Former Brooklyn minister Gage Jung of the Hipster Church, standing outside Sheraton hotel in Flushing, Queens, where he is holding monthly meetings.
Posted on 05/19/2011 8:04:47 PM PDT by Bed_Zeppelin
For a budding church in Flushing, your Sunday best will be a flannel shirt and skinny jeans.
The Rev. Gage Jung, 37, is building an artsy flock for a brand-new, nondenominational congregation called the Hipster Church. His eclectic group of followers embody the counterculture mission statement - "This ain't your mama's church."
"We're not trying to make a church like the one your parents went to. We're trying to make a church for our generation," said Jung, a self-proclaimed hipster.
Jung was ordained a minister 10 years ago. The former lead pastor at the United Generations Church in Brooklyn said Flushing is fertile ground for gathering a new flock.
"We wanted to go to a place where there was the most amount of need," Jung said, pointing to a large number of homeless and nonbelievers in the area.
Jung had his first monthly meeting at the Sheraton LaGuardia East Hotel in Flushing earlier this month. He has recruited 32 followers so far, he said, and his goal is to get 100 by September, when the church is scheduled to open.
The group's 1-1/2-hour service features an indie rock band that plays its own religious songs. Instead of using Bibles in book form, congregants use a Bible app on iPhones, Jung said. The service even includes an informal mingling where participants listen to indie rockers like MGMT and Arcade Fire, and chat over donuts and candy.
"It has to be different. We don't want to be like everyone else," Jung said.
Omar Flores, 36, who has been attending a Presbyterian church in midtown Manhattan since 2005, said he has found a stronger spiritual connection at Jung's church.
"At the other church, you just listen to the pastor. There's no vibe to it. With Gage, there is. He has something to offer the community and his members," Flores said.
Celina Flores, 16, who is not related to Omar, said she was walking in Flushing when someone gave her a Hipster Church wristband. She attended the church's first meeting at the Sherton and was hooked.
"Regular churches aren't that easy to get into. When you go to Hipster Church, you feel like you belong," she said.
Jung said he's had some skeptics but vows he isn't your typical hipster.
"It's going to be tough trying to convince people that we're authentic, but people will know that we are real," he said.
Former Brooklyn minister Gage Jung of the Hipster Church, standing outside Sheraton hotel in Flushing, Queens, where he is holding monthly meetings.
This has SCAM written all over it.
I have no issue with how they get the word into them, so long as it gets into them. You can change the wrapper to your liking as long as your message is sound Bible doctrine.
Kind of sounds like I might enjoy the music as well.
I have my doubts about this, but then again, I hate the hipster culture.
When one considers that quite a few churches don't even have Bibles at all, I'd say this was an improvement. But as another poster mentioned, if they preach and teach the Word as it is written in the Bible, what's the big deal about the presentation?
TAIUWOT
This Article Is Useless Without Theology.
It’s been said that the most segregated hour in America is 11-12 Sunday morning. I think this applies to these kinds of groups as well, hipsters wanting to share w other hipsters. I hope it works for them.
Start a “church”....
get tax exemptions.
The Church of What’s Happening Now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmJati2W7uA
Other cults in the area: the chanters of Nichiren Buddhism have a “temple” nearby.
No one who is hip refers to themselves as a hipster. Hipster is a marketing term invented by advertising.
Sounds like an orthodox profession of faith. Good for them.
I’m pleasantly surprised by their doctrine.
I've got a clue for you. We don't modify scripture to meet our demands. We modify our lives to meet the demands of scripture.
Uh, yeah, I can find that one in the Bible. /s
Acts 2:14a, 36-41
Then Peter stood up with the Eleven,
raised his voice, and proclaimed:
“Let the whole house of Israel know for certain
that God has made both Lord and Christ,
this Jesus whom you crucified.”
Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart,
and they asked Peter and the other apostles,
“What are we to do, my brothers?”
Peter said to them,
“Repent and be baptized, every one of you,
in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins;
and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
For the promise is made to you and to your children
and to all those far off,
whomever the Lord our God will call.”
He testified with many other arguments, and was exhorting them,
“Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.”
Those who accepted his message were baptized,
and about three thousand persons were added that day.
Especially this line:
“Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.”
People have to start somewhere. Good for him, and may God bless and guide his weird little flock!
The profession of faith and values appear to be right on the mark. The pastor is former Presbyterian? Likely has comments about the rot at PCUSA, but more likely prefers to stick to core doctrine than denomination bashing (although some outright deserve it).
Doctrine looked fine to me. Nothing wrong with trying to reach a different generation in a way that makes sense to them as long as the Word stays the Word. A stuffy, wooden pew church is no better than this one or one that meets in a school gym...it’s the Message, not the packaging that matters
“worked out in normal people’s lives through what we like to call “CHURCH”.
Any time I see “CHURCH” standing alone - makes me wary.
“Reading 1 - Acts 2:14a, 36-41”
Thanks Salvation. I enjoyed reading it again.
hey, why not? he’s got his own personal interpretation!
a real ORTHODOX profession of faith is
|
|
|
| Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, factorem caeli et terrae, visibilium omnium et invisibilium. Et in unum Dominum Iesum Christum, Filium Dei unigenitum, et ex Patre natum ante omnia saecula. Deum de Deo, Lumen de Lumine, Deum verum de Deo vero, genitum non factum, consubstantialem Patri; per quem omnia facta sunt. Qui propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem descendit de caelis. Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine, et homo factus est. Crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub Pontio Pilato, passus et sepultus est, et resurrexit tertia die, secundum Scripturas, et ascendit in caelum, sedet ad dexteram Patris. Et iterum venturus est cum gloria, iudicare vivos et mortuos, cuius regni non erit finis. Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum et vivificantem, qui ex Patre Filioque procedit. Qui cum Patre et Filio simul adoratur et conglorificatur: qui locutus est per prophetas. Et unam, sanctam, catholicam et apostolicam Ecclesiam. Confiteor unum baptisma in remissionem peccatorum. Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum, et vitam venturi saeculi. Amen. |
We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, |
they’re doctrine seems suspiciously like “ok, like man, this is what we think is so right now, duude”
Sounds like they modeled after Calvary Chapel, which sprang from hippy surfers in Costa Mesa. Jesus doesn’t care what you wear, what you play, or if you read your bible on an e-reader. Lighten up on this guy; it appears he takes The Word seroiusly.
“We wanted to go to a place where there was the most amount of need,” Jung said, pointing to a large number of homeless and nonbelievers in the area.
. . . Instead of using Bibles in book form, congregants use a Bible app on iPhones, Jung said. . . .
Is it just me or is there a strange combo? homeless/iPhone apps?
I don’t even have an iPhone. And I have a job.
We believe...the scriptures are inspired by God and declare His design and plans for mankind.
We believe...there is only one true God revealed in three persons; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (commonly known as the Trinity).
We believe...in the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. As God's Son, Jesus was both human and divine.
We believe...though originally good, man willingly fell to sin, ushering evil and death, both physical and spiritual into the world.
We believe...every person can have restored fellowship with God through ‘Salvation’ (trusting Christ, through faith and repentance, to be our personal Savior).
We believe...and practice two ordinances(1) water baptism by immersion after repenting of one’s sins and receiving Christ's gift of salvation, and (2) holy communion (the Lord's supper) as a symbolic remembrance of Christ's suffering and death for our salvation.
We believe...sanctification initially occurs at salvation and is not only a declaration that a believer is holy, but also a progressive lifelong process of separating from evil as believers continually draw closer to God and become more Christ-like.
We believe...the church has a mission to seek and save all who are lost. We believe ‘the Church’ is the body of Christ and consists of the people who, throughout time, have accepted God's offer of redemption (regardless of religious denomination) through the sacrificial death of His Son Jesus Christ.
This sounds a lot like my own Fundamental Baptist Church's beliefs. I don't see the “ok, like man, this is what we think is so right now, duude” in this.
yet it talks nothing about the standard Lutheran belief in baptism for the remission of sins
Neither does the Holy Bible.
that’s what Jehovah’s witnesses, Unitarians, Arians all say
oh, my apologies then.
I am very curious about the scripture passage that teaches baptism for the remission of sins. I have spent a fair amount of time, though not a much as I would like, studying the Bible and have not yet come across such a teaching. I would like to know where that doctrine comes from. Could you share that passage with me?
| 38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. |
| 16 And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name. |
| 1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. |
| 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God |
| 13 For we were all baptized by[a] one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. |
| 26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ |
| to make her holy, cleansing[a] her by the washing with water through the word, |
| 11 In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh[a] was put off when you were circumcised by[b] Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. |
| 5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, |
This is not symbolic, look at all of the examples above, look at the language, consistently same the same in each, that in baptism we are saved and buried with Christ, washed of our sins by this and born again
Remember, the words of Jesus Christ Himself in Matthew 28:19
| 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, |
| 15And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. 16He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. |
| 4Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. |
| 25Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. |
| 38Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. |
I wish you God’s grace in your journey.
Flushing is now mostly Korean (still a lot of Chinese and hold-out Jewish with a few muzzies to the south).
There are dozens and dozens of Korean churches of different Christian denominations. Some are tiny but others are huge and prosperous. All though are decidedly cemented in a sixties style, old-school conservative Korean mode.
This works fine with the first generation but not for generation 'one and a half' or second generation Koreans. These folks are far more 'American' than their parents but still family and community oriented. A new style of church will keep them involved. It doesn't matter what the call it.
No, it doesn't. The approach sounds a bit pretentious to me, but it's reaching out to people that "normal" churches cannot attract.
If it's of God, it will work.
oh, no thanks needed — we all learn from each other and more importantly learn TOGETHER under the grace of the Holy Spirit. Blessings for you and your family
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