With City Church's 17th birthday coming up this weekend, we wanted to take a look back at just how this place got started. I talked with senior pastor Fred Harrell about our story of origin, faith, and just how we came to be who we are. It's a long interview, but worth your time.
How did City Church begin?
It began with a conversation in 1991. I had been doing campus ministry at the University of Knoxville in Tennessee, and I was having a conversation with another campus minister. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my future--I loved 18-21 year-olds, but I was ready for something new.
I'm a small-town guy, so the idea of being in an urban context didn't even occur to me. But this fellow campus minister--Craig Higgins--told me about a professor of his who was starting a church in New York City with two of his students. One of these students, Craig's good friend Scot Sherman, would become an integral part of City Church; the professor Scot was working with was Tim Keller. They were planting what would become Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City.
So Craig and I took a group of students, on spring break, to New York City, and I had a powerful, Holy Spirit moment on the Weehawken Ferry. I was in tears on that boat, and didn't know how to interpret that moment. When we got into New York, walking around the streets, I was crying. I loved it; I was speechless.
Everything about the campus that I loved--diversity, a culture of learning, and so on--was still present. It was what I loved about campus ministry, but far more diverse and challenging. That began almost five years of processing, long conversations and prayers with Terely, at the end of which I was invited to start a church in San Francisco. And Terely, by the way, was a full partner in the church from day one. She was the first children's ministry coordinator, with three kids and another one on the way. From the very beginning, it was obvious that kids were welcome at City Church because of Terely's giftedness and initiative.
San Francisco was not really on my radar at that time. But we visited San Francisco, and both Terely and I knew it was the place we needed to be. In January of 1996, we said "yes," and then from February to August of that year, we raised money. A handful of churches and a whole bunch of individuals gave time and money to try this crazy idea.
Because we had been so inspired by what we saw at Redeemer--seeing a church in the city, and a sermon addressing Christians, non-Christians, and everything in between--my philosophy of ministry really shifted. Redeemer was our great inspiration for getting started. When we came to San Francisco, I had the names of three people who were interested in City Church because they had previously attended Redeemer: One a very committed Christian, one not a Christian, and one a person who struggled with belief. Those people are the three people I'm talking to every Sunday. From the very beginning at City Church, there were those three belief demographics that we tried to keep in mind.
What we set out to do was plant a particular kind of church in and for San Francisco. This wasn't going to be the kind of place that was just like everyone's church back home in the suburbs--it needed to be different. This would be a church that remembered what it was like not to believe, that was welcoming to everyone who came in, that knew the gospel is much larger than an individual transaction with God.
We never had a savior complex about San Francisco--we also knew that this was a city where God was already at work. We started by listening, and did not name the church until we had gotten established. It was just called "the San Francisco Church Planting Project" at first.
What would a church look like that showed that it understood San Francisco? I asked that question of everyone I came across in those days. I didn't pretend that I was cut out for this city, but I had to make an adjustment and learn as much as I could about how to navigate the unique dynamics of San Francisco.
We started our services in 1996 at our home, on Sunday afternoons, while our two year-old took his nap. I basically did my campus ministry freshman Bible study with adults at this point, and mostly with people who were pretty new to San Francisco. And from the very beginning, it was a place that was safe for anyone to come into. Out of that group came our first conversions--people started inviting their friends.
Eventually, it was time to move out of our home and somewhere else. We were able to rent the Presidio Chapel. We were going to start in February, and had no one to lead music. We set records for some of the worst church music ever. Our launch team met for worship for the first time in that chapel on February 14th, and on the 16th we had our first service at 6:30 pm.
We had about 120 people that night, most of them well-wishers, so we then had a "Scottish Revival." The next Sunday we had about 60, then 30, then somewhere in the mid-20s. And then, people started bringing their friends. On Easter Sunday that year, we decided to move our meeting time to the mornings. That Easter, we had about 100 people there, and I baptized two of the three original people who had been interested in City Church when we moved to San Francisco.
All of those people from the launch team became either ministry leaders or community group leaders. From the beginning, community groups were charged with getting involved in something in our city that helped to bring relief--we were engaged with social justice issues. It was word and deed from the very start, and people just kept bringing their friends.
We hired our first music director that year--I actually stole Scot Sherman's music director from him--so the music got a big upgrade. In December of that year, we realized the Presidio didn't have enough space for us and we relocated to the Russian Center. I preached on a wooden box that somebody in our congregation made
The foundations of the church were set. We had community groups, we had an excellent worship service on Sunday, and we were deeply engaged in the life of the community. We were convinced God had called us to start not just a church, but a movement of churches and ministries to be involved in the transformation of the Bay Area and San Francisco. From them on, it's multiplied. We've looked at any way God was already at work in the city and partnered with those ministries: Young Life, City Team, First Resort, and so on. We've also entrepreneured where new initiatives were needed: AIDS Hospice ministries and County Jail Fellowship to name just a few.
Before we became self-supporting, we knew our missions budget needed to be ten percent. We were giving money to other church plants and mission centers from the beginning.
What were some points of pain or difficulty as City Church was getting off the ground?
A lot of people move to San Francisco because of work. They're shell shocked by it, so they look at church as a way to recreate an enclave that feels like home. Because of that, we had to be protective of our vision, because the vision drives everything.
We were learning to have our own vision. We were inspired by Redeemer, but we learned that this was not New York. So as we thought through how to name our Church, we also saw how different San Francisco was from anywhere else.
We got to January of 1996 and had no name for our church. Our first worship service would be in February, so we needed to come up with a name, and fast. I told the launch team that I would come up with a list of 20 names for the church. I had 18 down, but could not think of numbers 19 and 20--so I asked myself, what is central to who we are? And that was the city.
So the last option on the list was, simply, City Church. The launch team interviewed their friends--Christian and non-Christian alike--and the most popular name far and away was City Church. People said that "city" and "church" were opposed to one another, and were intrigued by putting those two words together. We listened, and that became the name of the church, because we believed that God loves the city.
What are a few words or core values that define City Church?
The belief that God is always at work renewing the world, especially cities, and that he loves San Francisco. From that foundation flows all the other activity of our church.
The phrase "beauty in brokenness" is a phrase I used in the first letter of support I ever wrote. When I came here to visit, I walked across the Golden Gate bridge with Terely and was overcome by the beauty; but then I saw the call box for people in crisis. There was so much beauty penetrated by so much brokenness. We believe God loves all of it and invites us to join God's mission in the city.
Another big idea that flows from that is that God can and does transform any person, culture, institution, and city. He comes to us to do that very thing by becoming one of us. God's story of pursuing union with us through the person and work of Jesus is the story that re-stories and restores our life. Paul calls this good news "the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith". We believe that power is always at work and so we say the phrase "God at work" quite a bit.
Because God is at work reuniting us with Himself, we expect to be redirected in our lives and always move toward brokenness and not away from it. Embodying the good news in works of service, relief, sacrifice, intentionality with the poor, the marginalized, the outsider, the outcast is the way of the cross, the way of Jesus, and where we will find him already at work.
And finally, we believe in making room for everybody. We used to have a statement in our worship folder that said something like "The doors of this church are as wide as the arms of the savior." We expect people from every kind of background to attend City Church and try always to remember what its like not to believe. We create all the space and time needed for a faith development process to take place. It is God's work, and we want to be wise stewards of what God is doing among us.
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