The Gospel Restores and Renews the Image of God in New Yorkers
Spiritual formation is how we intentionally encounter the gospel for the good of ourselves, our church, and our city.
It is not a program or a technique. It is what happens when a person and a people give themselves, over many years, to the practices through which God has always shaped his church.
At City On A Hill, we name four such practices: Discover, Offer, Grow, and Bless. Each is rooted in one of our three discipleship foci — Calling, Worship, and Citizenship — and each works at three scales: the individual life, the church's common life, and the broader life of the city and society.
The matrix below shows how the practices and the scales meet.
Tap any cell to explore, or tap a practice name to read its full definition.
The Formation Matrix
Four practices, three scales — the shape of a formed life. Tap any cell or practice to explore
What happens when we gather.
Worship at City On A Hill is the most spiritually formative thing that we do together. When we gather with God and one another on Sunday morning we are stepping into a pattern of worship that has blessed Christians for centuries. We discover who we are, offer ourselves to God, grow in our faith, and are sent out with his blessing to bless the nations in New York City and beyond.
Discover
Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Psalm 32 · Call to Worship
Worship begins not with what we bring but with what we receive. The Call to Worship names us before we say a word in return — forgiven, covered, surrounded by steadfast love. The opening hymn tells us, again, who we are in light of what Christ has done. The historic creeds locate us inside the faith that millions have confessed before us.
We discover, every Sunday, the name God has spoken over us. This is the first practice of worship, and it is the deepest. Before we can offer anything, we have to know what God has already given us. Identity comes first. Everything else flows from it.
"Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart."
Offer
Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Romans 12:1 · The Heart of Worship
Having received, we offer. The Trinitarian prayer offers praise to Father, Son, and Spirit in turn. The pastoral intercession offers the church's burdens and the world's needs. The Lord's Prayer offers the heart's deepest petitions. The offertory offers material substance. And the Lord's Supper — the central act of Christian worship — is the offering of the whole self in response to Christ's offering of himself.
We do not worship to earn anything. We worship because the only fitting response to a God who has given everything is to give everything back — body, mind, and soul.
"Merciful Father, I come to this table with empty hands and a heavy heart. Wash me, forgive me, and restore me, that I may walk in newness of life."
Grow
Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. Romans 10:17 · The Word Read & Preached
Scripture is read. The sermon is preached. The Word goes to work. This is the movement of worship in which the church is fed and formed — not entertained, not motivated, but actually changed by the slow application of God's Word to the church's mind, heart, and life.
Growth in the Christian life is not optional and not automatic. It happens in places where the Word is taken seriously week after week, where the same congregation gathers around the same Bible, and where the preacher takes the time to say what the text actually means.
"Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness."
Bless
The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. Numbers 6 · The Benediction
At the Table, God blesses us with the gift of his own presence. Through the Spirit, Christ truly meets his gathered people in the bread and the cup — a real communion, not symbol only. We are fed, strengthened, and reconciled before we are sent.
From the Table we are sent — under God's blessing, and as a blessing. The benediction places the threefold name of God over the congregation one more time, and then the people walk back into the city. They take the worship with them. The week ahead is no longer separate from Sunday; Sunday has equipped them for it.
To worship is to be commissioned. We do not gather and then disperse aimlessly. We gather and then we are sent — to family, to friends, to neighbors, to colleagues, to the institutions where God has placed us, to the city we have been sent to love.
"Let us go forth in the name of Christ. — Thanks be to God."
Worship is formative. And we are always worshipping something.
The Sunday gathering is a time to direct our worship anew upon God in Christ, with the joyful encouragement of friends. Your commitment to the Sunday gathering is the pathway to the greatest blessing for your soul — and you will bless others simply by being there.
The city presents us with near-endless opportunities, and many of them are wonderful.