Why We're Moving to Two Morning Gatherings in 2020

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As we look forward to 2020, we desire to press into more intentional discipleship and deeper relationship with one another. Here is a high-level vision of our plan and how you can practically get involved.

Here’s the Short of It:

  1. More and more, we see the need for deeper discipleship, theological training, and ministry equipping for us to flourish as a community following Jesus, seeking renewal in our city.
  2. Sunday is a great day for all those things!
  3. We as leaders have been limited in doing much of this on Sundays because of how far apart we’ve scheduled our two gatherings.
  4. So next year, we’re consolidating our two gatherings to be back to back in the morning at Everett to make time and space for something like a Sunday school of core discipleship classes!
  5. The dates: final evening gathering at DPC on November 17th; one 10:30AM gathering at Everett from November 24th – January 19th; two gatherings of 9:15 and 11:30 launch on January 26th.
  6. To make this transition, we need over 142 new Sunday volunteers both in general Sunday roles and in Children’s Ministry.
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Watch Dave share the vision.

If you’d like a longer explanation, read on…

Our Current Challenge: Limited Capacity on Sundays

We know that all those who call Reality SF home lead lives full of demanding jobs, family commitments, and busy schedules. But more and more, we see the profound need for deeper discipleship, theological training, and ministry equipping for us to flourish as a community following Jesus, seeking renewal in our city. So when can this discipleship happen?

Sunday is the day that many of us already set aside time for connection with God and other believers . However, our capacity as elders, staff, and leaders for intentional discipleship on Sundays has been limited. This has been in large part due to a Sunday spread over one gathering in the morning, and then another gathering at a different location much later in the evening.

In short, it’s tough to plan and execute much else besides worship gatherings on a Sunday if the gatherings themselves spread you pretty thin.

Our Solution: Consolidating to Sunday Mornings

After many discussions of different solutions to the above challenge, we discovered that we’d be able to build in more formational theological training and ministry equipping on Sundays by consolidating our energy to the one location of Everett with two morning gatherings at 9:15 and 11:30.

Our elders and staff deeply loved and enjoyed hosting an evening gathering at Dolores Park Church for the last several years. And honestly, it was with much sorrow that we ended it. The space was intimate, it felt like a smaller community, and we often experienced the Lord doing something uniquely powerful in that space. However, for the long-term spiritual and relational health of the church, we believe ending evening gathering and consolidating our efforts in the morning was the right decision.

Our last evening gathering at DPC was November 17th.

We will host a single morning gathering at 10:30AM at Everett from November 24th through January 19th.

Then, we will launch two morning gatherings at 9:15 and 11:30 on January 26th.

What We Hope to Do on Sunday Mornings:

With our new capacity, our main discipleship initiative will be to launch something like a Sunday school made up of some core discipleship classes as well as electives! The core classes will cover topics such as how to interpret the Bible, theology and classic spiritual disciplines.

Sunday school classes will always take place during one of the two gatherings. You’ll go to a class during one gathering for learning and discipleship, then you’ll attend the other morning gathering for worship, encouragement from Scripture, and receiving communion.

Our hope is to start our first classes in February to March. In addition to regular discipleship classes, we also hope to make more space for social/relational connection. We’ve got two lovely courtyards at Everett, so we’re excited to explore how we can intentionally use those spaces more often.

Sunday Social

Here’s How You Can Get Involved:

If you were waiting for the call to action, here it is:

By ending our smaller evening gathering and adding an additional larger morning gathering, we will need over 142 new Sunday volunteers for things like setup, breakdown, parking, hospitality, and our Children’s Ministry, The Village.*

Here’s why this is important:

So if you call Reality SF home and you are not currently serving on Sundays, this is the most practical way for you to get involved and contribute to the work God is doing now and will continue to do next year as we make this transition.

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* One of the valuable things about back-to-back Sunday gatherings is that it allows many volunteers to be able to serve during one and then attend worship at the other. (This will especially be a blessing to our faithful volunteers in The Village!)