Our man in San Francisco: Two churches

Spectrum Staff | September 11, 2006

By Trevan Osborn
I’m already running behind and feel the pressure. Tomorrow is a free
day so I’ll get a chance to catch up. Beware of loooong posts though to
get things back in order.
There are two different series going
on in San Francisco right now. The title is called, “Rays of Hope
Prophecy Seminar” and are also utilizing the question, “What Next?”
They chose this because it is the 100 year anniversary of the SF
Earthquake. One church, Philadelphia, is located in the heart of San
Francisco and the other, Rainbow, in the roughest part of SF. SF is a
very interesting city because it has some of the nicest neighborhoods
just one block away from the worst neighborhoods. The Philadelphia
church is in the heart of the city surrounded by wealth. The Rainbow
church is in a rough neighborhood that has a lot of problems.
I
will be working at the Rainbow series so I will only have short remarks
about Philadelphia based on what I hear from the people working there.
The Philadelphia church has been struggling for a while now. They have
a beautiful, large church building but the attendance has dropped below
100. The Rainbow church is a small church with about 30-40 in
attendance.
The one thing that has jumped out immediately is
that the members and leaders of the series are wonderful, committed,
spiritual, and fun people. From what I can tell, every member of the
Rainbow church is coming and helping with the series. It really is
remarkable and they have a strong committment to the series.
They
have been doing a lot of work in the community in advance of the
series. They have brought in a pastor from SoCal to help the church and
get things organized. They have someone from the Conference helping and
several Bible Workers have been working in the community developing
contacts. On Tuesday night, they held a big rally in the community and
had many prominent community leaders come and had good attendance.We
are having the meetings in a local YMCA. They actually have just done a
major renovation of the gym so it is a great meeting-place.
More later. . .

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