Origins Church draws young congregants to Chelsea

Volume 2, Number 13 | The Weekly Newspaper of Chelsea | Dec. 28, 2007 - Jan. 3, 2008

"Support businesses and organizations that support Chelsea Now"

By Rachel Breitman

A drummer, two guitarists, a keyboardist and a pair of vocalists tune their instruments on a Chelsea stage in front of a chattering crowd of casually dressed twenty-somethings. Clad in jeans, flannel shirts, vinyl boots, goatees and assorted piercings, the band would blend seamlessly into the atmosphere of any Downtown music club.

But as the musicians and audience raise their voices in song, the words projected on the screen behind them make it perfectly clear that this is no garage band concert.

“Fairest Lord Jesus; Ruler of all nature, O thou of God and man, the Son,” they sing.

The recent Sunday-night harmony echoing from the stage of the German Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. Paul, West 22nd St. between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, is just a typical service of the Origins Church, a recent religious addition to Chelsea. The quickly growing church community sets itself apart from other neighborhood spiritual groups by combining the idealistic beliefs of young, artistic congregants with a focus on charitable works and close readings of ancient religious texts.

Founded on Easter 2006 by a small group of friends who had previously worked at Discovery Church in Orlando, Fla., Origins has seen its membership grow to roughly 450 participants who gather for regular worship in borrowed spaces in Chelsea and the Upper West Side.

“Basically, we were a group of people who were concerned about the world and felt the love of God was not being experienced by enough people,” says Pastor Jon Tyson, 31. “We were trying to figure out how Jesus would have addressed the biggest problems in front of us today.”

The church remains unaffiliated from other branches of Christianity, and is unrelated to the Origins Church in Cincinnati. However, members have recently branched off to form new Origins churches in Los Angeles and Rome.

Tyson says the church uses strains of classic Catholicism, like commitment to essential Christian doctrines. Following Evangelical Christianity, the church is popular among very young members interested in serving the poor and aiding in disaster relief. Also, drawing from more moderate Protestant sects, it has an open-door policy, regardless of gender, race, or sexual orientation.

But unlike some modern churches, Origins frowns on the billion-dollar industry of religious memorabilia, hats, shirts, magnets, tapes and CDs, saying that the money is wasted if it doesn’t go to improving the world. Leery of mixing politics with religion, the church also shies away from defining itself around hot-button “culture wars” issues like abortion rights or gay marriage.

“We try not to focus on smaller issues,” said Tyson, in a thick accent that harkens back to his childhood in Adelaide, Australia. “There are always two sides to any story, and these issues involve people’s emotions, backgrounds and hearts. You can’t make these issues faceless.”

Tyson’s accepting attitude, coupled with his ability to mix casual New York City parlance with quotes from archaic texts, has made him an instant sensation for his young Downtown audience.

“He doesn’t use Christian-ese,” says Elizabeth Yepez, 22, an editor at a medical journal who travels from Bergen County, N.J., to attend weekly Sunday night service in Chelsea. “He speaks for the layperson, giving us context to the Bible.”

Tyson easily slides between bible verses and modern quips, comparing Heaven on earth to a rent controlled apartment on Fifth Avenue and likening the merchants that Jesus cast out of the Temple to the endless advertisements for skin treatments by Dr. Z that bombard subway passengers.

But far from being a type of New Age-y Christianity Lite, services include lengthy sermons with detailed analysis of the words and messages of the original Christian scripture and the historical context in which it was written.

The homily on the advent story included a crash course in the ancient rulers of Jerusalem and the Holy Roman Empire, complete with a slide presentation and description of King Herod’s taxation policies.

The church also stands out by advocating that participants embrace people and ideas that may conflict with the Bible’s teachings. While some see New York City as a mecca for sinners, Tyson says it is important that the church be located in Manhattan, right in the thick of technology, luxury, poverty and entertainment.

He also reminds his practitioners that avoiding sin is not equivalent to performing acts of generosity.

“Do you think the Brazilian child laborer or the homeless guy on the corner care if you choose not to have premarital sex, or drink too much, or curse?” Tyson asks his congregants. “How exactly does that help them?”

Not surprisingly, charitable work is at the center of the church’s mission. Many members say they joined the church to experience community service that goes far beyond serving meals once a year at a soup kitchen, and this Christmas season has been no exception: The church sent members dressed as Santa’s elves to the Fulton Houses Christmas party in early December, and a New Year’s Eve a fundraising party is planned to benefit RestoreNYC, a Christian ministry that provides clothes, shelter, legal support and job training for victims of the sex trade.

The church has also been active in aiding orphans of the AIDS virus in Uganda, raising money for a nonprofit organization called Be the Change to help support 11 children in the Ndejje village of that country. Griffin Matthews, a 25-year-old member of Origins, founded Be the Change and adopted a Ugandan child.

As its charitable work grows, so has the church’s popularity.

“I was looking for a group of people who didn’t just talk about heaven on earth, they lived it,” said Brendan Manwaring, 28, as he reflected on why he became active in the church. Manwaring organizes environmental events for the church, like a rooftop garden and camping trips.

Kevin Kim, an advertising strategic planner, says he had strayed from church services for the last six years. “I felt lazy and indifferent,” said Kim, 27, as he ran his hands through his asymmetrical black haircut. Right now he is not yet ready to take trips to Uganda, like his friend and fellow congregant Jordan Dennett, 23, but says, “This church asks me where I can take my own life.”

Like Kim, many of the church’s young members found Origins after being turned off by other religious services.

Rachel Downing, a 23-year-old who who works in a salon doing facials and cosmetic tattooing, is one of them. “I Googled ‘post-modern churches in New York,’” she recalled explaining how she first found the church. “I was looking for people who were Christian but normal—not legalistic in their teachings,” she said.

While the church’s social circles have expanded through men’s and women’s worship groups, the environmentalist group, and a slew of artists’ committees, Tyson remains stern in his view that the primary goal isn’t to create a hotspot for young, stylish Christians to meet up.

“We’re not the cool, young, hip church or anything like that,” says Tyson. “We aren’t a fresh model that people would copy. We are just interested in serving the people in our community.”

Origins Church meets on Sunday mornings at 10:30 a.m. at P.S. 75, 735 West End Ave., and on Sunday nights at 7pm at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, 315 W. 22nd St. (between 8th and 9th Aves.). They can be reached at www.originsnyc.com.