City Chapel NYC

City Chapel NYC
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citychapel.nycCity Chapel exists to see and spread the full measure of the Spirit empowered renewal promised by Jesus that brings personal conversion & deep-life transformation, wholehearted community, social justice, and cultural beauty to New York City and Northern Jersey, and through here, the world.

  1. Sep 20

    1 Corinthians 7:8, 17-24 - Is Singleness Good? // God and Singleness, God and Marriage - Jeremiah Lepasana and Paul Lee

    Full Summary and Reflection Questions Is singleness good? It's a disarmingly simple question—and for many of us, the answer depends entirely on which culture is doing the talking. A traditional culture says no: singleness is a stage to be gotten through. A modern culture says yes: no one has a claim on you and you're free to pursue your own fulfillment. On the surface, that sounds like Paul's answer too. But the engine underneath is completely different—and a freedom with no one holding a claim on you can just as easily become a lonely, untethered existence. Paul writes plainly: it is good to remain single. This was a genuine innovation. Greco-Roman culture saw singleness as illegitimate. The early church legitimized it as an equally faithful way to live in the kingdom. Paul's reasoning rests on a change in how we experience time—because of Jesus's death and resurrection, the future has begun overlapping with the present. What people seek in marriage is real, but its fullness is coming, and more of it is available now than we tend to see.  Paul doesn't pretend this is easy. The circumstances we find ourselves in feel weighty because they're rarely just about the circumstance—they're a proxy for deeper questions about who we are, whether we belong, and whether we're missing out on God's blessing.  The invitation isn't to stop longing. It's to lay the longing on the table and respond with open hands, trusting God with however he chooses to answer.

  2. Sep 13

    1 Corinthians 7:17 - Walk Around and In His Call // God and Singleness, God and Marriage - Jeremiah Lepasana

    Full Summary and Reflection Questions Church cultures that over-idealize marriage, traditional cultures that over-emphasize it, and a modern culture that under-emphasizes it entirely all pull in different directions. Layered with social media noise and the pace of city life, wholeness can feel nearly impossible to reach. This series looks at what Paul writes directly to singles and to the married in 1 Corinthians 7—with one question at the center: how do you live the truth of Jesus and his gospel out? Scripture says marriage is God's own idea and design, and to operate in love, sex, and romance apart from that design is like putting diesel fuel in a gas engine. But the alternative isn't retreating to a safe, risk-free distance from love that preserves life without ever instigating any. The question is harder and simpler than either extreme: how do you actually walk in what God has given you? Paul's answer begins with a single word. The driving verb in 1 Corinthians 7:17 is peripateo—to walk around. Paul isn't just saying follow your calling. He's saying inhabit it. The gospel isn't an idea you encounter on a Sunday and walk away from. It's something meant to go with you into every room. Each person has been given a unique assignment and a unique call. The goal is to live inside that assignment rather than resenting it or wishing for someone else's. Places of assignment are places of purpose—and that is as true for the single person as it is for the married one.

  3. Aug 30

    Luke 22:14-29 - Finding your place // Tables of Jesus - Jeremiah Lepasana

    Full Summary and Reflection Questions Jesus has just finished instituting the Lord's Supper when a dispute breaks out among them over which one is to be regarded as the greatest. Underneath the argument is a real and human question: what is my place, and is it a place of significance? Jesus names the pattern plainly. It's a system built on hierarchy, leverage, and control—the same instinct that fills our own moment, amplified by algorithms constantly surfacing the top of every hierarchy, with envy and despair over the gap between where we are and where we think we should be. His word to his disciples, and to us, is direct: not so with you. Greatness starts with where your eyes are trained—and Jesus says to train them on the bottom, not the top.

  4. Aug 23

    Luke 19:1-10 - Jesus and Zacchaeus, Seeking One Lost Sheep // Tables of Jesus - Chiwon Ahn

    Full Summary and Reflection Questions Before the encounter even begins, Luke gives us everything we need to understand what's at stake. Zacchaeus is a chief tax collector—wealthy because he has cheated, and everyone in Jericho knows it. His name means the pure one. Everyone sees him as a traitor. So when he hears Jesus is passing through, he doesn't push to the front of the crowd. He runs ahead and climbs a tree, just to catch a glimpse without being noticed. What he doesn't know is that Jesus has already come looking for him. When Jesus reaches the tree, he looks straight up, calls Zacchaeus by name, and says: I must stay at your house today. That word—must—carries the weight of divine necessity in Luke's Gospel. Jesus did not wander into Jericho by accident. He came to this city for one reason: to find the one man everyone else had written off. The crowd grumbles. But Jesus goes anyway—deliberately, purposefully, joyfully. And at the table, something extraordinary happens. Without being commanded or prompted, Zacchaeus stands and declares that he will give half of everything he owns to the poor and repay everyone he cheated four times over. The grace of being found, of being seen and called by name, is already transforming him before a word is formally preached. The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost. This is not just Zacchaeus's story. If Jesus actively sought the one person nobody thought was worth finding, we are sent to do the same. Invite them to your table. Let them encounter the same Jesus who came looking for Zacchaeus.

  5. Aug 16

    Luke 14:12-24 - How to Be a Better Host // Tables of Jesus - Jeremiah Lepasana

    Full Summary and Reflection Questions Throughout Luke, Jesus uses the table as a mirror. The way we build a guest list reflects the way we live our entire lives. And at this dinner party, he names what everyone has taken for granted: the logic of reciprocity. You invite people who can invite you back. You give to those who can give in return. The problem with that system is twofold. It's self-serving—hospitality motivated by expected return isn't really generosity at all. And it's exclusionary—it quietly locks out anyone who has nothing to offer. Jesus isn't just critiquing a dinner party. He's offering a new logic for how we relate to people, because the old one keeps the needy permanently on the outside. The alternative is intentional, sacrificial, and eschatological. Intentional, because we naturally drift toward the familiar and safe—without real effort, our circles quietly entrench the very biases Jesus came to dismantle. Sacrificial, because every invitation extended to someone who can't reciprocate is one that won't come back to you. And eschatological, because the repayment Jesus promises isn't immediate—it comes later, at the resurrection. He's asking us to trust his math over ours. The best hosts are the best guests. And being a great guest in Jesus' kingdom means showing up knowing you have nothing to offer—and coming anyway. When we know what it feels like to be an outsider who's been welcomed in, we become people who naturally look for the outsiders around us. The great host has one desire: that his house be full. Our calling is to join him in filling it.

  6. Aug 9

    Luke 10:38–42 - Kingdom Hospitality // Tables of Jesus - Jeremiah Lepasana

    Full Summary and Reflection Questions The table is still the place where we make real contact with others. And what Jesus does at the table is describe a new order entirely—a new way for relationships, a new way for power structures. Kingdom hospitality doesn't just turn strangers into guests. It turns enemies into family. Just before the story of Mary and Martha, Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan. The context matters: kingdom hospitality exists because the world is hostile and people arrive wounded. The call is to slow down, to stop, to give someone your full attention—to treat people as human beings rather than interruptions. So why is it so hard to live out? Jesus answers through Martha. She's doing everything expected of a good host, and yet he says: Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things. Anxious points to a deeper fear beneath every surface worry—what if things fall apart? Troubled carries the image of noise, a volume that won't quiet down. When we're full of that kind of noise, we have nothing left to give others. Mary has chosen the one thing that is necessary. The good portion—a phrase rooted in inheritance and in food—the richest, most sustaining part. The part that actually keeps you alive. When we sit with Jesus and let his words settle into the deepest parts of us, the noise begins to quiet. And from that place of rest, we become people who can offer others the full attention he has always given us.

  7. Aug 2

    Luke 5:27-32 - Where does Jesus want you? // Tables of Jesus - Jeremiah Lepasana

    Full Summary and Reflection Questions Where does Jesus want us? Close. He invites himself into the lives of seemingly all the wrong people, and what he offers them is not a program or a prescription—it is his presence. The table picture he gives us emphasizes friendship, conversation, curiosity, hospitality, and ordinary everyday connection. There is a physical intimacy to sharing a meal with someone. You sit face to face, the meal takes time, and you linger. This is the kind of spiritual leader Jesus is—not a drill sergeant, not a detached monk, but someone who pulls up a chair and stays.

  8. Jul 20

    Luke 10:7-11 - "...Now What?"// Good News - Jeremiah Lepasana

    Full Summary and Reflection Questions Jesus sends out seventy-two of his followers into the ordinary uncertainty of life—not just the leadership team, not just the clergy. Everyone carries a call. He sends them partnered, because there is power in partnership, and he sends them out carrying his peace: not merely a wish, but something tangible that can be transmitted and received. At some point, those followers find themselves somewhere unfamiliar, asking the natural question: now what? The bills, the deadlines, the endless ordinary things make it easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. Jesus anticipates this, and his answer comes in three clear commands—eat, heal, say—each one answering a question we ask in those moments. Find a table. The table was where Jesus did some of his best work. His instruction to his followers was not to rush past it but to linger, to receive, to let life and mission move at the speed of real connection. Aim for healing. The practical question in every friendship is simply: what is this person going through? That place of pain or uncertainty is exactly where kingdom restoration is most needed. Say something. To say the kingdom of God has come near is to say: God sees you, knows you, and because he is here, a different life is possible—not distant, not theoretical, but near. Jesus is honest that not every door will open. Rejection is real, and it can feel like death. But the power to face it doesn't come from our own resolve—it comes from looking at what Jesus chose. He came eating and healing, and what the world gave him in return was the cross. When that becomes real to us, it sends us back out, open-handed, willing to risk again.

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5
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About

citychapel.nycCity Chapel exists to see and spread the full measure of the Spirit empowered renewal promised by Jesus that brings personal conversion & deep-life transformation, wholehearted community, social justice, and cultural beauty to New York City and Northern Jersey, and through here, the world.

Information

  • Creator
    City Chapel NYC
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    191
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 City Chapel NYC
  • Show Website
    City Chapel NYC

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