Yesterday was the “official” launch of IKON Christian Community… meaning we took our hopes and our dreams about who we want to be as a community public to the city of San Francisco.
Waking up the morning of proved to be a little bit different than I expected, there wasn’t a sense of “oh no!” or a sense of excitement or even a sense of fear, instead it was simply surreal. Throughout our Beta Gathering phase I had been taking the MUNI train to our location, however sensing a need for reflection I decided to take a walk. The walk was a great time of prayer and reflecting upon the past 14 months of preparation to take this dream public and the whole time I was left with nothing but a sense of amazement at what God had orchestrated. (I’m still in awe, and have a hard time believing that we’ve actually arrived at this point!)
The morning couldn’t have gone any better, from the Kids Community brilliantly executed under the leadership of our Leadership Resident Abby Chew, to the facilitating of our communal art critique by Jarrod Shappell, and the vulnerable and authentic worship led by Duane Chew. It was a tremendous morning with some amazing stories and connections that we’re still trying to process through.
Perhaps what was the most humbling realization of the whole morning was knowing that there was over 10,000 people around the country praying for us this morning as we got started from El Paso to Orlando, San Diego and Chicago, L.A. and seemingly everywhere in between. IKON went public with our hopes and dreams in the midst of a movement of prayer. If anything, that might be what I remember most: the church community from all over the country rallying behind us in prayer. That will certainly be a hard thing to ever forget.
IKON has a mandate, a mandate to listen well to the city and reveal the Kingdom of God in ways both old and new. It’s going to be an amazing ride and I’m looking forward to where God takes us next!
Thirty-six skaters made their way down the hills of San Francisco with neon signs attached to them to create a life-sized game of tetris. This is one of the reasons I love this city… the creative spark and imagination that flow from the people who live here and call this place home is at a level unseen in most places around the country–around the world. The city of San Francisco is a place of experimentation and hope, the land of the start-up (there are more start-up companies here than almost anywhere else) and the land of the non-profit (there are more non-profit organizations here than anywhere else in the country). The people of San Francisco believe they can do anything…
What better place to start a church than here! Imagine what could happen if the creative spark that drives this city is turned towards the realization that they are a part of a Sacred Ecosystem (Kingdom of God), and that together it really is possible to change the world…
This the endeavor that we are a part of… revealing the Sacred, opening the eyes of the people around us to the realities that God is in our midst working and shaping everything around us. This is what brings me hope, this is what excites me about this new church forming in all around us… I believe change is in the air.
Today is a day not unlike any other; there is nothing about the 29th of October that really truly makes it stand out above any other. The weather is nice, the city is alive, but above all else it just feels like any other day… normal. However, today is far from any other normal day because today is the official launch of a new church.
Our church plant won’t launch with the typical pomp and circumstance that surrounds the new birth of so many other new churches–mainly because we’re just a small group at the moment and because it’s not a worship service–but today is the day. Today a new church forms and comes into existence within the city of San Francisco that wasn’t there before as our first house church meets tonight for the very first time. Today is a big day and immediately I can see more and more just how frail new beginnings and new birth can be… so pray for us tonight if you would. A new church is coming to life!
Yesterday was the inaugural “Streets of San Francisco” started by Mayor Gavin Newsome to get people out and about onto streets and offer some active fun for the residents of San Francisco. It seems to have been a huge success! Tracy and I skipped out on church to attend, and hopefully learn a little bit more about the people and the amazing city that we live in!
It was an amazing event and something that we didn’t quite realize was exactly how many kids live in our particular neighborhood! They were certainly out in force this morning. The strange thing about San Francisco is that they actually have more dogs than kids under the age of 18. At any rate, this mornings experience has given me pause to re-think exactly what we’ll do with Kids City once we launch next year.
One of the things that we were able to participate in that morning was running the bases at AT&T park, home of the San Francisco Giants. The header is a picture of me “sliding” into second base. Since they didn’t allow you to actually slide on the diamond, I plopped down at the bag and had Tracy snap the picture. I think it turned out rather well! I was also able to take a pic on the steps of the Giants dugout and several other amazing pictures on the field. AT&T is quickly becoming my favorite ballpark.
You can see more pics of our morning and some commentary on them as well at my Flickr photostream. I’ll be continually adding more pics to the stream as we take them. It’s a great way to see the city that we love and learn more and more about what we’re doing and experiencing!
Citizens of Illinois, you have no idea how good you have it. I mean really, have no idea how good you have it. Last week Tracy and I ventured out to experience once again the world of the California DMV and what an experience it was. We arrived around 9:30am in order to register our car and get our drivers license’s… we didn’t leave until almost 1:30.
We waited in seven different lines throughout the morning as we were continually shuffled from station to station. The first line was the registration line where we picked up paperwork that needed to be filled out, then we were sent along to wait in the line for the paperwork for our Drivers License (we had to show 3 separate pieces of identification – Social Security Card, Birth Certificate, Drivers License – in order to even receive the paperwork.) Then we got to wait… and wait… and wait until we were processed. I took the vehicle registration and couldn’t believe the price tag! (In Illinois its just over $70… here I paid over $200. Ouch!) After I paid my money, the registration still wasn’t complete… we had to have a Drivers License processed first, so I began that process, filled out the paperwork and waited in line to have my picture taken. After my picture was taken I was then shuffled into another line where I had to take the written test… that’s right, in California you can’t just transfer a Drivers License… you have to apply like a 16 year old minus the drivers test… they waive that if you already have a license.
I waited in line, took the test and then waited in line again to have my test graded… Tracy missed 3, the max you could miss before failure. I missed 0… obviously I’m the better driver. Tracy then made her way to have our car inspected to finish out the registration while I waited in line to complete my drivers license process.
We passed our vehicle inspection and walked out with our new plates… but no new Drivers License. In Illinois you walk out with a new license on the spot… it gets printed right before your eyes. In California you have to wait for it to come to you in the mail… and it can take up to a month. Thankfully it only took a week and today we got our licenses in the mail.
Citizens of Illinois, you have no clue how good you have it.
Anyhow, I thought I’d share a couple of Drivers License (DL) pics with you… the first one is my Illinois DL pic and the second is my California DL pic. My how things have changed in just a little over a year.
Since arriving in our apartment in San Francisco we’ve had to figure out ways to make the best possible use of our space in order to have everything that we need in a 1 bedroom apartment… one of the necessities is some sort of home office. Since we didn’t want the office to also share space in the bedroom we decided to put it in the hallway closet. Yes, that’s right the hallway closet… and no its not a walk-in closet.
The office comes equipped with a desk, a whiteboard, pictures on the wall, a paper shredder, a printer, 2 file cabinets and 4 filing boxes, a desk lamp, an external hard drive and space for writing, filing and a laptop. Sounds hard to believe but it can be done! Here are a few pics:
(click images for full size)
The crazy thing is that this actually works… and it works well! It doesn’t feel crammed, it doesn’t feel too tight and I’m able to fit pretty much everything I need in there to work. This is how we did it… we went to IKEA!
At IKEA we purchased two filing cabinets on caster wheels that can be moved around and measured them to make sure they’d fit in perfectly with enough space for legs! Then at IKEA we made our way to the custom counter top section and purchased a counter top that was the proper size. They’re even willing to cut it to size if you need to! Got a cheap desk lamp for light, a powerstrip and one of the IKEA “white boards” and made our way home. I put it all together in about an hour for a grand total cost of less than $250 bucks.
The only “issue” is that there is no power outlet in the closet. This is where the powerstrip comes into play. I leave everything plugged into the powerstrip and the powerstrip is always connected to an extension cord that gets plugged in across the hall when I need to use the office. It’s as simple as opening the doors and connecting the extension cord… unplugging the extension cord and closing the doors. It fits, and it works!
So, if you need a space saving technique for a home office… give this a shot! It really does work!
Today is the day. For nearly a month now Tracy and I have been in transition, packing up our belongings and preparing to move across country and the day is finally here. This morning we’ll load the car up one last time and make our way from Carson City, Nevada around Lake Tahoe through Sacramento through Oakland and across the Bay Bridge into our new home: San Francisco.
It’s been a long drive and one that has provided a great amount of reflection of the past and a great deal of excitement and anxiety about the future… Today is the day. Today we truly begin the next chapter of our lives and today a brand new adventure becomes blatant reality. I’m not sure what it’ll be like to drive across the Bay Bridge, what emotions and feelings I’ll undergo as the city becomes visible and we descend into it but the time is here and today is the day.
