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St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church
Parish Profle
July 21, 2008
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St. Gregory of Nyssa Church
PARISH PROFILE

July 21, 2008
Executive Summary
St. Gregory of Nyssa Church
500 De Haro Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
(415) 255-8100
www.saintgregorys.org

Long-Term Interim Rector: Rev. Paul Fromberg

Staff:
Director of Ministries: Sara Miles
Music Director: Sanford Dole
Office Administrator: Sherri Wood

Vestry:
Brad Erickson, Co-convenor
Jessica Anderson, Co-convenor
Susan Abernethy, Membership Commissioner
Elizabeth Boileau, Secretary
AnnaMarie Hoos, Communications Commissioner
David Kincaid, Finance Commissioner
Rick Storrs, Learning and Service Commissioner
Appointed by Vestry:
Leesy Taggart, Treasurer

Profile Team:
Randy Bowman
Tom Devine
Hillie Cousart
Dave Cowen
AnnaMarie Hoos
Diana Landau
Julia McKeon
Katherine Powell Cohen
Susan Sutton
Deb Tullman

Baptized membership: 309
Active adult membership: 225

Operating budget: $413,000
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St. Gregory of Nyssa Church is a parish in the Diocese of California, led until 2007 by founding
rectors Richard Fabian and Donald Schell. It was founded 30 years ago and became a parish in
1993. Located in the southeastern quadrant of San Francisco, it draws members from near and far.
The majority is Caucasian; approximately 30 percent is self-identified gay, lesbian, bisexual, or
transgender; and approximately 5 percent is African American, Pacific Islander, Asian, or
Hispanic. Incomes range across the full spectrum, averaging in the middle to high-middle income
range. Approximately half our members are married.

St. Gregorys is made up of children and elders, families and singles, straight and gay people,
lifelong Christians, interfaith couples, converts, and seekers. Our patron saint, Gregory of Nyssa,
a married fourth-century bishop, inspires us with his vision of human life in friendship with God.
We join in worship and service, creating a community that shares the unconditional welcome
offered at Jesus table. Leadership is shared among a small staff and many volunteers who work
in all areas of church life: worship, programs, and service. St. Gregorys is an intentional
community open to all. Everyone is welcome to participate fully in the parish life, but members
make an explicit, additional commitment to support the community and share in governance. The
parish is now financially independent, after having been strongly supported since its inception by
a nonprofit foundation, All Saints Company.

We are dedicated to sharing the gospel through liturgy, art, music, and dance. Visitors in large
numbers come from the greater Bay Area and from afar because of our unique approach to
worship that is embodied in the artful and art-filled physical space of our church. We continue to
be a leader in the Episcopal Church in bringing Christs welcome to all the world. We believe that
we follow Jesus lead by offering Communion to all who come, without the prerequisite of
baptism, and holding this to be especially important in welcoming the unchurched or those who
have felt injured by their experience of church.

We gratefully acknowledge both the uplifting innovations and the cohesiveness of our
community, and at the same time recognize that we are on the cusp of change. Not only are we in
search of a permanent rector, but also we are seeking to reconcile divergent wishes within the
congregation and looking for firmer theological grounding to shape the nature and direction of
our evangelism.

This profile was developed to guide our discernment and search teams, along with vestry, in
choosing a permanent rector who will help us fulfill our goals as a congregation through
supporting our members and the surrounding community, and carrying forward our work in
liturgical renewal.
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Introduction and Overview
St. Gregory of Nyssa Church is in the Diocese of California, presided over by The Right
Reverend Marc Handley Andrus, Bishop.
We introduce ourselves by confidently presenting our statements of mission and purpose. At a
recent town hall meeting called to solicit input for our Parish Profile, members met in small
groups and then all together, to pray, reflect, and discuss these statements. We discovered that
although many of us became members after these documents were written, we became members
because the values expressed in them are alive in our church today. The discussion was rich, and
we concluded that these statements are vibrant and true for uswere they photographs, they
could have been taken today.
Living Documents
Statement of Mission (Members Chapter, September 1984; revised June 1995):
St. Gregorys Church invites people to see Gods image in all humankind,
to sing and dance to Jesus lead, and to become Gods friends.
Statement of Purpose (Members Chapter, Spring 1995)
Our purpose is to invite people of the San Francisco Bay Area to discover that they are Gods
friends, and in practicing Gods friendship to find their unity with all people, through
! Celebrating Jesus resurrection in worship drawn from Christian tradition and the whole
human experience of Gods friendship, and involving song, dance, music, quiet, prayer,
communion, welcome, thankfulness, and compassion.
! Listening openly for Gods word in the Bible, with the help of accurate critical
scholarship, as well as in Christian teaching and experience, in each other, and in Gods
friends of other faiths.
! Creating for children and adults a life-transforming and unforgettable sense of
belonging, and an awareness of Gods friendship active in their lives.
! Empowering them to express their true selves in service, following Jesus example by:
participating fully in our community, with regular presence at Sunday worship and other
gatherings; taking responsibility for their own contribution to community life, with gifts
of money and time to St. Gregorys, the Episcopal Church, and Gods work in the world.
Excerpt from Plan for Saint Gregorys (Rick Fabian, 1977)
! We will break new ground to recover the vital roots of Christian tradition that can nourish
Christian living today.
! We will develop the competence of laypeople in every aspect of church life.
! We will develop the maximum potential of music for common prayer. We will also
explore new functions for music in congregational worship and Christian mission.
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Why We Are Named for St. Gregory Nyssen
Mystic, theologian, humanist: the fourth-century Greek bishop
and scholar St. Gregory Nyssen, with his vision of human life
in relationship to God, informs our lives together. Gregory saw
life as an unending process of discovering what God is doing
in human life, and sin as the refusal to keep growing in this
discoveryfor, as he wrote, the one thing truly worthwhile
is becoming Gods friend. Deep delight in human life and
great optimism suffuse his writings. (See Appendix 8.)

Parish History
St. Gregory of Nyssa Church was founded by the Reverend
Richard Fabian in 1978 in San Francisco, California. Bishop
Chauncie Kilmer Myers and the Convention of the Episcopal
Diocese of California organized the church originally as a mission with a charge to continue
liturgical development in the direction the new Book of Common Prayer had set out, drawing
directly on the classical resources for practices that would enhance congregational participation.
St. Gregorys was to be a liturgy embodying an authentic Anglican approach, gaining from
modern scholarship, open to new material, and yielding experience to serve the whole church.
(Material above paraphrased from Fabian, Worship at St. Gregorys.)
Making Church in a Basement
St. Gregorys became a parish in 1993. A foundation known as All Saints Company (ASC),
created by the family of founding rector Rick Fabian, was the primary source of funding for the
parish in its first two decades. ASC supported the establishment and growth of Saint Gregorys
for more than twenty-five years; in the early years covering most of the expenses. ASC funded
the conception and development of our revitalized approach to liturgy. It continues to develop
and disseminate those practices on its own through publications, workshops and pilgrimages.
The Reverend Donald Schell joined Fabian as rector in 1980. (The two had been collaborating
on liturgical experimentation since their years together at seminary in New York City and later
as chaplains at Yale University.) For 17 years, services were held in a rented chapel at Trinity
Church. These years were characterized initially by a small membership of approximately a
dozen, growing to forty or so.
Liturgies in this era retained a strong experimental flavor (from the Yale days). The room was so
small that chairs would be removed during the procession to the table. Fabian and Schell usually
alternated in the deacon and presider roles; both cantor and deacon worked without a script. The
development of a corps of deacons and cantors came later. Congregational music was a pile of
books reflecting disparate sources, under each seat. (Later these sources were tapped for our own
music book; see Worship.) Sharing was very personal because the group was small; members
would make personal pledges to the congregation. Even then the liturgy attracted many curious
visitors, but also more skepticism than is the case now that SGN is established. At most
services one or two people would leave.
! 2006 by David Sanger
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Sojourner Truth
! 2006 David Sanger

The issue of growth is inevitably front and center in a new church, and St. Gregorys was no
exception. Some in the tiny congregation treasured its intimacynot unlike, it could be
imagined, a house church among early Christians, and indeed the rectors consciously wished to
capture the energy of the nascent church. However, they considered St. Gregorys welcoming
mission as paramount and growth therefore essential.
The members and rectors risked a great deal on their vision, and in the early 1990s embarked on
building a physical church that would reflect the theology and liturgy they had been exploring
and creating, as well as allow for growth. A fundraising consultant was hired and asked to attend
a Chapter meeting. This meeting had 100 percent attendance, and the consultant concluded that
the group would succeed in building the church because of their manifest commitment. This
spirit of intense participation, visible in the early years, remains a core characteristic of St.
Gregorys.
The Move to De Haro Street
Designed by John Goldman, AIA, the new building
was financed by member donations, a major
contribution from the Fabian family, and financial
backing from Fabians All Saints Company. In 1995,
the building was occupied and conferred the
"Religious Architecture Award" from the American
Institute of Architects.
The Byzantine, Siberian, and Arts-and-Crafts-inspired
structure is wooden with cedar shingles and with cupolas at opposite ends of the roof. There are
two distinct, connected buildings: the primary worship spacewhich comprises a rectangular
seating space and an octagonal rotunda for standing and moving worshipand the bi-level
administration building, home to offices, a nursery, and childrens classrooms. A garden runs
alongside the building on both the street and hillside facades; the hillside-facing garden contains a
constantly flowing baptismal font made of carved rock. The distinctive aesthetic qualities of the
church attract many newcomers and visitors, and pique the interest of passersby.
Gregory of Nyssas commentary on Psalm 50 gives us his vision of the worlds people
in harmonynot just audible harmony, but active, dancing harmony. Richard Fabian
The Dancing Saints icon, a 2,300-square-foot iconographic mural that
encircles the rotunda walls, welcomes with stunning grace all who enter.
In planning the new building, we conceived of a large-scale signature
artwork that would draw together and embody key themes of our worship
and values: foremost, to show an image of Gods myriad ways of
working in peoples lives, in every age, place, and culture. This mural,
with an estimated cost of $1 million, was funded primarily through the
generosity of St. Gregorys members over the last twelve years.
Also underlying the icon planning were our affinity for aspects of the
Eastern Church such as Byzantine-style imagery, our desire to revive
congregational dance (extolled by St. Gregory), and our sense of the vital
role of art in opening our hearts to Gods friendship. Congregation
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members consulted with the founding rectors to choose our 90 saints from a long list of heroes
and heroines whose lives showed God at work; iconographer and St. Gregorys member Mark
Dukes has labored (in the loving sense) over this work in progress for more than a decade. (See
also Sacred Space.)

Outreach, Growth, and Change
The synergy of St. Gregorys mission, its extraordinary physical space, and the creative, service-
oriented congregation has manifested over time in ministries of noteworthy ambition and
accomplishment. One such seed is the Jhai Foundation, a project of reconciliation and community
development in Laos begun by member Lee Thorn, a Vietnam vet. Jhais work has ranged from
creating schools and medical facilities in the intensively bombed Plain of Jars, to importing fair-
trade Lao coffee, to bringing the internet to isolated villages through innovative tech partnerships.
Another is the award-winning St. Gregorys Food Pantry (Bodega de San Gregorio), founded in
2000 by Sara Miles (currently director of ministries), which now distributes groceries to hundreds
of families weekly around our altar table.
Active adult members at St. Gregorys number approximately 225. Membership has grown
significantly in the decade since 1998, increasing more than 56 percent, but this rate of growth
has tapered off. We understand the intense period of growth to be due in large part to the new
church building, and to word spreading about the vibrant, participatory liturgy. The slowed rate of
this trend since 2002 is one of our current concerns.
In a surprising epiphany that occurred during a clergy retreat in 2006, both founders discovered
that they were being called to other work. While their eventual retirement from St. Gregorys
was inevitable, their decision at this (earlier than expected) point became the focus of the
congregations attention in the two years preceding this profiling effort. After months of
celebratory and mournful farewells, what stands out is their legacy. Their leave-taking is in no
way a retirement, as both continue to carry their work into the larger church world.
In January of 2007, Donald Schell took a six-month sabbatical, at the end of which he concluded
his tenure as rector and turned his focus to the work of All Saints Company. Richard Fabian
began a sabbatical in July 2007, then retired as rector, and continues his work at ASC. The ACS
grant to St. Gregorys, which had paid 50 percent of the founders salaries, was terminated. St.
Gregorys budget covers current staffing, and we are financially independent of ASC.
The Reverend Paul Fromberg is our long-term interim rector. He received his Master of Divinity
degree with an emphasis in marriage and family therapy from Fuller Theological Seminary and
then graduated from the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest in 1990. He served at
Christ Church Cathedral, Houston, and then as rector of St. Andrews in Houston. Fromberg first
visited St. Gregorys in 1997 to learn about our practices in liturgy, and was first hired by St.
Gregorys in 2004 on a half-time basis as Child, Youth, and Family minister. Fromberg is also
an accomplished visual artist and a founding member of Sophia Network, a national organization
for those interested in spirituality, scholarship, and liturgy.
St. Gregorys is also blessed with a number of gifted, nonstipendiary clergy: Revs. Lynn Baird,
John Golenski, Will Hocker, Nancy Milholland, Daniel Simons, Amber Stancliffe Evans, and
Philip Wickeri. For brief biographical information, see Appendix 2.
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! 2006 David Sanger

Sacred Space
The building designed for our worship and community life
embodies our approach to liturgy and our revival of early Christian
tradition. The architectural plan and interior furnishings provide a
further introduction to who we are.
Four large wooden doors, with Maori motifs on the theme of
creation in Genesis carved by artist Shane Eagleton, lead directly to
the rotunda. Upon entry, we see a clear path to the open Communion table, with no barriers of
any sort. Raising our eyes, we see the 90 larger-than-life dancing saints painted around the
circumference of the wall above.
The Communion table, modeled on early Palestinian banquet tables, is a handsome yet
unassuming round wooden altar, which symbolizes Communion open to all. Beyond the table,
visible through large French doors, is the baptismal font; this intentional positioning emphasizes
our practice that baptism is not a requirement to share in the Eucharist.
The baptismal font stands outdoors; symbolizing that baptism cannot be contained by church
walls. The fountain flows from a tall, rough-sculpted boulder face that appears much older than
the church itself.
The most immediately striking feature is the Dancing Saints icon, surrounding the congregation
as we sing, dance, and share the cup. The saints depicted in the icon represent a rich and
unexpected variety of figures. Reflecting the congregations understanding of sanctity as showing
some aspect of the life of God in ones own life, they include people as diverse as John Muir and
Anne Frank, among others. Writers, dancers, martyrs, scientists, political and spiritual figures all
dance together, led by a larger image of Jesus, drawing new harmony from his example
(Fabian). This has been a work in progress since 1997, and the final icons were installed in the
spring of 2008.
The north part of the building (the apse) is a rectangular space with seating for more than 250,
where the Liturgy of the Word takes place; this space was acoustically designed for speaking. In
lieu of pews, the congregation sits in offset rows of padded chairs facing each other across a
solea. At one end of this raised space is a lectern for Bible and other readings. At the other is a
howdah chair (an elephant saddle), where the presider sits to deliver the sermon, followed by
sermon-sharing. On the wall behind the howdah is a 20-foot-high mural, also painted by Dukes
and depicting Gregory of Nyssas interpretation of the Song of Songs.
Following the liturgy of the word, the congregation processes in step to the rotunda (the southern
part of the building), where the Eucharist is celebrated around the table, followed by a danced
carol. See Appendix 3 for further description of the building and grounds, or visit the virtual at
http://www.saintgregorys.org/Resources_video/SGN_Tour.mov/
Relationship with All Saints Company (ASC)
Over the years, St. Gregorys has frequently served as the physical site and sounding board for
liturgical innovations (often rooted in the recovery of historical practices) originating from ASC.
The parish hosts liturgical conferences and workshops, sometimes including SGNs regular
worship services. Partially as a result of this longstanding relationship and the founding rectors
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emphasis on developing lay participation in the liturgy, St. Gregorys has cultivated a skilled
group of lay worship leadersnamely, the deacons and cantorsas well as a congregation able
to appreciate liturgy, articulate liturgical questions, and provide constructive feedback.

St. Gregorys and All Saints Company continue to have a close relationship around teaching and
demonstrating new ways to do liturgy. ASC will continue to use the church space for workshops
and to ask St. Gregorys members to help demonstrate lay and congregational support for liturgy.
Recently ASC has worked on developing music that can easily be taught by ear, and held a
conference at St. Gregorys to show how that music would work in a liturgical context.
See links:
Music that Makes Community: Gloria and Alleluia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1BxGzuPSpQ
Music that Makes Community: Simple Gifts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbFDEKbZ1uE&feature=related
Undoubtedly the relationship between St. Gregorys and ASC will continue to develop and
evolve. Lay and clerical leadership from both groups deeply wish to maintain ties of affection and
sharing. Areas of specialized interest are already visible, as parishioners with skills and
evangelical goals have taken advantage of internet sites such as YouTube to make videos of our
liturgies available to the widest possible audience, while ASC continues to focus primarily on
reaching out to liturgical specialists.

Our Neighborhood
St. Gregorys Church is located on a busy street corner at the intersection of Mariposa and De
Haro, in southeastern San Francisco, in the Potrero Hill district. The parish does not have a
formally designated boundary, reflecting its relatively recent origins and, to some extent, its
identity as a destination church, drawing much of its congregation from throughout the Bay
Area and many visitors from afar.
Nonetheless, as with any other parish, the physical setting of the St. Gregorys community was
purposefully chosen, in part because of its distance from other established Episcopal churches.
And its character has been formed in part by its location in a city of mild climate, high housing
costs, countless international influences, generally liberal politics, and above all, a population
constantly on the move.
Potrero Hill is a neighborhood in the process of profound economic and demographic
gentrification. The Hills historical postwar urban fabric of warehouses, light industry, and blue-
collar households has been giving way, particularly in the past decade, to higher-density
condominium and other upscale residential construction. (The church building is sited at the heart
of the area in greatest transition.) Watching the influx of newcomers and their effect on property
values and other land uses, many longtime Potrero residents feel threatened by change. They
coexist uneasily both with their more affluent new neighbors and with the residents of several
nearby housing projects on the south side of the hill. Although traffic has increased along with
prices, residents old and new still treasure the neighborhood for its mix of people and building
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styles, its low density and proximity to freeways, and its warm weather, open space, and
expansive views.
Neighbor-to-neighbor working alliances have been formed with the San Francisco Food Bank,
local schools, the Culinary Institute, and groups that fall under the Potrero Hill Umbrella of
organizations: the Library, Edgewood Family Services, Potrero Hill Neighborhood House,
Potrero Hill Conveners Association, and Potrero Hill Family Resource Center.
The informal parish boundaries cover a diverse collection of neighborhoods beyond Potrero Hill,
extending northward into the design showplace district and eastward into the rapidly transforming
Mission Bay neighborhood, the citys nascent commercial and educational biotechnology hub,
which includes the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) science campus at Mission
Bay. Other businesses and institutions profit from proximity to the new construction and white-
collar workforce.
The city is currently considering the possibility and/or desirability of extensive rezoning (or other
measures) to ameliorate the effects of rapid gentrification on the small businesses and residents of
the neighborhoods south of Market Street. These measures could directly impact St. Gregorys
ability to conduct future renovation and expansion of its own buildings.
To the south and east is the Bayview-Hunters Point area, neighborhoods historically
economically driven by the shipbuilding industry (military and commercial) and housing many of
San Franciscos African-Americans. As dockyards and other heavy industries have relocated,
leaving blue-collar unemployment and hazardous waste in their wakes, this district has declined
greatly in vitality and currently pins many of its hopes for its economic future on the new T-Third
light rail connection to downtown SF, and a recently approved voter-initiative for community
renovation and affordable housing.
To the west, past a highway that impedes easy access by foot, bus, and car, St. Gregorys borders
the Mission district, a sprawling series of micro-neighborhoods often characterized by its shifting
immigrant populationsonce Irish, now largely Mexican and Central American, mixed with
pockets of Russian and Chinese immigrants.

Parish Demographics and Membership
The membership of St. Gregorys is drawn from the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond, but
there is an increasing trend toward members residing in San Francisco, who currently comprise
45 percent. The other half of membership comes from the greater Bay Area, particularly the East
Bay. Almost 10 percent of members live in other states and countries. The wide geographic
distribution testifies to the drawing power of St. Gregorys unique liturgy and community but
presents challenges to building stronger community life, particularly for midweek participation,
pastoral care, and other social dimensions.
The majority is Caucasian, and approximately 5 percent is African American, Pacific Islander,
Asian, or Hispanic. Approximately 30 percent of our members self-identify as gay, lesbian,
bisexual, or transgender. Incomes range across the full spectrum, averaging in the middle to
upper-middle brackets. While most members live with partners or families, the majority
participate at SGN as individuals. Members come from a wide range of religious backgrounds,
training, and experience. Less than 25 percent of members have children participating in church.
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In addition to many professionals, there are a significant number of musicians as well as visual
and performing artistsbecause we value creative efforts as a spiritual path and intentionally
enrich our liturgy and worship through incorporating the arts.
The founding convention that SGN exists primarily for those outside the church has served to
welcome many who are lapsed or alienated Christians, spiritual seekers, people who may be in
transition with extra needs for support, and those who do not identify as Christian. Many who
attend services on a regular basis are friends of St. Gregorys who have not yet signed a formal
Membership Agreement but are considered to be an integral part of the community and add
greatly to its shared life. The individual Membership Agreement requires a contribution of time
and money as well as involvement in the governance, growth, and community life of the church.
Community programs such as the food pantry, music concerts, and other outreach efforts
continue to attract new people to the church, with an average of five new members joining per
year since 2000. We acknowledge that membership growth has slowed since the surge in 1997
2001, without knowing exactly why; currently we hover between 220 to 230 active members.
We expect that membership will continue to grow and are especially interested in interacting
with more young families and rebuilding programs for youth and children. We also are at a
turning point with our Membership Committee, which had an active and engaged role until
approximately two years ago. It is as if we are poised for a new phase but without a fully drawn
map.
Members Agreement
From its founding, St. Gregorys has used an intentional-community model to define its
membership. We ask individuals interested in membership to pledge their financial resources,
their time, and their talents. Upon joining, members make an explicit commitment to pledge as
well as to give time to one of the many ministries that support our common life (serving as a lay
deacon or cantor, singing in the choir, representing us to the deanery, teaching Sunday school,
serving on coffee hour teams, or extending welcome to newcomers). Members are encouraged to
attend the events of Spring Chapter and Fall Retreat. Chapter is for members only; it includes
fellowship dinners on Friday evening in members homes, interactive activities centered on
current church business or community issues on Saturday, and the annual business meeting on
Sunday. Fall Retreat is open to members and friends, and is held over two and a half days at the
Bishops Ranch.
Some people have questions about whether the model of membership we used at our founding
still works for a congregation of our size. Individuals coming to join SGN do not always have
the same experience of the membership process. If they already know someone in the
congregation who sponsors and supports them, they will most likely have a clear understanding
of the Members Agreement. However, when individuals self-identify as seeking membership,
finding a sponsor and discussing the Members Agreement can be more spontaneous and less
thorough. We plan to address this by instituting a program for follow-up by sponsors to improve
integration of new members.
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Membership Statistics (based on annual parochial reports)*
St. Gregory of Nyssa Church 1997 2002 2004 2007
Baptized members 158 288 313 309
Adult members (16 and over) 181 288 286 283
Average Sunday attendance 188 213 188 159
Christmas attendance 190 unavailable 355 420
Easter attendance 325 322 325 350
Baptisms 14 3 5 6
*St. Gregorys has not made a practice of recording confirmations.

Parish Life
Individual Spiritual Growth
Individual spiritual growth is nurtured at St. Gregorys in various, often unconventional, ways.
Because our community strongly embraces diversity of belief among its members and friends,
programs for and conversations around spiritual growth do not follow prescribed models. Many
members seek solace from morally charged models of the devotional life, while others hold
beliefs outside conventional boundaries of the Christian faith. Given these factors, we have
found ways to support each others devotion and growth that focus on intentional community
and our patrons call to friendship with God.
Preaching at St. Gregorys is an important example of how we share our faith and support each
other in our life together. Many feel that it is also at the heart of our spiritual practice. Our
building is structured so that we face one another during the readings, sermon, and prayers, and
can hear one another without amplification. The preachers sermons always include a personal
storysometimes humorous, sometimes deeply revealingrelated to the readings. This
component of the sermon speaks to a deeply held value among the congregation: hearing Gods
voice in human experience. Following the sermon, the congregation observes two minutes of
silence, after which the preacher says: At St. Gregorys we finish the sermon together. If an
experience of yours comes to mind, please stand and share it. God speaks to us through our
stories, and in the silence. The sharing of experiences is modeled in this piece of the liturgy, and
its effects permeate subsequent conversations in our life together. We understand our vocation as
becoming Gods friends, and helping one another on that path.
Our liturgy aims to reach and move the human spirit deeply by appealing to all the senses:
through music made together, real bread, fine incense, beeswax candles, splashing with water,
beautiful art, human touch, and dancing. We place bread in one anothers hands, addressing each
other by name; the incarnation is made plain to us in every liturgy.
Central to our worship, and a natural extension of our mission to welcome the stranger, is the
practice of open table Eucharist. In this open space lies the grounding of our historic and ongoing
attractiveness to people who are either new to Christian worship and community, or whose
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previous experience of church has been negative or hurtful. St. Gregorys makes room for them
as they are, most fundamentally in the very personal invitation to all to share the body and
blood of Christ. This is the foundation of how we understand and pursue spiritual growth,
individually and corporately.
Through the mysterious workings of grace, we also seem to generate a high flow of people
seeking support in discernment of calls to ordained ministry. Many move forward into ordained
ministry; many find a deeper experience of lay ministry. We have developed a supportive, honest,
effective vocational discernment process, using teams called to work with individuals. In the past
we have used this almost solely with people seeking ordination. There is significant energy within
the community for expanding the discernment ministry to include discernment for lay ministry as
well.
In the churchs early years, individuals at SGN were quite being active in spiritual direction, both
as directors and directees. This ministry largely arose from former rector Donald Schells long
and formative involvement in spiritual direction, as a teacher, spiritual director, and
organizational leader.
From time to time, we have experimented with group and mutual spiritual direction or support in
various forms. The current most active version is monthly dinner fellowship groups with
committed, long-term lay leadership, open to any participant. There are San Francisco and East
Bay fellowship groups at present. Periodically either a staff member or a church member will
offer a course or extended reading/exploration group around a subject of interest. In general, these
arelike our sermon practice and Bible studiesexperience based and exploratory in nature
rather than didactic. Several members of SGN practice centering prayer, and the church hosts
related seminars and workshops.
Retreats and the Arts
Opportunities for creativity and reflection, both individually and in
community, are available throughout the year. Many people take
advantage of the Artists & Writers retreats hosted twice a year by the
diocese and All Saints Company at St. Dorothys Rest, under the
redwoods in Sonoma County. During these long weekends, the
daytime hours are given over to silence and space for creative work,
and the evenings to sharing, feedback, and fellowship. The novelists,
composers, iconographers, memoirists, illustrators, poets, sculptors,
painters, and knitters among us all enjoy taking advantage of this
creative space.
St. Gregorys hosts workshops in the Byzantine style of icon painting
on Sunday afternoons throughout the year, led by Betsy Porter
(http://betsyporter.com/). This ancient blend of prayer and artistic expression has taken root
strongly at the church, and many parishioners, as well as members of the public, have learned to
paint their own icons.
The connection between creativity, spirituality, and the arts extends into much of our common
life. We regularly install art shows on our walls, invite composers to have their music sung in the
liturgy, and offer the building to in-house as well as outside groups for concerts and other
performances. Last year, some parishioners also started a St. Gregorys Theatre Group, which
Icon of the Transfiguration
of Christ by the hand of
Betsy Porter
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they hope to expand upon in the future. We do these things because we believe that creative effort
is a vital aspect of individual experience, common life, and spiritual growth, and must be
nourished. We encourage each other in our creative projects and seek to strengthen bonds with
the greater community through the arts.
Gregorians retreat annually in October to the Bishops
Ranch (http://www.bishopsranch.org/). Starting two years
ago, non-member friends and family are also invited. This
extended time together deepens relationships. People
newer to the community get to know us better, which
helps in their discernment about becoming members. Fall
retreats include worship, singing, activities for children
and teens, question-and-answer sessions with the vestry,
social hours, creative and playful workshops, hikes, and
time for fellowship without an agenda. Typically 100 people attend.
Community Life
Our communication patterns are important in how we support and care for each other in our life
together. Sermon sharing, Sunday announcements, and coffee hour fellowship are the most
immediate (and many feel the most effective) methods of communication the community uses.
For Gregorians, gathering around food is a natural and irresistible expression of Jesus table
fellowship. We gather at table for meals on countless occasions, from informal lunches and
potlucks (to mark events, share information, introduce ourselves to prospective members, etc.) to
full-scale feasts at major liturgical celebrations and community milestones.
Our website, http://www.saintgregorys.org, is both our online face to the greater world and a way
for members to keep in touch with parish affairs and each other: through the member directory,
blogging, announcements, vestry minutes, rotas, sermon archives and podcasts, and the calendar.
Our monthly newsletter, the Nyssa News, is another important way of sharing stories, publicizing
events, and getting to know each other through interviews and articles. Recently we have seen a
trend toward increased electronic communication. Most groups at St. Gregorys make use of
listservs through Yahoo Groups. Many liturgical and relational communication needs are met
through email, although there is a growing sense that the sheer volume of email most people
receive is diminishing the mediums effectiveness.
The most common types of conflict we encounter are interpersonal conflict between two or more
individuals and conflict surrounding parish decision-making on issues that affect all of us. While
this will always be a work-in-progress, there is a sense that damaged relationships can be healed
or prevented through personal responsibility for direct and honest communication. Formally and
informally, we remind each other and ourselves of the commitment to discuss differences face to-
face. Strong differences of opinion over politics are not uncommon and at times have led to
conflicts boiling up, but in general we cherish and safeguard our bonds in Christ above such
differences. Politically, our members range across the spectrum of liberal and conservative.
In our experience, group conflict around parish-wide issues is most effectively solved through
transparency, listening, prayer, and discernment. We strive to be a community that is not
threatened by the presence of conflict. We remind ourselves that corporate conflict can be an
entry point into spiritual growth and deeper communion with each other.
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Celebrating the Sacraments
At St. Gregorys, we offer the bread and wine, which are Christs body and blood, to everyone
without exception. Every person, no matter how young, who comes to the table, is fed. We do
not ask people worshiping with us whether they are baptized or are members of any particular
church.
The relative physical positions of the table and the font at St. Gregorys were consciously
designed to reflect our conviction about the primacy of the table as a symbol of Jesus welcome:
on entering the church building, the table is almost the first thing one encounters. Processing
past it and out the west doors (as we do during baptisms), one finds the font in the form of a
large boulder with a constant flow of water, set in a small garden. Founding rector Donald
Schell, said in a newspaper story, if somebody is going to be baptized, its probably the
result of their experience at the table. Its extremely evident in the Gospels that Jesus welcomed
sinners unconditionally. He accepted them in all their conflicted ordinariness. There were no
entrance requirements (SF Weekly, 2004). Our baptismal service includes sponsors, community
commitment to support the baptized, sealing the newly baptized with chrism, and recitation of
the Creed.
Members and nonmembers are welcome to have their own or their loved ones funeral or
memorial service at the church, and can be interred in our columbarium. Weddings and funerals
of members held at the church typically are open to the whole St. Gregorys community, and very
often members provide much of the support, from setup and cleanup to preparing food to music
offered by the choir. Our building was designed to convert quickly from worship space to social
space; rather than move to a separate parish hall, we treat every part of such events as sacred.
Any committed couple is welcome to have their marriage blessed at St. Gregorys. We have
welcomed same-sex blessing as early as 1995. Following the policies of the diocese, the liturgy
was framed as recognition of the blessing brought by the committed couple rather than as
marriage rites. The community has always celebrated these unions in the same way, and with the
same loving spirit, as any other. Civil marriage for same-sex couples became legal in the State of
California in 2008, which is likely to expand opportunities for the church to bless such unions.

Worship at St. Gregorys
Roots of Our Worship
Its quickly apparent that our services diverge substantially from the typical Episcopal Church
liturgy, while embodying what Rick Fabian termed an authentic Anglican approach. Further
comments by Fabian help clarify our relationship to the standard services set forth in the Book of
Common Prayer:
The Book of Common Prayer unites diverse Anglican churches in one worship life, which
we share with Christians of all times and places. The American Episcopal Churchs Prayer
Book of 1979 . . . acknowledges local variation, and opens all usage to rational choice based
on scripture, tradition and pastoral circumstance. Besides reconciling weary divisions, this
innovation fosters creativity and responsible experiment within our public liturgical life. . . .

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[At the founding of St. Gregorys in 1978,] our charter charged us to continue liturgical
development in the direction the new Book of Common Prayer had set out. We were to draw
directly on the classical resources that inspired this Prayer Bookincluding Jewish and
eastern Christian resources, newly emphasized in this versionfor practices which would
enhance congregational participation. And we were to build congregational music, dance, and
other expressions beyond what settled parishes might readily attempt. Our goal was not a
unique experimental or eastern liturgy, but a liturgy embodying an authentic Anglican
approach, gaining from modern scholarship, open to new material, and yielding experience to
serve the whole Church.
While our pattern of worship does diverge from the Episcopal Church norm, it follows the usual
progress from the Liturgy of the Word through the Eucharist, which is celebrated at all services
except our small daily morning prayer service.
The Liturgy of the Word: Readings, Silence, Sermon and Sharing
Laypeople read the Scriptures, and each reading is followed by a few minutes of silence to allow
the Word to sink in. One member describes this as soaking in silence, and another told us she
finds it important for decompressing. The cantor signals the beginning of the silence by ringing
a series of Japanese and Tibetan singing bowls, and the presider ends it with a chime.
We ask our preachers to give us sermons that include scholarship, unfinished personal
experience, and sharing by the congregants from their own experience. We seek an approach to
the Bible and other foundational texts that is well informed by the best modern scholarship. The
seated presiders proximity to the congregation, and the visual contact among congregants
fostered by the seating arrangement, create an atmosphere during sermons that resembles a
teaching gathering more than an address from the pulpit.
In our practice of sermon-sharing, started by Rick Fabian during his work at Yale Divinity
School, we complete the sermon together. The preacher invites anyone to share an experience
from his or her own life that came up during the sermon or the readings (the invitation is worded
this way to elicit direct, personal experience rather than opinions, anecdotes from the news, or
alternative sermons). What people share can be mournful, embarrassing, angry, or joyous, and the
experience of listening can be gratifying or deeply uncomfortable, and allows us to know one
another and God more intimately. Speaking to our deacons near the end of his tenure, Donald
Schell said, We become who we are in conversation. In this conversation between us and God,
through the Word, everyone has the authority to speak.
At some services, congregants are invited to share a word or phrase from the readings that spoke
to them. In this style of so-called African Bible study, everyone is invited to reflect on and share
their own responses to the Word before the preacher says, This is what I find interesting here.
The people are given the first word, and we listen for God speaking through everyone.
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The Eucharist
The principles of how we celebrate Holy Communion are discussed
previously. The Eucharist is offered at virtually all our services,
which take similar form. In brief outline: the congregation processes
from the seating space to the rotunda, usually singing a tripudium.
The gifts of bread and wine are brought to the table in procession. At
the 10:30 service this is done by our children, who return from
Sunday school at this point in the service, to rejoin the adults. The
Eucharist prayers are sung by the presider, with congregational
responses, in one of several musical settings composed for our use.
Following the consecration of the gifts, the choir or cantor offers an
anthem while Eucharist is shared among the congregation. Deacons
provide cues as needed, and guide the congregants in circulating the
patens and cups.
Lay Leadership (Deacons)
The work of coordinating and leading the liturgies at St. Gregorys is done by teams of trained
laypeople whom we call deacons. We have even given the task its own verb: deaconing.
Deaconing at St. Gregorys is a job one trains for, takes up, and sets down again, rather than a
permanently held rank.
Deacons arrive about an hour before each service to meet and pray before preparing the worship
space and the gifts. Closer to the beginning of the service they vest, then head back out into the
sanctuary to invite people to join them in their work. Our mantra is Give work away.
Individuals in the congregation assist by ringing bells and gongs, carrying processional umbrellas
or a chalice, lighting candles, and preparing censers. Deacons hold a vision of the whole structure
of the service while keeping track of the details and shepherding the process. Our deacons and
cantors are confident and welcoming and are trained to speak and sing in a clear, carrying voice.
Throughout the service, the deacons announce and introduce each action, so that everyone can
hear and know whats coming next.
Each of our liturgies has a detailed script that lays out the tasks each deacon does to prepare, the
tasks they are to invite others to do, and the precise order and wording of the service itself. In
some ways, a theatrical sensibility informs the deacons relationship to the scriptthey learn
their lines, and then leave the script behind to play their part in the service.
St. Gregorys tradition of shared leadership in worship, and its members desire to sustain this
model, bear on our vision of a permanent rector as the leader of a collaborating team. To a greater
extent than in most parishes, our deacons and lay music leaders conduct the services, freeing the
presider to focus on the gifts of his or her own presence and preaching with a minimum of
logistical distractions. The rector will be engaged with liturgy on an ongoing basis, willing to
think both theoretically and practically about liturgical forms, to do research when necessary, to
learn from mistakes, and to make and implement decisions creatively and collaboratively.
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Movement, Dance, and Ritualized Touch
Our services are full of movement, including processions and
dancing. As much as possible, the entire congregation moves
together, led by the vested party. We always sing while moving
and sometimes dance as well. Our building was designed for us to
dance around the altar table, joining into line with the Dancing
Saints in the icon above us. We use steps based on folk dances,
which are simple, repetitive, and easy to pick up, freeing people to
sing rather than think about their feet. We use a few steps
regularly, and bring out all the ones we know for the climax of
Easter. Dancing allows us to finish each service rejoicing as one
body with our whole selves, affirming that our bodies and the
whole physical world are good. You might be in line next to a
person you wouldnt normally talk to, or offer your shoulder to a
newcomer to guide them through the dance. We all move together,
rejoicing.
Reaching out literally to touch the people around us is an important component of our worship.
Opportunities for safe, ritualized touch have been intentionally added over the years. At present,
these include the welcome processions, the Scripture moving through the people to be greeted
with a touch or a kiss, and our dancing. As Donald Schell says, We are determined to risk
contact.
Music
It would be hard to overestimate the importance of music in our
worship. Our use of music is high on the list of practices most
often cited as reasons why people are members, and as an element
they most wish to retain under a new rector. Our rectors have all
been strong singers, and Rick Fabian is a composer as well. Early
on they established the primacy of congregational singing in our
services, and it continues to receive loving and critical attention.
All the elements of our music practice coalesce around the
principle of participatory worship: through singing together (along
with movement, lay leadership, and other practices), we create
the liturgy together, as we say, rather than sorting into a group of vested performers and a
passive audience. The role of sacred music as an open channel to the spirit is a familiar concept,
but in mainstream churches it is a role often given over to the professionals. In contrastand
inspired in part by such traditions as shape-note singing and Orthodox chantwe take every
opportunity to sing together as a whole congregation, throughout every service. Our typical
service has the congregation singing 18 pieces of music, with another three provided by the choir.
This is facilitated in several ways. First and foremost, we sing unaccompanied, so voices need not
compete with instruments. Our space was designed to encourage and enhance singing, especially
in the rotunda. We provide strong musical leadership: our longtime music director, Sanford Dole,
is a talented, inspirational, and experienced singing leader and teacher, aided by a corps of
assistant cantors (or musical deacons). We provide carefully chosen and designed materials
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that, in tandem with this leadership, enable even the musically inexperienced or insecure to sing
four-part unaccompanied music. At our larger 10:30 service (which receives more first-time
visitors) we practice some of the music at the beginning. Music is programmed in a careful mix of
familiar (offering congregants the comfort of singing off book) and newly introduced pieces
(requiring more guidance but becoming familiar from use in rotation). Finally, the choir
(unvested) spends most of the service mingled with the rest of the congregation, so there is
always a strong voice nearby to lean on.
The choir does separate out at the start of the 10:30 service to offer a prelude, and during
Eucharist and Collection to sing two anthems. This all-volunteer group, under Doles guidance,
learns and performs a remarkable range of works from early music to newly composed pieces
many by composers from our own ranks, and much of it quite challenging. The choir sings music
in many languages and from many traditions, though singing in English is our default choice,
always in the interest of communicating meaning. Typically the choir offers one or two public
concerts annually, as well as singing at parish weddings, funerals, home and hospital visits, and
other special services.
The 8:30 service does not have a separate choir. This liturgy features opportunities for music
learned by ear or simple enough to memorize quickly. Contemplative silence and chanting also
are important in this service.
Congregational singing remains the focus at all of our services. We sing music by St. Gregorys
composers at many places during services. Our own music book, Music for Liturgy (now in its
second edition), is the primary reference, drawn from various hymnbooks, pieces discovered at
other churches and gatherings, and music composed for our own needs. We create special service
books of music for Eastertide and Christmas. Dole and the staff of All Saints Company have
carried our style of music-making to other congregations and music leaders around the country, at
conferences at SGN and similar events elsewhere.
Examples of our liturgy:
Holy Week and Easter are our biggest services of the year. For insight into the creative use of multi-
sensorial experience in celebration of each of these holidays, please view the following four videos:
2007 Easter Vigil: St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal
Church http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5wYkFAfPs4
Holy Week, Part One: Palm Sunday: 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8OnRP9hUZk
Holy Week, Part Two: Maundy 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLTfnYm-gVk

Holy Week, Part Three: Good Friday 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRQ_CIwA9Lc
Holy Week, Part Four: Easter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLvU34NZisM
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Involving Children
Children are encouraged at all services, and invited into participatory
roles. At our 8:30 service, the children who attend stay with their
parents throughout the liturgy. They are invited to help bring gifts of
food and money to table during the offering. Sunday school is offered
during the Liturgy of the Word at the 10:30 service, and the children
return mid-service to lead the procession to the table, carrying the
bread and wine. We include teens on the readers rota. Older children
and teens also serve as deacons in the liturgy, vesting and joining one of the adult deacons in their
assigned role when younger, then taking a full deacon role as they mature, become more
confident, and develop a louder speaking voice.
Continuing to Break New Ground
Behold, I am doing a new thing. (Isaiah 43:19)
We continue to ask ourselves what is meant by our common commitment to break new
ground. In the liturgical realm, we wonder whether we should continue to work the fertile soil
we have tended for the past 30 years, or whether breaking new ground in the present would lead
us elsewhere. Some recent experiments have not succeeded: two iterations of an evening
Eucharist, one on Saturday and one on Sunday, have not drawn a sustainable congregation. Still,
there is some desire for a third service, possibly a type of Evensong or Vespers, lay-led and
without Eucharist.
At our last chapter one member reminded us that breaking new ground can mean going deeper,
not just going broader. We are asking: Does this mean new musical styles? New times for
worship? Non-Eucharistic services? House church? What other ways to worship might express
our liturgical theology? How can we reach out not only to people who are disaffected with
church but also to those who have no tradition of church at all?
We hope for a priest who will take time to absorb and understand our liturgical customs, be open
to the institutional memory of liturgy that is carried by the whole congregation, and enter into
dialogue with it and with us. There is anxiety that someone may come in and, because they have
the authority to do so, change music, language, and practices we have debated and distilled over
many years. We strongly desire opportunities to study and discuss the scholarship and theology
that undergird our common worship. We want someone who can engage us, on a scholarly and a
personal level, with the early church, the traditions that emerged from it, and the world we live
in now.

Christian Education

Sunday School for Children
We take you to our Sunday school spaces, with the first stop at the Fabian Lounge, where
member Linda James convenes the sixth graders, our Prep Quest group. St. Gregorys does not
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have a traditional Episcopal confirmation class for this age group, since we do not typically
present young people to the bishop for confirmation (neither confirmation nor baptism being
required to partake of the Eucharist). The Prep Quest class follows our liturgy form with song,
praise, the sharing of stories, and interaction with the Word.
To prepare for their Quest, the children choose an
adult mentor with whom they spend time in
conversation and outings, leading to a weekend
Quest group camping trip filled with rites of
passage, such as a ropes course and creating a
personal altar in the natural setting.
Next we go to the Chapel Kids, convened by
member Margaret Simpson for the third, fourth
and fifth graders. Activities are literature- and
project based. The children are currently working
on Tzedakah boxes, from the Hebrew tradition: designing and decorating wooden boxes in
which to put aside money for doing good works.
Our child-care nursery and pre-kindergarten group have paid caregivers, who use a small room
furnished for this purpose. For ease of quickly uniting parents with babies or very young
children as needed, the nursery is located close to a corner of the apse, which is carpeted and has
a rocking chair, and playthings for youngsters. Whenever they wish, parents can gather up their
child from the nursery and return to the service with little disruption.
Kindergarten through second grade is taught by member Aimee Baker, through activities that are
also literature- and project based, drawing on Godly Play materials. They meet in a section of the
administrative annex that is furnished for and rented during the weekdays by an independent
Montessori-based preschool, La Picola Scuola Italiana.
Youth from junior high through high school are guided by two adults (though one of them is
typically a very young adult). This post-Quest teen group focuses on three main questions: What
does it mean to be church? What is community? What is service?
Adult Education and Small Group Learning
Adult education courses usually met weekly during the formative years of St. Gregorys, and
were almost always led by one of the founding rectors, Rick Fabian or Donald Schell. The subject
was a book of Scripture, with the emphasis on good biblical scholarship and learning to hear the
text as it might have been understood in its original culturei.e., the past is like a foreign
country: one must learn something about the people and customs to appreciate their writings.
The quintessential St. Gregorys course was Jesus and Paul, taught by Rick Fabian more or less
biannually. During this rich, interactive seminar, he grouped the parables of Jesus in an effort to
find Jesus voice printthat is the authentic voice of the man. Just as a joke retold preserves
its point, by retelling the parables of Jesus, the early church kept their essence intact. Jewish law
and practice, and the realities of life in a primarily agricultural society, were highlighted as the
cultural context that is needed for understanding.
Other clergy associated with St. Gregorys have offered classes through the years, notably the late
Rev. M. R. Ritley, a scholar and writer who had spent many years in a Sufi order before her
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ordination as an Episcopal priest. Both clergy and members have arranged for distinguished
visiting lecturers including theologian James Allison and centering prayer leader Thomas
Keating.
Adult education currently takes many forms. Rev. Will Hocker assists in the formation of small
groups, recently establishing a Bible study group that occurs between our two Sunday services.
Seasonal reading and discussion groups are common, as well as topic-oriented groups that cross
into the realm of pastoral care, such as Good Grief! for those whose parents or other close ones
are nearing the end of life. Role modeling (with Jesus as the ultimate model) is practiced in
leadership training at the Food Pantry. See Appendix 6 for further details.

Lay Ministry and Community Partnerships
Those new to St. Gregorys often remark on the number of people actively engaged in ministries
and community partnerships of various kindsone observed that he found it hard to tell
laypeople from ordained ministers. A founding principle of St. Gregorys is: We will develop
the competence of laypeople in every aspect of church life.... The result is a tremendously active
congregation, and new members are presented with opportunities to involve themselves in the
work of the church at all levels.
Lay Ministry
Sara Miles, our Director of Ministries and herself a layperson, wrote in a 2007 report on our lay
ministries:
[A]t St. Gregorys, we do a LOT of ministry. In every area, its an amazing amount and
quality of work. In every area, our strength is in the generosity, faithfulness, and dedication
of our members to service. In every area, our weakness is in our lack of transparency about
how decisions are made, our often unconscious reluctance to incorporate newcomers into
leadership, and our tendency to allow work to be held very closely by a small number of
people.
One of our tasks is to make our many lay ministry decision-making processes more transparent,
and to constantly remind ourselves that part of leadership is having understudies, so that no
ministry is dependent upon just one or two individuals. Whatever our challenges, it is abundantly
clear that St. Gregorys wants a rector who welcomes and will continue to help empower lay
ministries.
We consider the following as ministries: participating in the choir; baking the Eucharistic bread;
preparing and serving food for coffee hour; welcoming visitors; helping to clean and decorate the
church for services; repairing the church; tending the garden; and virtually any other activity in
which a member helps care for the life of the community.
Pastoral Care is a vital, energetic ministry that has been growing stronger each year, and
encompasses many activities, involving the whole congregation as well as an identified team led
by Sara Miles. After each service, healing prayer is led by pairs of pastoral care-givers, and
provides an intimate setting for intercessory prayer. Sara tends an email list that is freely used by
members to ask for prayers and practical help. There is no limit to the variety of help available:
rides to doctors appointments, pick-ups after surgery, meals for families of newborns, visits,
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errands, and bringing consecrated bread for those with longer-term illness, and so forth.
For further description, see Appendix 5 and http://www.saintgregorys.org/community_service.
Community Ministries
Community partnerships and service efforts at St. Gregorys tend to take wing from calls that
members feel compelled to follow, and which are compelling enough to attract others. Our
award-winning Food Pantry (see below) is a striking example, but there are many others,
including: El Salvador Mission, Faith in Action, Global Aids Interfaith Alliance (GAIA), Jhai
Foundation, Sacred Dying, San Francisco Night Ministry, Simple Gifts, Sojourn Chaplaincy, and
St. Martin de Porres. Descriptions of all our community partnerships can be found in Appendix 6
and at http://www.saintgregorys.org/community_service.
Food Pantry
Every Friday since 2000, right around the same
altar where St. Gregorys offers Communion,
we give away free groceries to all comers, as
many as 500 hungry families. We provide
literally tons of fresh fruits and vegetables, rice,
beans, pasta, cereal, bread; and we share our
peaceful, beautiful space. The pantry is run
entirely by volunteersalmost all of them
people who came to get food and stayed to help
outand there are no requirements for
receiving food. Everyone is welcome to receive
and to give. Sara Miles and Paul Fromberg are on hand weekly to provide lunch for 20-plus
volunteers, as well as tend to impromptu pastoral care needs.
The Food Pantry has helped found 14 other pantries in San Francisco and continues to work
closely with them, including the pantries at St. Francis Episcopal, St. Aidans, the Bayview
Mission, St. John the Evangelist/Holy Innocents, and Good Shepherd Episcopal Churches, as well
as Catholic, Presbyterian, and Assemblies of God churches; pantries in neighborhood schools;
and pantries at community centers in the Mission, Bayview, and Hunters Point districts.
Financial Support
St. Gregorys commits on a year-by-year basis to raise money from its members for various
groups including GAIA (Global Aids Interfaith Alliance), Cristosal, and Sojourn Chaplaincy (a
multifaith ministry of presence at San Francisco General Hospital). No money is allocated from
the budget, but these organizations can make solicitations to members through fundraisers, letters,
and appeals, and can host events at St. Gregorys.

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Evangelism
What does evangelism look like when we take up St. Gregorys call and invite people to join us
in friendship with God? Implicit in the open table and rituals of hospitality is the understanding
that everyone is equal in being called to love, to serve, and to deepen their spiritual life. Jesus is
in us, as he surely is in the stranger coming through the doors or walking past, in the strangers
and acquaintances we see every day. The entire founding mission of St. Gregorys is evangelical;
specifically the work for liturgical renewal that leads people to authentic Christian experience.
However, we currently do not use the word evangelism. Collectively, the word seems to leave
us with a funny aftertaste, and the conversation gets confusing: is this about church growth?
Community outreach? Public relations? Proclaiming the gospel?
There is no committee, there are no classes, but there is practice. Being welcomed at St.
Gregorys is not a greeting, it is a conversation that meets guests where they are, without a script;
as if saying: Tell us your story. When guests stay or return for liturgy, they are invited to
experience with all their senses: to sing, dance, see, listen, taste, and share. They hear the explicit
invitation from our deacons: Jesus welcomes everyone to his table, and so we offer the bread
and wine of Communion to everyone, and to everyone by name. Some of us are familiar with
the theology that places Communion before baptism, but all of us remember the feeling of this
unconditional, intimate welcome, and have chosen to stay.
Wonderful work happens from and is supported by St. Gregorys. Sometimes this work starts
with one persons epiphany, such as the Jhai Foundation, the icon painting class, or the Food
Pantry. We also work studiously, creatively, traditionally, and wildly to celebrate Holy Week,
proclaiming the gospel at the highest level we can using the arts of the community. Through
liturgies renewed each year by enactments, music, ritual, and sermon, we elevate the gospel by
straining on our tiptoes. This culminates in the Easter service, our largest gathering of the year,
which starts early Saturday evening and ends with a party and celebration at midnight.
Opinion varies in the congregation as to what we are called to do right now. St. Gregorys was
founded on breaking new ground, particularly in liturgy, and this has led to national and
international opportunities. In contrast, some wish for greater focus on our immediate
neighborhood and have taken steps in that direction. The wisdom of these efforts has led to
newfound partnerships with our neighboring Episcopal churches, as well as to new and stronger
relations with community institutions.
But it is not just a question of whether we redraw our circle bigger or smaller, but rather, how
should we change to do these things better? Who among us will decide how much emphasis we
give to becoming more of a geographically based church, as well as a church broadly known for
liturgical renewal? Some worry that the emphasis in one direction leads to sacrifice in the other.
Perhaps at this juncture we are both on pause and in the midst of a discussion that has not quite
become animated enough to bring focus. We also recognize that our current efforts are focused on
taking stock of who we are right now, as we search for the next permanent rector.
In its short history, we can see that St. Gregorys has attracted artists, writers, musicians, an
increasing number of scientists, and those who learn and contribute to scholarly exegesis. We
become home to those who have been on a hiatus from organized religion, yet may bring with
them other religious beliefs and keep them in some form. Our attraction is broad, when looking at
sexual orientation, traditional families, and age range. Is it broad enough?
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Looking at ourselves, some say, We should change to be meaningful to a broader congregation,
one with more diversity in ethnicity and class. Some note that the number of middle and high
school students attending our church is declining. A longtime member who works weekly to feed
the homeless worries that we are not as active as we used to be in living out the gospel of Jesus.
For many of us, there is an acknowledged gap between how willing we are to welcome at St.
Gregorys and how uneven we are in welcoming others in our daily lives.
In the midst of these concerns, there is a quiet refrain: I want St. Gregorys to help me be a better
Christian. I want to be the one Paul is speaking to when he says: You are all the letter we need, a
letter written on our hearts; any man can see it for what it is, and read it for himself.

Financial Stewardship
Intentional giving in gratitude for Gods generosity is a central pillar of our Members
Agreement. Upon joining, each member agrees to share in supporting the church financially. We
encourage members to grow toward giving a tenth part or more toward Gods work, with giving
to the church a significant part of that tithe.
About seven years ago, we recognized that we had fallen short on our mutual commitment of
pledging, of supporting each other in deepening generosity, and in sharing our experience of
giving. We had not conducted a congregation-wide stewardship campaign in more than five
years. Over the same period, since moving to our current location, membership had more than
doubled. Most members and many friends of the church were giving generously and regularly,
but as a community we had fallen out of touch with grounding our giving in gratitude and
sharing. Instead, our stewardship message regularly revolved around the need to meet the budget.
We reinstituted stewardship education and annual stewardship campaigns, with focus groups and
an attempt to conduct the every member visit that the community had successfully used before
we started building our new church. There was significant improvement, but we found that the
old methods did not work well with our larger community; they were too time- and volunteer-
intensive. And the message still revolved around the budget needs of the church.
After significant research, we adopted a year-round program, to refocus stewardship education on
the experience of giving and receiving and to make stewardship an integral part of the churchs
ongoing conversation. We divided the membership into 12 roughly equal parts and invited each
group to a dinner in its designated month. We developed a framework for guided conversation
about generosity, shared the budget and current financials, invited members to consider their own
giving, and asked them to offer an updated pledge during the collection in church a few weeks
after the dinner.
We had a very productive transitional period of about two years, after which enthusiasm began to
wane. We polled members and found that an unintended result of the program had been to
eliminate the public conversation about money and stewardship from our liturgical life. If you
didnt attend a dinner, you were out of the loop. In the last two years, we have found a middle
way: asking our preachers to speak at least quarterly about generosity, gratitude, and giving in
each liturgy, and sending a pledge packet to each member during their month. We are still
seeking a workable, soul-nourishing way to facilitate small-group sharing and support around
peoples experience of giving.
25
Currently our team consists of one of the co-convenors, a stewardship leader, the treasurer, and
the interim rector. The stewardship leader pulls together the monthly package, writes an inspiring
cover letter/invitation, and sends the package to members of each group. She assigns new
members to a monthly group and fields questions. The treasurer tracks individual gifts and
communicates pledge status at least twice annually to each pledging unit. The interim rector
assigns stewardship preaching and supports community-wide conversation about generosity and
gratitude. He acknowledges each pledge made or renewed. We share the work of pastoral follow-
up with members who do not pledge. The educational and small-group components of the
stewardship program are on hold, as we work on determining next steps and finding volunteer
leaders.
At end of 2007, we had 154 pledging units with annual commitments totaling $291,831. This
represents a 5 percent increase in pledge commitments on a level number of pledging units (155
in 2006). Though some individuals fell short on their commitments, as a group our pledge base
gave nearly 105 percent of its commitment in 2007. We dont have prior year statistics, but
whenever we have measured fulfillment, it has been at or above 100 percent. The top 20 percent
gave about 66 percent of the total. The bottom 20 percent gave about 2 percent.
We want to continue grounding our stewardship program in gratitude and sharing, and base it on
our mutual commitment as members of the church. We ask our rector to continue strengthening
the liturgical piece of our stewardship program with preaching and prayer, to serve on the
Stewardship Committee, and to help us develop and deepen the educational and small group
components of the program.
Budgeting and Finances
For the most part, we build our budget on the prior years experience. We have periodically
experimented with partial or full program budgeting, and have a conceptual commitment to
moving in that direction. Our current structure is based on giving the rector and key volunteers
broad discretion in choosing how to spend money within budgeted limits. We expect our rector to
work closely with the vestry and lay volunteers to manage program, and to delegate decision and
spending authority appropriately.
Specifically, we project income based on prior-year levels. We have found that this yields a much
more accurate projection than a pledge-based estimate. On the expense side, we build in those
fixed expenses we know or can reasonably estimate: rector, other staff, diocesan assessment,
insurance, interest, and utilities. The rector and vestry discuss and agree on the priorities and
broad brushstrokes of program. The rector, working with the finance commissioner, then comes
back with a program cost structure. Typically this results in a deficit, which the vestry and rector
plan how to meet from fundraising and special appeals. Over the past two years, the vestry has
been willing to enter the year with a 58 percent deficit.
We have been blessed in recent years with a growing sense of collaboration and partnership in
financial management. We simplified our accounting and financial structure so that statements
are easily understood. The level of vestry members knowledge and comfort with financial
matters has substantially increased. For 2008 we also simplified our budget by reducing the
number of budget lines and granting broader authority to the interim rector and program leaders.
In recent years, we have used our annual members Chapter and periodic town hall meetings to
flush out the communitys sense of priorities, programs that need strengthening, new dreams and
26
desires, and specific projects that have broad and/or passionate support. This general input
informs the vestry and rectors planning and program development. The impetus for a part-time
staff person to coordinate pastoral care and to develop and implement a strong lay pastoral care
program came from community desire. Occasionally a member of the community will bring a
specific project to the vestry for discussion or funding. This can yield major new programs and
shifts in the churchs work: St. Gregorys Food Pantry was initiated through the passion of a
single member. As the church has grown, a higher proportion of our new program or project
initiatives have been staff-initiated. We expect that the balance of staff-, community-, and
member-generated programs will shift year-to-year and over time. We seek organic, flexible ways
to foster creative conversation within the whole community, opening us more boldly and fully to
choosing how we fit into the abundance of good work God invites us to share.
We carry a long-term loan of about $260,000, the remainder of roughly $500,000 that we
borrowed to help finance our building. The loan is held by a parishioner and is unsecured, so we
have been able to reduce principal at a manageable rate while paying interest at the prime rate.
We will continue to pay the loan down, but full retirement is likely part of a future capital
campaign. We look forward to a major fundraising effort in the next two to five years, so that we
can repay this loan and expand our current administration building.
We expect our rector to be significantly engaged in budgeting and financial decision-making.
Though we recognize that there are canonically defined responsibilities reserved to the rector and
to the vestry, we enjoy a flexible, collaborative partnership with a high level of mutual trust.
In broad strokes, our $413K operating budget for 2008 calls for 83 percent of income to come
from unrestricted gifts and plate cash. About 5 percent will come from renting our building, 2
percent from miscellaneous income, and about 7 percent from fundraisers. We have budgeted a 3
percent deficit. This compares with 2007 results of 85 percent from gifts, and similar proportions
from other sources. We had budgeted an 8 percent deficit and finished with a 1 percent surplus.
We were able to finish the year with a surplus both because of attentive expense control from the
Church office, targeted transition fundraising led by our Interim Rector and increases in
stewardship pledges.
For more on nuts-and-bolts of financial management at St. Gregory, see Appendix 7.

Parish Administration
In the past, the All Saints Company grant allowed St. Gregorys the luxury of employing two full-
time rectors, one full-time parish administrator, and three to four additional part-time staff
members: a music director, a director of ministry/pastoral care, a director of children and family
ministries, and an events coordinator.
Since the termination of the ASC grant at the end of 2007, St. Gregorys has reduced its paid staff
to one full-time interim rector, one half-time parish administrator, and two additional part-time
staff members: a music director and a director of ministry/pastoral care. Part-time staff members
are paid for approximately 15 hours per week, far below the number of hours they actually work.
Recently the vestry has assumed responsibility for some of the aspects of church life that
formerly were the purview of paid staff: most particularly in the area of building maintenance and
repair, which has been assumed by our co-convenors. We also lean heavily on our volunteer
27
treasurer, who works one full day a week to keep track of donations and expenses and manages
the finances. In addition, some members have stepped forward to absorb work that had been done
by paid staff, such as errands and photocopying materials for Sunday services.
The vestry is currently composed of seven lay members in good standing plus the interim rector.
Vestry members are elected at the annual parish Chapter meeting and serve a three-year term.
Terms are staggered so that only two to three members are replaced in any given year, providing
continuity and fresh perspectives. Vestry positions are:
Co-convenor Brad Erickson
Co-convenor Jessica Anderson
Secretary Elizabeth Boileau
Finance Commissioner David Kincaid
Communications Commissioner AnnaMarie Hoos
Learning and Service Commissioner Rick Storrs
Membership Commissioner Susan Abernethy

Vestry at St. Gregorys meets in the church once a month for approximately two hours. Although
all members are welcome and encouraged to attend vestry meetings, nonvestry members who
attend are generally limited to those invited to give reports or discuss specific agenda items.
The co-convenors occupy the position held by the senior warden and junior warden of more
traditional Episcopal churches. They are responsible for overall management of the finances and
secular parts of the church. The co-convenors alternate in managing the agenda of vestry
meetings, meet with the interim rector outside regularly scheduled vestry meetings, and act as
liaisons with the diocese.
Vestry meetings open with song and close in prayer. Motions are made and discussed, and each
commissioner is given the opportunity to make a report, as is the interim rector. The treasurer
attends most vestry meetings and provides monthly reports. Frequently members responsible for
other areas of parish life, such as stewardship and vocations, attend vestry meetings.
A written description of vestry positions is distributed with members pledge renewal packets.
Nonetheless, commission posts are loosely defined and often change considerably depending on
the particular gifts and interests of the commissioner. One constant is that vestry members
participate in multiple aspects of church life: as choir members, coffee deans, and leaders of
home-based fellowships, stewardship, evangelism, adult education, and parish meetings and
retreats, among other roles.
The vestry was intentionally designed with a small membership, to ensure its leadership function.
The desire is that the work of the church be done by committees and teams composed of the
congregation, with vestry leadership or guidance only as needed. However, there has been
discussion recently about adding new vestry seats, including an arts commissioner, a building and
grounds commissioner, and a stewardship commissioner.
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Conclusion
Writing about our dancing, founder Rick Fabian wrote: Its a celebratory thing, a sort of
throwing your hands up and saying, You know, life really is a mystery. Today at church weve
talked ... weve sung ... and then well come back the next Sunday and do this all over again.
The energy of St. Gregorys is unleashed both by living into this mystery and trying to chase it
down. We worship, minister, learn, and then we reflectoften leading to changesand then we
do it again. We both know Gods love and realize that the full power of such love is
unknowable. We know Jesus mercy and forgiveness, and even given our human nature, we try
again and again to be his light in the world. The choir lifts its voices to the mystery and binds us
together. The pastoral care heart is open to both suffering and joy, with a shimmering blur of
light between giving and receiving. Our table is open, under the dancing saints who bless and
challenge us.
We also observe a tension at a deep level between desires to be more community-based
(geographically) and desires to maintain our identity in advancing liturgical renewal nationally
and internationally. Opinions differ as to how we continue with liturgical renewal while
becoming more relevant to our immediate neighbors. Among many members there is a sense of
needing to champion one of these directions over the other, but others ask: are they inherently in
conflict? There is a subtle current of fear that St. Gregorys may change in ways that create a
loss for some and, similarly, a fear that we will not change (i.e. fail to continue to break new
ground) in a truly meaningful way.
Alongside this dilemma runs another unfinished conversation, in which we repeatedly comment
on the relative homogeneity of our congregation in terms of class and ethnicity. This is identified
as a problem requiring some action, but here the dialogue stops. We have not yet been able to
have open, fruitful, spiritually grounded conversations that would guide us from observation to
action. Put simply, at this point in time, we are rich in our own community life, meaning that of
the congregation; but re-finding our way in the broader community. What will be our
engagement with people who live on Potrero Hill, in Hunters Point, in the Mission or South of
Market? How will we engage with the cluster of Episcopal churches near us, or at the diocesan
level and that of the Anglican Communion, and with the issues affecting all these groups?
We have not yet centered ourselves by turning to the same theology that is made visible in the
open table, in welcoming, and in the Food Pantry, where we welcome everyone without
exception. Our most visible challenge now is to push beyond our familiar enactments of this
theological foundation and use it to guide us in areas of uncertainty. How do we break new
ground in evangelism, in our liturgy, and in our incarnation as a living church?
In summary, our primary congregational goals are:
1. To continuously re-examine how we live into our mission and purpose, and, given this,
to discern more specifically what we are called to do at this particular point in time for
our parish and the world.
2. To continue on our path of strengthening the fiscal health of our parish, with ongoing
commitment to financial transparency and to the actions needed to reach our stewardship
and financial goals.
29
3. To live mindfully with the primary dynamic that characterizes our parish; that is, to
balance
support, renewal, and spiritual examination for ourselves through meaningful
education, pastoral care, and soul-satisfying liturgy; with
partnerships within the larger community through ministries, collaborations, and
our pioneering mission of revitalizing the larger church through liturgical and
other innovations.
4. To discover how our deeply held values and practices can inform our evangelism efforts
as powerfully and thoroughly as they now inform our worship and community life; thus
to better prepare us for our work in the world.
In relation to the goals above, key responsibilities of the permanent rector follow:
1. To understand and actively embrace St. Gregorys mission statement, including (but in
no way limited to) the three actions detailed in the plan for St. Gregorys:
to continuously develop lay competence and leadership in every aspect of church
life;
to develop the maximum potential of music and dance for common prayer;
to break new ground to recover the vital roots of Christian tradition.
2. To have sufficient knowledge of financial management so as to comprehend and
complement our current methods and structure; to provide sound, energetic leadership
for fundraising, and to draw from a spiritual foundation to participate with the
congregation in matters of stewardship.
3. To lead passionately and listen attentively, while holding in mind the variety of needs
and resources that comprise St. Gregorys and the larger community. We describe below
the well-developed sense of balance that the permanent rector should possess.
We recognize ourselves as an energetic congregation, which can stretch our
resources of time, talent, and money in many different directions. The
permanent rector must have a style of leadership that keeps in focus the
balancing that must occur between St. Gregorys as a deep well where members
are refreshed, nourished, and engage in spiritual growth, and St. Gregorys as a
congregation that will always push to generate ministries that go beyond our
congregation.
A second kind of balancing requires mature, experienced leadership:
shepherding church programs. Given desires that pull in different directions and
stretch our resources, we will be asking the permanent rector to help prioritize
and then ensure the process for sustaining programs. The congregation has
identified the following as needing particular attention: education and activities
for children, youth, and families, and adult education,
The rector will also be responsible for leading in a manner that supports the
unusual degree of lay leadership at St. Gregorys. Our well-established tradition
30
is that laypeople participate in all aspects of church life, with many ministries
and innovations springing from the congregation. This brings us to the third type
of balance: to be able to lead, delegate, and support others in leading, while
being quite clear in communicating who is responsible for what. Simply, such
leadership includes the wisdom to know when to bless us by saying yes to
certain desires and plans, and when to bless us by saying no or not now.
4. To lead us, through experience and scholarship, in conversation about our founding
theology that will help clarify what evangelism means for us, so we can more
confidently plan our actions as Gods friends, living in this immediate time and place.

With these important challenges ahead, we
are reminded of the lines from Hafiz, a 14
th
-
century Persian poet:

This place where we are right now
God circled on a map for us
Our beloved has bowed here,
knowing we were coming.


We trust that our place has been circled, and we too bow down in prayer and reflection to
renew our vows of friendship with God and discover ever-new ways of sharing this friendship
with others, every day.

Submitted by the Profile Team

31

St. Gregory of Nyssa Parish Profile
APPENDICES

Appendix 1: Further Reading
Appendix 2: Affiliated Clergy
Appendix 3: More on Boundaries, Building, and Grounds
Appendix 4: Adult Education and Development
Appendix 5: Lay Ministries
Appendix 6: Community Partnerships
Appendix 7: Nuts-and-Bolts Financial Management
Appendix 8: Last Words

32
Appendix 1
Further Reading

St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church Web site, http://www.saintgregorys.org/; for articles
about our liturgy, see especially
http://www.saintgregorys.org/worship/resources_section/233/
All Saints Company Web site, http://www.allsaintscompany.org/; especially the articles and
essays under http://www.allsaintscompany.org/resources/C7/
Archive of articles from Gods Friends journal 19952004, http://www.godsfriends.org/issue-
index.html. This distinguished journal was published three times annually by St. Gregorys
during its most formative years, and featured articles and artwork by members and outside
contributors.
Liturgy scripts used at St. Gregorys,
http://www.saintgregorys.org/worship/resources_section/231/
Fabian, Rick. Worship at St. Gregorys,
http://www.saintgregorys.org/worship/resources_section/233/ (download PDF at end of
page); also at http://www.allsaintscompany.org/resources/view/worship_at_st_gregorys/
Miles, Sara. Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion. New York: Ballantine Books, 2007.
Memoir by SGNs director of ministries and founder of St. Gregorys Food Pantry.
Available at http://www.amazon.com/Take-This-Bread-Radical-Conversion /dp/
0345486927/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-7218463-6163842?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1
St. Gregorys Church. Music for Liturgy, 2
nd
edition. Our homegrown music book, available at
http://www.amazon.com/Music-Liturgy-Gregorys-Episcopal-
Church/dp/0615166423/ref=sr_11_1/002-3595027-0578400?ie=UTF8&qid=11925670.
Ward, Timothy Jack. Inclusive, in Design and Worship. The New York Times, April 4, 1996.
Young, Gordon. One Weird Church: A tale of faith, hope, and serendipity. SF Weekly, August
14, 1996.

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Appendix 2
Affiliated Clergy

St. Gregorys is also blessed with the services of a number of volunteer clergy who preach,
preside, and serve as deacons according to a mutually agreed upon rota.
Lynn Baird, now retired, served as Director of Pastoral Care at St. Gregorys for nine years, and
is still active in the church in the areas of pastoral care and healing prayer.
Dr. John D. Golenski sings in the St. Gregorys choir and, continuing a lengthy career in
psychological clinical services, healthcare ethics and public policy, serves as the executive
director of George Mark Childrens House, the countrys first stand-alone pediatric hospice. Until
1992, he was a member of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits).
Will Hocker is the current executive director of Sojourn Chaplaincy at San Francisco General
Hospital; his position at Sojourn allows for ten hours each week at St. Gregory's. He coordinates
the formation of small group for educational purposes, and leads the weekly Bible study
Nancy Milholland works as a software engineer at a biotech company, and previously served as
an associate priest in Michigan and New York. She loves to travel and is interested in the field of
spiritual direction.
Daniel Simons works as the executive director of All Saints Company, where he pursues its
mission as a leader in liturgical renewal through participating in national and diocesan liturgical
committees and leading workshops at seminaries. He also lived for six years as a brother with
the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Amber Stancliffe Evans is a chaplain at St. Matthew's Episcopal Day School in San Mateo.
Before that she was an associate priest at Church of the Epiphany, San Carlos in charge of youth
and children's ministries. Amber loves introducing children and youth to contemplative
practices and has particular interests in building parish community life through small groups and
in supporting parenting as a spiritual practice.
Dr. Philip Wickeri spends his life building bridges across religious and cultural divisions,
currently as the Flora Lamson Hewlett Professor of Evangelism and Mission at the San
Francisco Theological Seminary. He serves in both the Presbyterian (PCUSA) and Episcopal
churches and has worked extensively in China, where he was ordained in 1991. He recently
completed his biography of K. H. Ting, the foremost Chinese Christian church leader of the later
twentieth century.
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Appendix 3
More on Boundaries, Building, and Grounds

A note on parish boundaries, or the lack of:
Early in the parishs history, the following boundaries were proposed in discussion with the
diocese: from the Ferry Building down Market Street to 10
th
Street, 10th to Potrero Avenue to
Cesar Chavez Street, west on Cesar Chavez to Mission, south on Mission to Interstate 280, east
on 280 to Cesar Chavez, and thence to the bay. It would thus include the SOMA, Potrero Hill,
and Bernal Heights districts; excluded was the BayviewHunters Point district. These proposed
boundaries were never formally established, however.
Further description:
We decided to build our worship space first, so St. Gregorys building comprises chiefly the
rotunda (standing and moving worship) and the seated space (Liturgy of the Word). The church
administration building is actually a small remodeled house, about fifty years old and sited on the
corner of the lot when it was purchased. This building has been shingled to harmonize with the
church building completed in 1995.
Adjoining the rotunda are four other rooms: the vestry, kitchen, chapel, and Fabian Lounge.
The vestry is home to all of the churchs clerical garb, percussion instruments, thuribles, and all
other worship accoutrements. The liturgical party gathers in this room prior to and after the
service.
The kitchen, used for church dinners, coffee hour set-up, and most significantly for St. Gregorys
weekly food pantry, features restaurant-sized refrigerators and freezers, as well as a large stove
also used to light thuriblesa dishwasher, several sinks, and many pantries and cupboards. The
kitchen is often praised for its large capacity for meal preparation and storage, though the narrow
aisle that leads to the dishwasher has created congestion and some complaints.
The chapel is used regularly as a Sunday school meeting space, also frequently hosts church-
related meetings and changing art displays.
The newly refurbished and recently named Fabian Lounge, traditionally a cloakroom and
storage space, now houses a Sunday school class and meetings. The sole coat closet is in this
room, which creates a mild amount of disruption for Sunday school classes and meetings in
progress. Also, because these Sunday school classes take place in close proximity to church
services, which include silences, the arrangement is not ideal for congregants or Sunday
schoolers. However, complaints are few. A few years ago, when youth and children were more
plentiful at St. Gregorys, these space issues were a bigger problem.
There are also two loft spaces, used primarily for storage but occasionally for dramatic readings
at services. One loft is above the kitchen, and the other is above the vestry. There have been
complaints that the lofts look a bit cluttered.
The administration building houses several offices on the lower level, as well as the newly
remodeled and named Schell Library. A Sunday school class uses a small conference area,
among the offices. On the upper level are the principal restrooms, as well as a nursery and
35
Sunday school room proper, at opposite ends of the hallway. Below the administration building, a
basement unit (undercroft) is used for storage of garbage, recycling, compost, and some
supplies.
The garden surrounds a portion of the church, primarily the administrative building. There is no
hired gardener, only committed volunteers. Most of the plants are native or adapted to the local
climate and are therefore easy to maintain. Because of the gardens proximity to the street and
sidewalk, much of the maintenance involves clearing small trash and other debris that drift into
the foliage. Serious pruning is done about once a year.
The garden was intended to have a wild and natural feeling, as if it had been around prior to the
church. A pathway leads from the lower end of the garden to the front steps. The intended effect
is an alle that gives a sense of a secluded walk through wild vegetation, despite being mere feet
from the roadway.
The back garden is on the cliff behind the church. Because vines can overtake planted vegetation,
this portion of the garden requires more constant tending. Our fix-it coordinatora plant store
managerlooks after this portion of the garden.
The potted plants by the front doors also require regular care and are watered regularly by church
attendees.
There is also a gated lot behind the church that is mostly used as a play space for kids, but it is
also very useful for art fairs and wedding receptions, and it serves as a gathering space during
certain annual church services.
Although the church is relatively new and not heavily prone to structural inadequacies, a few
repairs are currently needed. The front doors are warped and would benefit from the hand of a
carpenter or woodworker. The roof on the administration annex is in need of a roofer. The
sprinklers in the main church building need to be replaced. The vestry is addressing these issues,
and the greater church community is seeking affordable ways to handle these concerns. The
church was recently repainted, and repairs were made to the administration building and the fence
around the gated lot.

Use of church buildings by neighborhood and other groups:
SGN has a long history of making its building available for concerts by local musical ensembles
and dance/drama groups. The price is kept low to encourage use. La Piccola Scuola, an Italian-
language preschool, rents space at SGN for its program. The Potrero Neighborhood Convenors
Association, a broad-based network of local NGOs, uses our space for events and community
outreach.
36
Appendix 4
Adult Education and Development


Bible study meets weekly.

Fellowship dinners: Members sponsor dinners in their homes (usually on Friday evenings) to
share food and spiritual discussion. Groups currently meet in San Francisco and the East Bay.

Icon painters: For many years, longtime member Betsy Porter has led a class on painting icons in
the traditional Orthodox style. We will share the joy of icons with all people is the first
agreement of the iconographer. Icons are not simply works of art but rather sacred objects directly
connected to the presence of God. They are the windows from this world into the place of
spiritual reality that is invisible to the eye. Painters under Porters tutelage gather regularly in the
rotunda to paint icons in the 14th-century Russian style. All are welcome to come and watch them
work, learn more about icons, or learn to paint an icon.

Stewardship of Last Things: This four part workshop guides people through legal, medical, and
social aspects and options to prepare for death. The underlying premise is that once earthly
matters are put in order, we are freer to experience the spiritual aspect of approaching death.
Similarly, the family and friends who care for the dying will be freed up once Wills, medical
directives, and similar matters are in place. This workshop is held annually, and people familiar
with the material are available through out the year to offer help.

St. Gregorys hosts speakers and workshops as part of our education program; for example, the
next event scheduled is:

South Africa & California: A Conversation about HIV/AIDS: Kebalepile Bontle (Keba)
Matlhako, who works for the Anglican Diocese of Pretoria, will host a conversation about
experiences of HIV/AIDS in South Africa and the Bay Area. Please come and share your stories.
Wednesday August 13 at 6PM in the church rotunda.






37
Appendix 5
Lay Ministries

In his Plan for the Mission of St. Gregory of Nyssa, Rick Fabian describes the essential nature and
importance of lay ministry.
Because God has called the whole world to himself, every man and woman is on a
journey towards God. ...
Christian tradition is the sharing of a journey. Its purpose is not to preserve our
experience, but to enrich it with the experience of those before us and beside us who
approach our common end from different directions. ... Without this sharing
[churches] offer only dead habits and failing visions to steer by. For there is no
Anglican or Roman or Byzantine or Protestant Way to God. There is only the True
and Living Way, which is Christ, who is all things, and in all things.
Instead of relying on selected layreaders to represent the people, our whole
membership will learn to exercise the fullest possible ministry of the laity, assisting
the presiding clergy according to early Christian custom. Liturgical duties will be
shared out on a casual or rotating basis, in which newcomers will be included, and
the whole laity will cooperate with the clergy in all important liturgical actions.
Intrinsically representative functions will be performed by clergy, who are precisely
the representative members of the congregation. St. Gregorys Mission will seek the
assistance of Deacons, and will give them their full and ancient liturgical function, as
few Episcopal churches yet choose to do. ...
Instead of entrusting its pastoral program to professionals, St. Gregorys Mission
will help all members of our congregation to fulfill their own need to love in the
context of their own lives. ... All members will share responsibility for hospitality to
newcomers and outsiders. In this way no member will have to handle pastoral
problems alone; and those who receive our help will understand that it comes from a
community of love.
As part of the regular community meeting, St. Gregorys congregation will celebrate the
sacraments of healing and reconciliation in a context that supports giving and forgiving in
daily life. Lay pastoral visitors will carry the Eucharist to sick and shut-in members,
following early Christian custom. At all services members will contribute their own
intercessions, so that the service work of St. Gregorys may be guided by our common
prayer.

Lay Ministries at St. Gregorys
Bread bakers: A dedicated group bakes the Eucharistic bread for all our services.
Choir: Our choir meets every Thursday for rehearsals (no audition needed) and sings at the 10:30
service every Sunday, as well as at special liturgies and concerts.

Coffee hour hosts: St. Gregorys coffee hour is an unusually ample and delicious feast. We
welcome visitors and new members to work with us in the kitchen and find out what things are
really like at church when Jesus welcomes everyone to his table.
38

Curatorial Committee: This group organizes and hosts several visual arts exhibitions each year
that enhance our ongoing practice of seeing God in human experience and creativity.
Deaconing: We welcome all people (ordained and lay, adults and youth) into the work of
deaconinghelping to organize liturgies, lead prayers, serve Communion, and bring the whole
congregation into active participation.

Fall Retreat: Organized entirely by lay leaders, this event is structured to give us and our friends
time to pray, play, and learn together in a rural setting.
Fix-It: The Fix-It group attends to church building maintenance and grounds upkeep. The group
gathers for fix-it and clean-up days at least four times a year, usually on Saturdays.

Nyssa News: A small team composes, edits, and solicits contributions to our monthly parish
newsletter.
Pastoral Care: Pastoral care at St. Gregorys is community-based, serving church members,
visitors and the broader community. It relies on a trained network of volunteers of all ages under
the direction of Sara Miles, director of ministries. We offer logistical support for patients and
families during emergencies and illness; prayer, calls and pastoral support during illnesses and
deaths; and spiritual and emotional support for members through individual and group meetings.
We maintain contact with homebound members, and reach out to members in trouble. We offer
healing prayer after church services and coordinate ongoing support groups (for example, for
those dealing with aging parents, or chronic illness) and special trainings (for example, on the
stewardship of last things and preparations for death.) A pastoral care email list circulates
requests for prayer and serves as a forum for staying abreast of pastoral care issues in the
community. Pastoral care volunteers are mentored by the director of pastoral care and other
members of the team.

Reading: Scripture readings are coordinated and delivered by the laity. St. Gregorys has a
tradition of many varied styles of reading: some people read very dramatically, some sing or
chant their readings; some read straight but expressively.
Sermon recording: Our sermons are recorded and uploaded to the website by a dedicated team.
Web site: Management and renewal of content on our Web site is shared by clergy, staff, and
laity.
Welcoming and greeting: While this is the work and joy of everyone at St. Gregorys, there is a
rota of volunteers who greet and orient visitors to our services, and introduce them to other
members before the service commences.

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Appendix 6
Community Partnerships


El Salvador Mission
St. Gregorys works with three other Bay Area churches to support the work of the Centro
Pastoral Anglicano del Oriente, in collaboration with Cristosal, a foundation for support of the
Anglican Church of El Salvador.

Faith in Action
The Faith in Action group meets monthly to write letters on matters of social justice, including
food aid, poverty, and bills in Congress or in the California State Legislature.

St. Gregorys Food Pantry
Every Friday, right around the same altar where St. Gregorys offers Communion, we give away
free groceries to all comers, as many as 500 hungry families. We provide literally tons of fresh
fruits and vegetables, rice, beans, pasta, cereal, bread; and we share our peaceful, beautiful space.
The pantry is run entirely by volunteersalmost all of them people who came to get food and
stayed to help outand there are no requirements for receiving food.

Global Aids Interfaith Alliance (GAIA)
GAIA works through African churches and community organizations to stop the spread of HIV
and help those with AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. GAIA assists communities in developing
locally initiated, planned, and led workshops that create detailed action plans for projects specific
to community needs.

Jhai Foundation
The Jhai Foundation does reconciliation work in Laos at the grassroots level. Jhai helps through
its village-based, innovative programs involving information technology and economic
development.

Sacred Dying Foundation
The Sacred Dying Foundation is dedicated to challenging the way our society experiences death
and dying. The foundations primary goal is to return the sacred to the act of dying by serving
those who are at the end-of-life. It is also committed to changing the paradigm of how we
approach death as a whole through educating the public on new models of death and dying for
our society.

San Francisco Night Ministry
The Night Ministry offers nighttime support to those in crisis. Every night of the year, from 10:00
p.m. to 2:00 a.m., trained lay volunteers provide counseling and referral services for anyone in
crisis. Those volunteers are the first line of communication for all whose emergency needs
require immediate attention. At the same time, an ordained clergy, able to be reached by pager, is
on call to the entire city meeting people where they are: in their homes, in the bars, at the bus
depots, or phone booths on the street.

Simple Gifts
Simple Gifts receives donations of new, or nearly new, unwrapped gifts for children and youth
who live in shelters. The gifts are delivered to volunteers, who wrap them and make lists for the
caretakers who distribute the birthday gifts. For more information, see simplegiftssf.org.
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Sojourn Chaplaincy
Sojourn Chaplaincy at General Hospital in San Francisco offers a multifaith, nonjudgmental
ministry of presence and pastoral care training for the hospitals broad multicultural mix of
patients, their loved ones, staff, and the community.

St. Martin de Porres
On the third Saturday of each month, volunteers from St. Gregorys respond to Christs call to
feed the hungry by serving lunch at Martin de Porres House of Hospitality, a Catholic Worker
house in the Potrero Hill neighborhood. Volunteers prepare a hot meal and serve it to the poor
and homeless at the St. Martins dining room.
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Appendix 7
Nuts-and-Bolts Financial Management

St. Gregorys accounting and financial reporting system was developed in 2005 by a member of
the congregation who is a professor of accounting at Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.
She worked closely with the Diocesan Controller and used the Parish Accounting Manual and
other resources. Our audits have been clear, and the auditors have been very positive.
We maintain a single checking account, with specific funds tracked internally. The treasurer has
authority to pay routine bills within budget. Non-routine expenditures within the operating budget
are approved by either the rector or a delegated volunteer with specific program authority
(Sunday School Coordinator, Easter Tsarina, etc.). Unbudgeted expenses over $500 must have
vestry approval. Expenditures outside the operating fund are authorized by the owner of the fund,
within the limits of the fund. All funds are under the authority and oversight of the vestry, which
sees reports on all funds monthly.
Financial management is split between the finance commissioner, who is an elected member of
the vestry, and the treasurer, who is appointed by the vestry. Various financial tasks shift to other
volunteers, as people are interested in different aspects of the jobs, but the finance commissioner
has final responsibility. Currently the treasurer prepares and deposits receipts, inputs gifts into the
churchs database, pays bills, and prepares financial reports for the vestry. The finance
commissioner has review access to bank accounts and transactions reconciliations, but does not
have signing authority on any accounts. The finance commissioner prepares the budget, with
significant input from the rector, and tracks actual financial performance to budget at least
quarterly. The treasurer and finance commissioner hold open meetings with the congregation to
review finances and answer questions. The budget and current financial information are posted on
our website, in a member-restricted section.
We have a standing Finance Committee made up of the treasurer, finance commissioner and
Interim Rector. Also, from time to time, the treasurer, the finance commissioner, or the vestry
convenes a committee to advise on particular issues. For example, the treasurer worked with a
committee in designing and implementing the simplified accounting system. We have called a
capital fundraising committee from time to time, to assess, design, and run capital campaigns.
When we built our current building, we also hired a fundraising consultant. We have run smaller
campaigns internally, using the expertise of our parishioners.
The church invests excess funds, primarily capital funds, in the money market, within vestry-
defined investment guidelines. We have a standing Investment Committee made up of the
treasurer, the finance commissioner, the two vestry convenors, and the rector. The treasurer
manages investments within the guidelines and under the Investment Committees oversight. We
have no endowment and currently have a $49,000 reserve fund. We would like to increase
reserves, both operating and capital, but have chosen in some recent years to use deficit spending
to support program and staffing in order to build a healthy base for growth. This appears to have
served the church well but is not a viable option going forward. We are learning to ask more of
ourselves, both in financial support and in volunteered time, in order to stay financially sound.
Although the transition has been recent, we are adjusting to our new independent financial
structure without too much difficulty.
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Appendix 8
Last Words

Two more foundational readings are:

Gregory of Nyssa on friendship with God

This is true perfection: Not to avoid a wicked life because we fear punishment,
like slaves. Not to do good because we expect repayment, as if cashing in on the
virtuous life by enforcing some business deal. On the contrary, disregarding all
those good things which we do hope for, and which God has promised us, we
regard falling from Gods friendship as the only thing dreadful, and we consider
becoming Gods friend the only thing truly worthwhile.


The Aaron Prayer

This poem by George Herbert is engraved on a large mirror in our vestry space. Members of the
vested party speak it aloud together before each service.


Aaron

Holiness on the head,
Light and perfection on the breast,
Harmonious bells below raising the dead
To lead them unto life and rest.
Thus are true Aarons drest.

Profaneness in my head,
Defects and darkness in my breast,
A noise of passions ringing me for dead
Unto a place where is no rest :
Poor priest! thus am I drest.

Only another head
I have, another heart and breast,
Another music, making live, not dead,
Without whom I could have no rest :
In Him I am well drest.

Christ is my only head,
My alone only heart and breast,
My only music, striking me e'en dead ;
That to the old [wo]man I may rest,
And be in Him [Her] new drest.

So holy in my Head,
Perfect and light in my dear Breast,
My doctrine tuned by Christ (who is not dead,
But lives in me while I do rest),
Come, people; Aaron's drest.