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A Seminary in the City

December 14, 2016
Mark Gornik teaching at City Seminary.

Mark Gornik teaching at City Seminary.

Courtesy of Mark Gornil

A moment of revelation came several years ago for Mark Gornik when he returned home from a Nigerian church service in Brooklyn, N.Y., and looked through a reference book.

The book, the World Christian Encyclopedia, informed him that the church he had just attended in a warehouse lit by kerosene heaters—the Redeemed Christian Church of God—was part of a worldwide group of churches that began in the early 1950s in Nigeria.

“I learned that this was not a one-time church plant, but it was the North American headquarters of a major movement of thousands of churches,” said Gornik.

“I also started to realize that New York City was the hub for churches like this that had come to this country from all over the world—and that many leaders of these churches desired further theological learning to help them in their ministry contexts.”

Starting a Seminary

Gornik, a Christian Reformed Church minister, is today the founder and director of City Seminary, a theology school in Harlem with an approach to learning geared to the needs of students who are doing or want to get involved in ministry in the city.

“The seminary is a response to what I saw God doing in the city. We wanted to be an institution for our community,” said Gornik. “We have students attending here from all five boroughs.”

Students come from a range of experiences and backgrounds. Some may have theology Ph.D.s or M.Div. degrees, while others may be coming from Bible institutes or church-based training, and still others may not have had any formal training. Some go on to plant churches, in the city and elsewhere, while others stay at the churches where they are and many remain working in different jobs to pay their bills.

In addition, weaving through the curriculum is a Reformed perspective, combined with elements of Catholic and Pentecostal approaches, that teaches that all of the world, and in this case the big city, is filled with the grace and saving action of God.

“We see our mission as proclaiming the kingdom of God for creation and the renewal of all things—and of teaching the good news and healing of God in New York and for cities around the world,” said Gornik.

‘Not a Typical Seminary’

Charles Kim, Korean ministries leader for Christian Reformed Home Missions, recently took a group of Korean pastors to attend an international mission conference in New York City and to visit the seminary.

“I’m very impressed by City Seminary. It is not a typical seminary,” said Kim. “Most of the students are already working at jobs. They are bivocational urban leaders from all over the world. They are doing the kind of education that is so essential for today’s church.”

While there, said Kim, his group visited a church in the Bronx that is pastored by Peter Acevedo, a social worker at a hospital across the street from Damascus Christian Church,. Acevedo took time out of his  work that day to tell the group about his growing congregation and the work they are doing in the community.

“He is very serious about his faith. Fascinating things are happening at his church. He and his wife, Miriam, went through City Seminary,” said Kim. Miriam is now a faculty member and the director of operations at the seminary.

Catching a New Vision

Gornik came to New York City in 1998 to plant a church in Harlem after starting a church and doing community development work for many years in Baltimore, Md.

He had no idea that he would eventually start a seminary. But in Harlem he became aware of the multiplicity of churches in the city and, with the assistance of church historian and missions expert Andrew Walls, started his research.

“I was able through my research to get a vision for how New York’s new immigrant churches were flourishing in the city,” said Gornik.

Eventually, he published a book on what he was learning, World Made Global: Stories of African Christianity in New York City, which was awarded Missions/Global Affairs book of the year by Christianity Today in 2012.

Also out of this research came the idea for City Seminary, which he began in 2003 with the help of such leaders as Manny Ortiz and Susan Baker, pastors of Spirit and Truth Fellowship, a CRC congregation in northern Philadelphia.

Early on, the seminary partnered with Westminster Theological Seminary in Glenside, Pa., to offer a master’s degree. In addition, the seminary has offered certificate programs in urban ministry and is currently seeking approval from the state of New York to offer its own master of ministry degree.

“For our first few years, we moved around the city, a church basement serving as our primary classroom,” said Gornik.

Finding a Home

In 2005 they moved into a Harlem storefront, and in the fall of 2010 a new campus across the street was added.

With the help of a grant from Lilly Endowment, Inc., the seminary launched a Ministry Fellows program in 2010 that is now an intensive four-month course of study that exemplifies the seminary’s hands-on approach to learning. It attracts students from many nationalities, church backgrounds, and traditions.

Students participate in small-group discussions, visit churches, read extensively, hear from guest lecturers and panels, undertake research projects, and visit another city to experience ministry in that setting, said Gornik.

“We also walk together through the city and discern what is going on,” he said. “We pay attention to what we see, taste, smell, and hear. We learn how to do ministry, taking into account that people have multiple ways of learning about and engaging the world.”

A significant part of the learning, he added, is “encouraging people in spiritual formation and in living their faith. . . . This involves prayer and seeking to be attuned to the presence of the Holy Spirit and Christ in our lives.”

Gornik said he believes theological education today has to take place on the ground, in communities where today’s international students are living -- and to be done in practical ways to reach the mixture of students who are the future of the church.

“We are all about what it means to equip people to work for the gospel in the city,” said Gornik. “To be a part of the diverse body of learning that is City Seminary is one of the most joyous experiences of my life.”