things that it is not - specifically everything that a large, beautiful church on 5th Avenue in Manhattan can offer - this church is truly a group of people seeking community in something greater than themselves. That is what I look for in a church, and since I found it early, I was spared the hassle of looking elsewhere. Of course when Amber arrives, we will select a church together. For now, I am content and pleased to attend it.

The music is very interesting. A female song leader backed by a band of four or five including drums, bass and a pedal steel guitar guides the congregation through hymnity young and old. It is never what you might consider contemporary, but it is fresh and exciting. Having led worship for so long, it can be very difficult for me to be led in it. I am constantly critiquing what I hear and reading in to the music, noting the demeanor of the musicians and their relationships with the leader. The process always happens the same way, and it is nauseating. At Park Slope Presbyterian I have found it easy to sing and worship, and I even find myself laughing at a particularly good riff from the pedal steel player from time to time. (I went to see him play at a club in the East Village and was pleased to see that he brings what he has to a Sunday morning worship service.)

In short, I like the church. It's not perfect, making it the perfect place for me. As to the state of the church at large, I hope to have more to say as I continue to experience things here. I hope this helps you.