Common Ground Church

Who we Are

Common Ground is a new kind of church emerging in NYC: Progressive, LGBTQ+ Affirming and Loving. We center our work on Jesus and are growing a diverse and inclusive community that reflects the city.

We're creating common ground for all people: those with zealous, fervent faith and those carrying doubts and uncertainly. Faith is complex, God is good, and everyone's just trying to figure it out. Though helped by the PCUSA, we are not currently affiliated with a denomination. Most of us align with ex-Evangelicalism, progressive Evangelicalism & post-denominational movements. We affirm female ordination and #believewomen. We affirm our LGBTQ+ siblings & advocate for equal rights. Black, brown and undocumented lives matter to us. And this is reflected in our values & leaders.

Chris Romine is the organizing pastor of Common Ground. He's an ordained Presbyterian minister who studied Political Science at Penn State, then Christian Ethics at Fuller Theological. Both he and his wife live in Manhattan.

For more information, see how we live below!

How we live

Jesus Followers

In all that we do, we seek God’s will for our lives, discern the Holy Spirit’s ongoing activity around us and follow in the ways of Jesus.

Jesus is our hope and salvation. And with God’s gift of the Holy Spirit, we strive to follow in Christ’s footsteps. God invites us to be the hands and feet of Christ, so we boldly and humbly proclaim good news, hope and healing to all those experiencing inequity and injustice. Today, many are rejected and excluded because of their citizenship, sexual orientation, skin color, race, gender, economic status and criminal record. Whatever the reason for exclusion, we as a church recognize that Christ located himself amongst the rejected, threatened and silenced. Everything we do reflects the heart of Christ’s ministry.

Includers & Boundary-Crossers

We believe no matter your gender, sexual orientation, race or economic status – God affirms you and accepts you as you are. In turn, you and your story are welcomed, affirmed and valued here.

At all times and in all places, visible and invisible powers seek to sift, separate, oppress and exclude us. In today’s America economic injustice, racism, sexism, trans and queer exclusion and implicit biases are real and destructive. Jesus recognized and renounced our tendencies to exclude, becoming good news for the very ones thought to be ‘impure’: the lepers, poor, Samaritans, tax collectors, drunkards, prostitutes, zealots, etc. We as a church strive to name these contemporary means of exclusion and work as a community to boundary cross and embody radical inclusivity. We value the voices of women, people of color and LGBTQIA individuals, and hope to be led by them.

Liberationists

Scripture tells us that God sets captives free: liberating us from material and spiritual bondage. Following the words of the prophets and the ways of Jesus, we seek material and spiritual liberation for all. We are not free until all are free.

God’s covenant began with God’s people when the Hebrews were liberated from Egypt and called the children of God. The Prophets and Christ himself announce that the Messiah of the world has come to set the captives free. As the people of God and captive no more, we strive to participate in the ongoing, liberating work of God for all those bound, chained and downtrodden by people and systems that perpetuate powerlessness. Through God, we’re given agency to fight the ways this world generates inequality and inaccessibility. Because we are freed from bondage by God, we seek freedom for others!

Activists

As the hands and feet of God, our communal work centers on pursuing the peace of the city. We work to dismantle unjust systems and powers that oppress, objectify and dispossess. We hope to bring the good news and hope of Jesus to the streets.

Jesus actively resisted the ways of Rome, offering an opposing view of justice, equity, economy and hospitality altogether. The Jesus way contrasted and contradicted that of Rome and eventually the empire put Christ to death for such resistance, for treason and sedition. We center our communal work on the God-given cultural mandate to be peace, good news and shalom to this city and its neighborhoods. Ephesians 6 names powers and principalities that oppress, objectify and dispossess, and we strive to actively and nonviolently resist them. With the poor, hungry, homeless, incarcerated, under/undocumented, threatened and excluded in mind, we hope to bring the good news of Jesus Christ to the streets.

Reconcilers

God’s ultimate work is that of reconciliation. With history, reparations and equity in mind, we seek restored relationships with God, with each other, with the earth and with all her inhabitants. This is our lifelong work until all things are at peace.

God’s ultimate work is that of reconciliation. Through scandalous grace, Christ’s work on the cross reconciles us to God. Through scandalous grace, the Holy Spirit reconciles us to one another and calls us into community. Through great responsibility, God commands us to care for the earth and all of creation with care and compassion. With grace, mutuality, equity and compassion, we seek to participate in movements for restoration, reconciliation, and care for the earth and environment until all things are reconciled.