I grew up in Brooklyn. The religion of my childhood was quiet, kept mostly in the kitchen. My grandmother praying the Lord's Prayer over the stove while the city moved outside. It wasn't a performance; it was just how she breathed.
One afternoon, as a boy, I asked her a question I must have heard the adults talking about. "Grandma, are you a Southern Baptist, or a Protestant?" She paused, looked at me without drama, and said something I have never forgotten.
"No. I'm just a woman who loves God."— my grandmother
That was it. No label. No camp. Just the simplest possible thing.
Later that same year, I slept in her room one night. When it was time to turn out the light, she asked me if I was going to pray. I told her I never prayed at night. She said, quietly, "So this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna pray." And she prayed the Lord's Prayer — not loudly, not with any theater. I lay there in the dark listening. It wasn't loud. It wasn't outward. It wasn't absurd. It was like listening to a real conversation she was having. I remember thinking: I want to know more about that.
For nearly twenty years, I worked in TV and film production. I built rooms for other people's stories. I knew how to set a stage, hit a mark, make a scene feel true. I didn't know it then, but production taught me how to build a space where something real can happen. Now I build rooms where the quiet story shows up.
In 2000, I went to Kenya to shoot a short film about missionary work. I met a man named William Kamau — a local doing the actual work on the ground, quietly, without the camera. When I returned home, he wrote back with one line that changed my direction.
"But I don't want you just to shoot a film. I want you to come and partner with me."— William Kamau
That sent me back to Kenya more than once. It sent me eventually to Times Square Church, to nursing school, and ultimately to a pulpit of my own in Connecticut. The rooms got larger, the lights got brighter, the volume went up. I learned how to hold a microphone and how to move a room. I was managing people spiritually — and I could feel my own soul thinning out in the process.
I realized I distrusted the very performance I was leading. I wanted the text, but not the theater. I wanted God, but not the religious construct that demanded I pretend to have it all together.
So I stepped away from the stage and sat down at a table. I started a small congregation in Connecticut — a quiet room, an open chair, no expectation of anything except honesty. And something strange happened. Visitors kept saying the same thing when they left.
They felt safe. They felt loved.
When I kept hearing that, it hit me: this isn't a compliment. This is the assignment.
ADONI is the continuation of that assignment. We are not trying to build a movement. We are keeping a small fire burning in New Haven for anyone who needs to warm their hands and rest.
"The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares."HENRI NOUWEN
Robb Blocker
Come sit with us on a Sunday.