Dear Friends,

This has been a year of intense discernment, both for myself and Kristen.

As most of you know, in February I left City Church San Francisco after 13 productive (and often very intense) years of ministry and leadership.  I will be forever grateful for my time at City Church and the vital role that ministry has played in the lives of many in San Francisco and beyond.

When I left City Church, I was both deeply tired and and deeply anticipating possible new ministries.  I spent about six months engaging in extremely beneficial and intense therapy and coaching (if you want to hear more, let’s get coffee!).  I began talking with friends and contacts all over the Bay Area (and beyond) about their experience in church, what they thought was missing and why many had stopped going to church altogether.  For months I wondered if I might be called to a new vocation outside of church (perhaps to go back into law or to help with a local business start-up) but all of my deepest explorations, therapy, dreams, bizarre serendipitous experiences - all of it - kept pointing back to pastoral ministry.

And then God surprised me even further:  in late November, over the span of 3 days on retreat at the New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, God unexpectedly spoke clearly to me - perhaps more clearly than at any other time in my life (through encounters in meditation and dreams, through chance encounters with others, through worshipping with the monks, through Scripture).  The clearest part of the message was this - I needed to give myself fully to launching a new spiritual community in San Francisco that would:

• Emphasize direct, daily experience with God (welcoming and integrating divine connection through prayer, contemplation and cultivating an awareness of the Spirit’s activity in daily life)

• Integrate the natural world with divine experience and the body with soul

• Commit to the best insights of progressive theology and continue to honor and explore the deep wisdom of the ancient paths

• Prioritize relationship and community over dogma and theological certainty

• Invest deeply in exploring the depths of the Biblical story while openly welcoming insights from other traditions ~ all while honoring Christ as the apex of human and cosmological history

• Build a supportive spiritual community for individuals and families to deepen and integrate their spiritual and emotional lives so that they can engage their neighborhoods, workplaces, schools and family life to the fullest and be a blessing to all.

The Project:  GRACE/SF

Over the next six months I will be laying the groundwork and gathering the core team to bring this new community into reality.  The current project name is GRACE/SF but the final community name is TBD (to be shaped by the community that forms).  This new community will either be nested within the denomination that holds my ordination (the Reformed Church in America) or we will find another suitable denominational partner.  It is anticipated that formal public worship will begin in the fall of 2023, but many exploratory and preview events will take place in the interim.

Funding:

I am in productive conversations with a few potential institutional partners that will assist with larger and longer-term funding.  But as we close out 2022, I need to raise a small seed round to assist in short-term, out-of-pocket expenses.  These initial funds will only be used to assist with direct, initial start-up expenses such as:

• The cost of preview events and initial community gatherings

• Initial equipment purchases

• Creation of a formal, detailed business plan and communication materials

• Website and giving site components

• Contractors (accounting, musicians for events, etc.)

• Meetings with prospective core team members

• Insurance, etc.

• Out of pocket expenses related to fundraising and institutional support

• NOTE:  none of these initial funds raised will be used to pay any salary to me.

This may be ambitious, but I am hoping to raise at least  $10,000 in these last few days of 2022!

I have set up an initial tax-exempt fund to receive tax-deductible donations.  If you feel led, you can give easily here and your donation will be fully tax-deductible for 2022 (you will receive a giving statement, etc.).  Our tithe.ly site receives credit cards, checks and Apple Pay and you can give once without creating an account - it only takes one minute!

Preview Website:

You are reading this letter on a draft/preview website that gives a little more color to what I sense God is calling into existence. It is very simple/preliminary and will undoubtedly be updated frequently over the weeks ahead - please check back to see how this vision unfolds!

Thank You!

I am beyond grateful to all of you who have had a role in helping me discern this future - in the intense discernment of the last several months I have often felt surrounded by an amazing and God-given group of friends and mentors each bringing unique wisdom and insight. You should feel zero obligation to give financially, just move as the Spirit prompts you. Your continued partnership means much, much more to me than any dollar amount and I look forward to our work ahead!

May peace and deep joy infuse your new year and all of the new beginnings that will meet you in 2023.

Jonathan