Dear Family,

A couple of weeks ago, City Churchers gathered for a service Sunday at the City Hope Cafe to facilitate a “pop-up deli service.” As Paul Trudeau shared about City Hope’s philosophy of “Radical Hospitality, Dignified Transformation,” he was careful to point out that this philosophy is for all of us. Studies show that many of us default to a fight or flight response when we encounter an unhoused person on the street. By becoming proximate, having conversations, and spending a little time to get to know someone, we are not only creating space for someone else to encounter transformative hospitality, we are creating it for ourselves as well. It’s this kind of generative mutuality that I like to call “God math,” where 1+1 somehow mysteriously equals 3. This kind of math is embedded in the story of City Church. Once a ministry initiative of our church, City Hope has grown into its own independent 501C3 that has built service partnerships with communities of faith all over San Francisco. It’s this kind of God-math, made possible by the many and varied folks who are part of City Church – people like you – that has made this kind of generative transformation possible. Thank you, and thanks be to God, whose story of renewal and restoration we get to participate in. As we look toward the fall, this generative transformation is showing up again in two areas of our ministry story at City Church that I want to make sure you know about: 

City Church Counseling Center Becomes City Church Counseling Network
Since the beginning of this year, revenue from the counseling center dropped significantly and it has become clear that in the wake of budget challenges, and without long-term leadership in place, there was no viable way forward that would be consistent with good stewardship of our resources. Because of this, and because some of the circumstances that led to starting the counseling center have changed, the elder board of City Church has made the faithful decision to transition the City Church Counseling Center into the City Church Counseling Network. You can learn more about the rationale for this decision by viewing this video. We celebrate that mental health concerns have become less stigmatized and that we no longer need to do this work ourselves. Even so, we understand that fullness of life in Christ involves mental health and wellness. Because of this, we continue in our commitment to this through:

• The City Church Counseling Network, a network of therapists who we trust can offer faith-integrated and clinically sound care
• Diaconate funding to support making therapy accessible
• Integrating mental health and wellness supports programmatically, through classes, support groups, trainings, and special events that include our partner therapists

After the elder board had made its decision, we paused to pray and give thanks for all the ways in which God’s healing was made possible through the ministry of the City Church counseling center. I invite you to join me in this, inviting the same Spirit who inspired our leadership to open the center 15 years ago to continue moving in our midst so that we might continue to participate in God’s work of healing and wholeness in the years ahead.

Staff Transition: Peter Choi
As part of our ongoing efforts to align ministry needs with budgeting realities, Peter Choi will be rolling off the City Church staff as our Scholar-in-Residence. Over the past ten years, Peter has faithfully lived into his call as scholar and pastor between City Church and the Newbigin House of Studies (later the Center for Faith and Justice). In this distinct combination of vocational ministry, Peter has offered pathways for helping us live into our value of intellectual growth as a path of faith formation through classes, retreats, preaching, and more. For this we are grateful. You can hear more from Peter himself, here.

We continue to deeply value the pursuit of intellectual growth as a pathway for faith formation and we see our partnership with the Center for Faith and Justice as one expression of this. Because of this, we will not only be providing generous financial support to ensure the health of the Center, but also benefit from the academic offerings made available through it. Events like classes, retreat leadership, guest preaching, and special pricing for cohorts and online resources – all provided by the teaching team that makes up the Faith and Justice faculty – will be available to us. Even as we say goodbye to Peter in his capacity as a member of the City Church staff, we are glad to benefit from his leadership through the Center for Faith and Justice in the years to come.

One of the institutional values that I talk about with our staff and elders is that of shifting from a scarcity mindset to an abundant worldview that uses our resources responsibly. This means not only understanding that we have enough to do what God is calling us to do, but also to understand that we don’t have to do all things on our own. The gift of our history is that we have not only equipped folks to courageously pursue expressions of God’s love, but also built out a network of partners who we can serve alongside and learn from. These partners have taken what we started with and proven God’s math (1+1=3) time and again as they have unfurled and flourished beyond the bounds of our community. Please join me as we continue to pray for these partners and for our church, as we seek to embody a more courageous expression of God’s love throughout San Francisco and beyond.

Faithfully,
Pastor Emily