***Service Opportunity for New Staff***

SFOC Discipleship Flat

The Outer Circle Team Vision
We invite the lonely, the outcast, and the wanderer
into restoration of their entire beings by
drawing them to Christ,
giving them what we have,
and bringing them into community
by being their friends.

Introduction

The San Francisco Outer Circle (SFOC) discipleship flat or as it is “lovingly” called ‘Purgatory’ is a transitional discipleship flat for our formerly homeless and/or drug addicted friends. Our aim is to redefine and redeem the concept of family by modeling Christ-like behaviour, discipling towards spiritual growth and restoration, and encouraging healthy rhythms of life through structured living, volunteering, and regular spiritual practice.

Description

Duration: months, 6 months, or 1 year

Dates: Summer/Fall 2017

Applications due: Ongoing

We are looking for someone who has a passion for trainhoppers, gutterpunks, hippies and other travelers, who is comfortable discipling in the intersection of addiction and faith, and who wants to serve incarnationally!

In short, we are praying for someone to assist as a “right-hand (wo)/man” in our discipleship flat here in the Mission District serving our houseless friends! Do you know someone who could serve in this way for the summer/fall? Maybe a youth leader in transition, an intentional community dreamer with a missional heart, or perhaps a rehab staff who wants to go missional?

Requirement

Living with us and a few houseless friends in a lovely 4-story Victorian hospitality house in San Francisco’s Mission District.

Hosting, mentoring, and walking with the guests on your flat through faith, addiction, and emotional crisis in life.

Sharing your time and space and choosing to do life together!

Assisting the Discipleship Flat Lead by planning shared learning curriculum and Bible studies.

Pursuing a rich relationship with Christ!

And a willingness to learn!

Preferences

For this role, we are looking for someone who is comfortable with incarnational community living, loves Jesus, has a passion for the homeless, doesn’t mind reparenting adults, experience/background is a bonus, but not required in psychology, rehab, communal living, or some discipleship program.

You would be comfortable and experienced mentoring someone struggling with addictions and mental health challenges.

We need someone who can be a leader/house parent/host for the flat. Comfortable facilitating flat meetings, making decisions, and dealing with conflicts as they arise. Managing chores and praying!

Bonus!

Are you an accountant, lawyer, gardener, addiction and trauma counselor, storyteller, teachable spirit, a love of cooking, bible study facilitator, great listener, lover of punk music, Someone who wants to experience relationships with homeless youth, comfortable camping, or handy man? We could really use those skills!

Responsibilities

Developing and maintaining relationships with homeless and formerly homeless friends, assisting the Discipleship Flat Lead, mentoring and assisting in crisis, as well as daily life skills, helping with meals, attending and assisting with team functions.

 

For more information or to apply: Email or Facebook Claire and Brian at- Claire.Howard@innerchange.org

 

Thoughts on showing up

"Hey, you been comin' around for a while now, yeah?" and "Oh hey, I remember you guys! What's up?" and "You're in the park every Monday and Friday, right? Every week..." and "You guys are the cool pancake people!" 
Lately, I've been noticing that the consistency of being present is an incredible gift. 
In a city whose culture is permeated with transience, and in a park full of travelers and train-hoppers, consistently showing up is a refreshing change of rhythm. 
I love that we're able to have deeper relationships with our Amigos bible study friends, but sometimes I struggle with not feeling as though I'm connecting in a meaningful way with people in the park. 
Is it really worth it, to have conversations that feel like small talk? But, God has been showing me that being persistently present speaks a powerful word of love to friends in this transient place. 
It says, 
"I am not here to get something from you or to try to fix you. 
I am not just passing through. 
I am just here with you, just sitting and listening and loving and learning alongside you. 
I am not concerned with achieving a result or an efficient outcome. 
I just care about you deeply and love you for you. 
You are worth spending time with and you are valuable in God's sight." 
I pray that God can use my small act of coming to sit with our friends to powerfully communicate His relentless and gently-pursuing love for them!

- Georgia Lee

So you Wanna Know What You Can Give That Really Helps?

 If you have ever worked at a non profit you have received some terrible well meaning donations.

So a friend asked us what we can REALLY use... So we decided to give you a big list!


Street needs:

·       First and foremost as always, socks and underwear (any traveling kid will be your best friend with a pair of clean socks :)
·       Feminine products
·       Tents
·       Sleeping bags (army bags preferably)
·       Small Tarps (preferably brown or green)
·       Backpacks
·       Goodwill gift card
·       Id voucher
·       Quality counseling sponsor
·       Flywheel coffee gift card
·       Whole Foods gift card
·       Another way for homeless friends to eat on a daily basis in Haight
·       A safe dry place to sleep that allows dogs and significant others and discipleship- a transitional but loving home.
·       Lockers so you can go to appointments or even church easily- without what you own being stolen
·       Friends who are sober to hang out with our friends on the street and do normal life things together!
·       New full time staff!
·       Jobs short and long term- so they can get experience and a more current resume as well as legally earned cash!
·       Vehicles for specific sober friends
·       Travel help- flights or greyhound tickets to go home!

Housewarming gifts for newly housed friends:

·       Laptops
·       George forman
·       Crock pot
·       Electric tea pot
·       Coffee set up
·       Microwave
·       Warm blankets

Stuff our house can use:

·       Financial support to get each staff fully funded- http://www.crmleaders.org/give
·       Airline miles, or sponsor one of our trips!
·       Grocery cards (safeway, whole foods, trader joes, rainbow, foodsco)
·       Gas cards
·       Blankets
·       Small heaters
·       4 Fans   
·       Shelving for storage
·       Back up pancake power box or someone to invent a new awesomer longer lasting system!
·       A 2000+ watt power inverter

We could use your Talents and Connections!

·       Legal council for friends as well as for pancakes as issues arise
·       Personal assistant
·       Wifi consultant to make it reach our whole house!
·       Volunteer counselor for homeless friends who are scared to go to a center or don’t qualify for free counseling.
·       Babysitters (esp during bible study)
·       Handyman
·       Plumber
·       Bible lovers- to guest facilitate bible study on specific topics as they come up! Perhaps a theology nerd?
·       A person older then us who wants to have kids over for tea and cookies and love on them! Be grandma/grandpa for many who don’t have elders.
·       A house sitter who is willing to host kids while we are gone.- Just sleep at our house and make sure people are alive J
·       A musician who can jam with kids
·       Someone who can introduce good Christian hardcore/punk/folk music to our kids!
·       A Job connector please! To connect us or our kids to possible jobs or to hire them! Please!
·       A passionate person to manage our Odd Jobs website- connecting youth to short term odd jobs for individuals and individuals to a person who needs a short job!
·       A job coach- helping kids get to where they want to be!
·       Rainy day or emergency housing- a person we could call when we have someone who really needs housing but we can’t provide it.
·       A writer to collect our stories and write them well
·       A once a year house deep cleaner volunteer group
·       Moms to visit moms for play dates who are holed up in hotels and learning how to parent.
·       We go on retreats a few times a year to pray or to plan for the year, or sometimes when tough stuff happen to get away and pray and process, so houses with 1+ empty bedrooms that are within 2 hours of SF that you would be willing to let SFOC staff stay in for 2 or 3 nights would be lovely.
·       Other random skills we don’t even know you have! – Tell us what you could do for us and we can tell you if a situation comes up where we could need you!

Pancake supplies-
for 1 year we buy in bulk and spend on average: 926.42$ for Syrup, Sugar, Creamer, Coffee, Pancake batter, Forks, Plates, Cups, etc…

Rainbow Gathering Kitchen supplies:
Around 300$ plus gas.

Thanks for caring!
SFOC

2960 21st Street
SF CA 94110SF CA 94110

Relax

Monday morning I sat down next to Job on our brown plaid picnic blanket. A few others were bustling about setting up to cook pancakes. I asked him how his week was. And he muttered some unintelligible words threaded together as only a maybe 50 year old long term speed user can do, but then pointing at my little book, asked if he could draw. Surprised I immediately found a pen and watched him begin. Circles. Endless circles. Getting deeper. Pushing harder. Almost ripping the paper. I picked up my guitar and began to play. “Give me your hand, and we’ll walk, walk down together” I could watch as the words filled the space bouncing around and calming the area. “lift up your heart and we’ll dream, dream dreams together” And Job began to draw. Slowly but surely. He began to draw. First lines. Then waves. The final product ended when he received his pancake, and wasn’t much to talk about but it was beautiful to me. It was beautiful to see him relax.

What can you give that we can REALLY use?

A gift we really loved! 
If you have ever worked at a non profit you have received some terrible well meaning donations.
So a friend asked us what we can REALLY use... So I decided to give you a big list!
But first I will tell you some stories.
Step is a friend we have known for a few years. He found a bagel shop that was setting its leftovers in a bag in the trash nightly and began acquiring this bag sunday nights and bringing it to pancakes to feed the early arrivers before we made it in the morning. It was such a blessing. There was no desperately hungry souls- we could eat slowly as we love!
Mud is another friend we adore who has been picking blackberries in the park every year in season and bringing them to pancakes to add!
Ryan ground scored (found on the sidewalk) a travel apple to apples game last week and brought it for me, knowing my affinity for the game!
One week I forgot my wallet and needed bus fare- I turned to the nearest friend spanging who immediately gave me the 2$  in change I needed without a hesitation and with a smile- we all know how fun it is to give!
Suzanne would come over monthly around the day her food stamps got turned on a cook a feast at our house and take it out to the park.
Our friends our crazy generous.
Its easy to give when you can look around you and see what is needed and look at what you have to give and make it happen! 
So there you go!
I leave you with a quote.
Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.” 
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“The challenge before the church is that 60% of the world is poor by US standards and 20-30% desperately so, only a tiny fraction of missionaries serve incarnationally among the poor.

 These figures constitute a math problem that is difficult to justify.

 In an age that is quick to speak of the need to minister to unreached people groups the poor remain ironically the single most under reached people blocks in the world. 

Said another way, poverty is keep more people out the kingdom then any peculiarity of geography language culture or ethnicity.

 We believe Christ grieves over this disparity and is busy addressing it.”

 -Postcards from the Journey
http://www.innerchange.org/innerchange-postcards

The time Andy gave me 112$

When I was 17 I saved up money so I could go to work with an outreach ministry called Prodigal Project in northern California connecting with hippies. I made myself a budget and worked coaching gymnastics to reach it. When I had enough money for the train ride and 300$ extra for spending money, I excitedly bought a one way ticket! I was super psyched! My birthday was a few days before I left so some friends threw me a surprise party! As I was getting ready to go, a friend named Andy walked up to me and slipped me a wad of rolled up money and said Jesus told him to give it to me for my trip. I thanked him- a bit surprised as I hadn’t asked anyone for money. When I unrolled it, I counted 112$. Aghast, never having received money like that, I went back to him and told him it was too much. He put it back in my hand and said Jesus would show me how to use it. I kept that wad, rolled up in my drawer. Every time I had an opportunity to give in a big way I smiled, knowing I had the means, if God wanted me to use it. Every time I felt like I was supposed to use my own money and kept watching for that one special thing that this money was meant for. I got live simply and thus had the ability to do lots of fun things in sharing my 300$, but at the end of my 3 months there I was a bit frustrated wondering who this 112$ was for and sat down to pray. Then I realized. That 112$ had changed me. It gave me the eyes to look for how God may be allowing me to give. I laughed, and when I got home I gave it back to Andy, telling him that his money had done exactly what it was supposed to do- changed my heart and given me the eyes to look for where I have the capacity to give, because I do have a reserve in heaven!

todays inspiration...

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well. It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
Amen.

-Oscar Romero
(who served the people of El Salvador and was assassinated in 1980 while he was saying mass in San Salvador.)

application


I was walking with Molly to the memorial. Her dad and brother had died.
She had spent the night and I am currently in the night time rhythm of reading some cool quotes about Jesus that inspire me, so we had read a Fredrick Dougless quote that read “I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.”

Now it was probably 1 am by the time we had calmed our giggling and crying and settled down to bed so we were pretty tired and emotionally fried as we walked to the memorial. We were quiet as we got closer.

Memorials in the park are held by getting really drunk and writing a note on something to remember them by.

“Jesus,” I began to pray “please keep everyone safe today, and keep alcohol away from this memorial.” Molly laughed. I glared at her- “what- I can pray for a miracle.” I responded. “Maybe we should start praying with our hands” she responded.
I smiled.

Tattoos hurt.
But they are art so we bare with it for the result.
The artist (hopefully if all went well) brags to friends about how fast and sharp he threw up the piece on your arm.
“Nah, the pain wasn’t that bad. Only 6 hours of work.” You respond to the inquiries hoping for that nod of affirmation that -yes, you are a bad ass.

Allowing Jesus to work on us hurts.
It is uncomfortable.
He may brag to the angels how great we are doing, how proud he is of us but we don’t come out looking like a bad ass, at least not to our eyes.

I am on a solitude retreat right now.
Sitting still.
Allowing God to work on me.
Show me pieces of me I never knew were there.
Lousy prison tats.
He is doing a clean up job.
And it is beautiful.
When I go home I am sure I will complain.
I won’t like the colors he chose.
It should be a little smaller or more to the right.
But that is a slam on his art.
And he only does perfect work.

So I will go back.
I will bite a sock and ask for more.
Lay out on that plastic table.
Awkward, half naked and a little scared
and ask,
What are you thinking now Jesus?
I am ready.

Tiny pricks on my skin
The ink sinks in
The blood rises
I am a masterpiece
Of my Fathers hand.

to nini

These are some Lyrics to a song I wrote about a girl I met on the street who reminds me of "Juno" from that movie- cute, witty, young and determined.

She came over to my house one day and we were patching some holes in her pants and talking about life and I smiled at her choice of fabric- some faux fur- to patch her jeans but knew it wouldn't stay on and I thought about how she was doing the same in her decisions in life when I knew of some (God related) fabric that could really patch things up beautifully.

To Nini

i saw your face today on the TV screen and my heart jumped

i love you Nini

your little face and your patchy jeans make me smile

and make me want to

make it all better

i wanna make it all better

Will you let me make it all better?

We can stitch your heart just like your jeans.

Will you let me make it all better?

I'll choose the fabric.

it wasn't your face today on the TV screen but my heart jumped.

i love you Nini

when i think about you i cry

and quickly move on to other subjects

you left far to fast and aren't all better

Jesus make me all better

you can stitch my heart just like her jeans

Jesus make me all better

You choose the fabric.

conversations at night

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Matt 11:28-30

i love the night on haight street.
it seems to bring out truth.
the farce of joy through drugs.
the lack of love in last nights partner.
the real questions of, "what am I doing here?"

when night hits the homeless friends i find left on the street are either so drunk they can't move or are so depressed they don't care.

that is when i see people who are open.and desperate no one is around to impress. they are simply there and sometimes ready for Jesus.

Picture for me a little blond haired boy, he just got into the city today, traveled all the way from the east coast, he is about 20 and looks like surfer. today he made a mistake in the park and dropped a needle. he got beat up 4 times for that today. his lip is bleeding. he didn't know better. they all look like they shoot up, but the truth is they just all hide it. "no needles in the park" is the street rule. he just didn't know it. now he is sitting on the side of the street crying into his big army surplus backpack hoping no one will notice and beat him up again and wondering what to do when his girlfriend arrives tomorrow. he is wanted back home for selling drugs so his mom bought him the ticket to the land of peace and love- Haight Ashbury. it was a long bus trip but he had made it and was excited to start his new life. well, that's all gone. he begins to cry again. "everything i have ever done has been screwed up!" he had met his girlfriend in the psych ward. he was there for heroin and she for cutting. smiling he had explained how they had helped each other get better and over come their addictions. he loved her. she understood him. he had been clean for 3 months, and the needle he dropped wasn't even his. "how will i be able to care for her here...everyone around here is so tough. there is no peace or love in san francisco. i can't do this. i can't even sleep in the park now that i was beat up. i don't know what to do. i am so tired. i just want to shoot up." he rolled over on the concrete and layed his head down on his backpack and then punched it. "i give up."

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Matt 11:28-30

just cuz we are friends.

When I was in college I met a girl who I wanted to be friends with. She was fun and had sparkles on her tennis shoes. We hung out at the new student retreat and were excited when we found out we shared a class. We sat by each other and passed notes and smiled our way through the first few weeks. One day early on she brought me a mango smoothie. No real reason, she just did. And I knew we were friends.

One day last summer I was talking to a girl I knew and someone came up and told her that her brother was here. That is how I met him. I was worried about his influence on his sister because he likes hard drugs a lot. He liked to dress all tough with a black leather jacket and brag about his habits. Today he called me. He is in the hospital. He wanted me to know he is ok. We got to talk for a while and laugh. I told him I would pray for him and asked what I could bring him aside from cigarettes (which I had already refused). He laughed. I am going to see him tomorrow and bring him a chocolate bar. No real reason, just cuz we are friends.