New City Resources

An Essay on Knoxville Culture
By Kenny Woodhull
Occasioned by a Request to Contribute to Knoxville Salt & Light Guidebook (2009)

Describing the culture of Knoxville is akin to asking the proverbial blind men to describe an elephant. One man, grasping the trunk, says an elephant is like a large hose. Another, holding the tail, declares an elephant resembles a stiff rope. A third, clutching a leg, says an elephant is like a sturdy tree. A fourth declares that the other three are altogether wrong: an elephant, he explains, is an immovable wall of skin and muscle as big as a house.

Point of view is everything. Let me acknowledge at the outset that this perspective on Knoxville culture is one man’s limited assessment of a monumental issue, a subject so large and diverse that no single person or perspective can hope to do it justice. [Read more →]

New City Friends,

After ten years of fruitful ministry in Knoxville’s Old City, New City has entered anew season.

Since 1998, by God’s grace and with the help of an amazing army of artists, musicians, and volunteers we were able to cultivate a sense of Christian community in the heart of a struggling section of downtown among a diverse group of people. Long before the word carried much traction, our project was decidedlymissional. For some time New City had prepared to relocate under a new name in the context of a new center-city initiative. In the end, and with a measure ofdisappointment, this move did not materialize. What has developed however is an abiding sense of a strategic calling to cast the missional vision that marked the Café.

Today, more than a decade since New City folk first walked through the Old City looking for a suitable site for the Café, our commitment is to come alongside local, regional, and national projects and help them achieve missional authenticity. What this means is that New City is now principally concerned to inspire the Church with a vision for missional living and equip God’s people to flesh out a life of faith, hope, and love as embedded witnesses within an alien Culture. Of course, an emphasis on missional Arts will remain at our core.

Significant changes to the website will be forthcoming in the weeks and months ahead as we unpack New City’s new season of equipping and encouragement. As before, we value your prayers and ideas for enriching the kingdom.

Peace and Blessings, 
 
Kenny Woodhull 
New City Resources
kennywoodhull@comcast.net

Dear Friends,

After nearly ten years of work in Knoxville’s Old City District, New City is pleased to announce a merging of interests in the form of a new partnership in historic downtown Knoxville’s Market Square, opening Fall 2007.

Since 1997, and in two different locations, New City has cultivated a sense of community among faith-based artists and their audiences and also worked to equip people for marketplace integration.  It has been a wonderful decade rich in relationships and bridge-building.  We remain overwhelmed with God’s presence and provision through the years.  We are especially grateful to you: the many people who brought life to New City through thousands of hours of volunteer help, sacrificial financial support, enthusiastic participation, and Spirit-inspired creativity. [Read more →]

Typically, around Christmas, I spend way too much time complaining about how materialism in America subverts the truth of God’s incarnation and diminishes our capacity to appreciate the depths of His relentless love for us.

In fact, the bewildering beauty of the Kingdom crashing into our world is rarely glimpsed by dwelling on the counterfeit. This I am learning, and I’m finding it easier now not to get drawn into the negative. 

I was helped to see this in the rediscovery of a remarkable passage in a Worldview conversation with some friends at New City this Fall. “For you know,” the Apostle Peter writes, ”that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you…but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect, who was chosen before the creation of the world…” (1 Peter 1.18-20). I’m now using this scripture as a True-North point to help me navigate my seasonal curmudgeonly tendencies (known in some circles as SCT disorder!). [Read more →]