There are a lot of events for Church Planters these days. The Praxis Gathering stands out by creating space to interact with fellow practitioners. Each presenter is currently at work in grounded missional practice in different contexts throughout North America.
Jon Tyson is one of the 27 practitioner presenters you’ll get to spend quality time with at The Praxis Gathering. Jon helped plant Trinity Grace Church, a network of congregations located throughout New York City. Jon co-founded of the Center for City Renewal, which equips and empowers Christian citizens throughout New York.
In a 2011 interview with Relevant Magazine, Tyson discussed how to differentiate between “concrete” and “cement” in church planting:
What is concrete is the Gospel, alright? What is concrete is God’s self-imposed limits: your personality, the state of your marriage. There are real boundaries in place, and those things cannot be violated and your soul prosper. So there are personal things and core theological fundamental. Everything else has to be up for grabs. Our church to this day doesn’t do a style of worship I particularly like. But I know it is absolutely the worship that enables a New Yorker to encounter God in their heart and have the best possible time without freaking out a non-Christian. The best thing you can do is come in really humble and throw all your plans out the window and just learn. You have to distrust most of your instincts, and it is a very rare person who can not only distrust their instincts, but then build contrary to them if needed. So the way to avoid that pain is just move and live in the city and feel its pains in your soul so you can effectively speak to them, rather than coming in and trying to do something.
Read the whole interview here.
Your Church is Only As Good As Its Disciples
Jon shares about the one idea that has reshaped his approach to Church Planting.
Sustaining Incarnational Mission
Hear Jon’s argument that “the only thing that can sustain incarnational mission is love.”
Cosmopolitan Evangelism
From the video description:
In a culture where religious pluralism has become widely accepted, there is a tendency to back away from evangelism—after all, it’s kind of aggressive and could be seen as intolerant. How do we communicate our faith in a way that resonates and does not offend—especially for those who might have built-in anti-Christian attitudes? Jon Tyson, founding pastor of Trinity Grace Church in New York City, offers insights into what it means to do evangelism in an urban, pluralistic, often hostile context. He says it takes recognizing a long-term view—that evangelism isn’t the work of a moment and it cannot be about counting “how many” were saved today or this month or this year.
What is the Vision the Holy Spirit is Giving to a New Generation?
Jon explains some reasons he believes that Trinity Grace Church reaches a younger generation.
Advancing the Common Good
From the video description:
The common good is defined as—”the most good for all people.” Aristotle first conceived it, but Thomas Aquinas, a thirteenth-century Roman Catholic philosopher, honed it well as a Christian conception for how Christians ought to live alongside others who were different in society. This strict definition of the common good doesn’t prefer one human being over another; instead, it values all human life and wants what is best for all people—Christian or not.
“I want to learn from Jon at The Praxis Gathering!”
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