Love Fights Back: Joy Springs Forth (Free Concert)

Following two powerful concerts in May and December 2025, the Community Church of New York is excited to announce the 3rd concert in the series: Joy Springs Forth.

As we welcome Spring and the return of warm weather, we also choose to lean in to our resistance to rising threats against our friends and neighbors who are immigrants, queer and trans people, people of color, religious minorities, the unhoused, and all marginalized communities. In these times that try our souls, the Community Church honors its 200 year legacy serving as a home for liberal religion, justice-based values, and activism for liberation by keeping love at the center of everything we do.

This concert was conceived as a reprieve from the despair that each day’s news too often elicits. It is easy to become overwhelmed as we continue the struggle against hate, ignorance, and oppression. Across the globe, lives and freedoms are under threat from the forces of oppression, fascism and imperialism. But joy and beloved community empower us and serve as crucial reminders for why we must keep going, and why our cause is well worth fighting for. We find joy and power in being together and singing truth to power. As Darnell White and Matt Podd put it in their original song “Fight On,” “this battle is long, but we’re strong, and when love fights back we will win.”

Music Director Darnell White and Assistant Music Director Matt Podd will guide a choir comprised of singers from all over the metropolitan area to lift their voices in love to send a clear message about the values we hold as a community. There will also be opportunities for the audience to join in and sing along!

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