John Mark Comer can be a hard man to find. He’s one of the most famous pastors in America right now, an author whose books have together sold more than 1 million copies, but he’s not the most reachable guy. He has a professional website but no contact page. He rarely travels. And as I reported this story, I began to learn his habits: Sending him a text early in the day was a wash, for instance, because he doesn’t check his phone until after morning prayer time. Once, when I reached out by email, I got an out-of-office response that he had set before Christmas explaining that he was observing “rhythms of rest” and asking that I try him again after his return in mid-January. Incoming messages sent in the meantime would be deleted.I had first seen Comer in October, at a service for Church of the City New York, held inside a historic chapel in Lower Manhattan. Lo-fi beats played over the speakers as hundreds of people, mostly in their 20s and 30s, milled around and looked for seats in the crammed pews. When Comer took the stage, dressed in a matching ochre shirt-jacket and pants, a silver stud in his left ear, the crowd cheered and whooped.He pulled up a slide. It was not the usual Bible story or psalm, but an excerpt from Anne Helen Petersen’s 2019 BuzzFeed essay “How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation.” Burnout is “not a temporary affliction,” it read. “It’s the millennial condition.” The Gen Z one, too, Comer added. “It’s like we just churn out tired, exhausted souls like a widget factory,” he said. “I don’t know if you feel this at all yet in your body or in your bones. If you don’t, it’s because you’re still young and you haven’t been in the city very long. But you will. Trust me, you will.”Then he clicked over to a passage from the Gospel of Matthew:Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.“Most of us, as modern Americans,” Comer said, with a hand over his heart, “we read that line and there’s just this, like, deep, soul-level, Yes,… [TheTopNews] Read More.
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