what we’re dreaming…

  • The original question driving the formation of GRACE/SF in late 2023 was why are so many people leaving and staying away from “church.” This has been coined the great unchurching by some and is being experienced by most American denominations and church associations today.

    While there are many different answers to this question (and many solutions needed), GRACE/SF set out to form a community that prioritized:

    1) growth in our daily experience of the dynamic Spirit of God

    2) a faith that can dialogue with and integrate the vast wisdom available in all of life (from the arts, psychology, technology, insights from other traditions, etc.)

    3) a faith that can be profoundly and generously Christ-centered in the spirit of Ephesians 1:9-10 (finding unity in all things in heaven and earth under Christ …)

  • Over the course of 2024 it became clear that the best model for building GRACE/SF was to embrace a spiritual formation and contemplative community structure rooted in the ancient Christian monastic and mystical traditions. We began considering the ways monastic practices might be flexibly adapted to city-life to help provide a guide for our growing community of urban contemplatives and seekers.

    Our community prioritizes spiritual practices for experiencing the daily presence of God along with a spiritual reading and understanding of Scripture - allowing the Spirit to speak through the text to guide our daily lives and connection to God.

    While we emphasize the traditional contemplative practices of silence, centering prayer, lectio divina, the Jesus Prayer (among others), we seek to be psychologically and neurally-informed and support a variety of practices that can assist in the quieting of our busy, strategic minds and experience of the presence of God in daily life.

  • In late 2024 we formed a relationship with St. Gregory of Nyssa (SGN) Episcopal Church in Potrero Hill, SF. SGN has a unique and refreshing history in San Francisco bringing dynamic approaches to worship and liturgy and an expansive perspective on the work of God through the ages.

    GRACE/SF began previewing contemplative Eucharist gatherings in SGN’s beautiful and mystically-inspired worship space on Sunday evenings in late November, 2024. We are currently fine-tuning a one-hour artistic and contemplative worship experience centered in the mystery of the Eucharist but accessible to a wide variety of spiritual and philosophical seekers. Our services are also designed to be anchor-gatherings to support contemplative practice and spiritual engagement with Scripture in daily life.

    We look forward to partnering with SGN in additional contemplative and artistic gatherings through the upcoming years.

  • Over the next year+ our focus will be on:

    • Refining, deepening and growing the GRACE/SF community by continuing to develop the Sunday evening contemplative Eucharist services and developing more extensive contemplative practice support and community.

    • Creation of theCity.life spiritual formation network - an ecumenical Bay Area network for contemplative seekers from a variety of church backgrounds to provide training, connection, community and resources for a deeply Christ-centered spiritual life (including contemplative gatherings, trainings, retreats, studies, in-person and online). Many of these resources are already available (and GRACE will be adding more) but there is currently no Bay Area hub to connect people to these resources or to each other.

    • Creating Practice Groups - We plan to form supportive practice groups around centering prayer, meditative and spiritual ways of engaging and understanding Scripture, contemplative hikes, retreats and more.

    • Enhancing Online Resources - expansion of the teaching and training resources available on the GRACE website and through theCity.life.

    • Strengthening our connection with the New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, CA (where Jonathan Gundlach is currently in the Oblate-training process) and with the St. Columba Episcopal retreat house in in Inverness, CA and potentially other monasteries and retreat houses.

  • New expressions of Christ-centered spiritual community are desperately needed as the pace of cultural change accelerates and people increasingly find themselves disconnected from the institutions and traditions that once supported us. People are desperate for a daily connection to the Spirit of God that is in honest conversation with vast wisdom available in all of life - and they are not finding it in most typical churches.

    We sincerely believe there is much about the rooted and time-tested contemplative and integrative wisdom tradition that is needed right now in our world and our city to help strengthen people’s faith in a way that is resilient and non-reactive to cultural turbulence and transcends theological and political divides. And our City - and the entire Bay Area - needs people who are experiencing deep spiritual transformation and bringing the compassion and creativity of the Spirit into their vocations, daily lives and relationships.

    At GRACE, a diverse group of spiritual seekers are already discovering and rediscovering Jesus in compelling ways through the contemplative Christian tradition and practices. Leveraging our work to help create and expand a Bay Area contemplative network can resource a wider variety of people who may be connected to other churches or may be uncomfortable with traditional church membership for valid reasons.