Why a New Church?
Churches are struggling (most are shrinking) and yet people’s spiritual hunger is growing. The SF Bay Area needs new Christian communities that are better able to converse with the heart’s longing for daily connection to an active and personal God while giving full value to the immense resources and wisdom available in all of life (including art, poetry, technology, psychology and insights from other religious and philosophical traditions).
For many people:
Church has become a stale ritual that doesn’t speak to their hunger for daily connection to God.
Christianity often feels too separated/siloed from the complex beauty and challenges of daily life.
Today’s churches seem too polarized along the familiar left/right, progressive/conservative divide that plagues modern American political life.
The churches that emphasize the uniqueness of Jesus often dismiss or don’t understand other forms of wisdom available and benefiting people from all walks of life.
The churches that seem most in touch with the needs of a just society don’t always seem to value the uniqueness of Jesus or the Biblical story.
The experience of COVID gave many an opportunity to reevaluate their spiritual and communal priorities and many are not returning to “church” as they previously knew it.
At GRACE/SF our focus is on:
Cultivating Divine Experience - building a supportive contemplative community and developing resources to amplify our awareness and attention to God’s activity in daily life, through worship, contemplative practice and the study of Scripture as a living and dynamic story.
Integrating All of Life’s Wisdom - seeking an expression of Christianity that is in open and free conversation with all sources of truth and wisdom that can inform and benefit our lives and the lives of our neighbors.
Centering in Christ - we are followers of Jesus and believe in the generous and expansive centrality of Christ as the one who brings coherence and ultimate meaning to all truth.
Practicing Inclusion and Third-Way Thinking - we are all invited as Christ’s guests and friends into the church community and we should therefore expect the full diversity of human experience to be present in our gatherings. Our priority is not in dictating perfect answers or dogmatic rules but in bringing the complexity of life’s questions into conversation with the Living Christ in the safety of a gracious, supportive and curious community.
