People. Places. Passions.Micro Focus, Macro City.

By Tim Svoboda

How do you go about reaching a citywith the love of Jesus? Cities are large,complex and often times the sheerpopulation size in cities can beoverwhelming. I live in the considerablysmall city of San Francisco that has apopulation of 800,000 people. It is just 7miles wide by 7 miles long. Several of ushave walked across the city in prayer andthough it is seemingly small it is still achallenge in thinking through how wecan engage the whole city with the love of Jesus.I believe the key to reaching citieslies in rising up the Micro focused leadersthat I wrote about in our February 2010newsletter. Micro focused leaders need tohave a clear focus. Cities are so complexwith many different sectors, ethnicgroups, neighborhoods, businesses andconcerns. Are neighborhood churchesmore effective than commuter churches?Is mass evangelism more productive thanfriendship evangelism? Do we focus onthe inner city or the suburbs? Should wereach the upper class, middle class orlower economic class? The answer to allthat is YES! We need to do it all. As RayBakke says, “We need a theology as big asthe city.” When our theology is as big asthe city we will produce a missiology thatis as diverse as the city. City mission is not just ministry to the poor. It is ministry toevery sector, people and place of the city.Micro focused leaders are leaderswho have a clear focus on People, Placesor a Passion. Let me explain. A people can be the Vietnamese of San Francisco, or the North Indians of Chicago, the Afghans of Fremont or theSikhs of Vancouver. Who are the peopleof your city? Have you done a gooddemographic study of your area? A place can be a company likeGoogle in Mountain View or GeneralMotors in Detroit or a neighborhood in your own city. What are the distinctneighborhoods of your city? Here in SanFrancisco we are a city of neighborhoodswith each one being different from theother in ethnicity, shops and behavior. Japantown, Chinatown, Little Italy, TheMission, Nob Hill, Portreo and TheSunset are just some of our fascinating neighborhoods with different cultures,food and shops. A passion can be the arts, sports,music, education, law or an area of justice such as domestic violence, humantrafﬁcking or suicide prevention. Thesepassions cut across the whole city andintersect throughout the length andbreadth of the city. When a person focuses on theirgifting in a particular People, Place orPassion of society they ﬁnd manydifferent expressions of ministry thatbring life to that focus.Here in San Francisco we aredreaming about releasing people to leadincarnational and decentralizedministries across the Greater Bay areathat are focused on the People, Placesand Passions of San Francisco and theBay area.

YWAM

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The Ellis Room

Pouring into lives thatpour into ours.

By Laura Theiss

I’ve known Dan for years now. Dan is homelessand has been for a few years. He used to be wealthyand never did drugs or even drank, until his family lefthim. After that things just went downhill. Hebecame

addicted to drugs and later on was arrested.He thought he was better than all the other guys onthe streets and was always expressing it. Because of Dan’s attitude, most of the time I would avoid himbut ﬁnally, I went and talked with Dan. I was movedby his story and understood him so much more. What

stood out most of all was how much Dan lovedhis children and how much he didn’t want them toever see him this way.For the past few months God had put Danstrongly on my heart. All the staff had a time of prayer for a few guys, and Dan was one of them. Ifelt like God gave me a couple different things forDan, so I wrote them down. When I gave them tohim, he read them over and over again. Much of itwas about him reconnecting with his family. Afterreading it, Dan called me over and told me, “I'll neverget this humble, I never want them to see me like Iam.” So I told him, for me, I would rather know mydad for who he is, ﬂaws and all, than not at all.

Bayview Hunter’s Point

Bringing the God of peace to every corner street

By David Lehmann

As our evangelism team hit the streets oneThursday night we had a sense from God that weshouldn’t just walk the streets, but go inside one of themost well known projects run by a notorious gang inour city, the "Oakdale Mob." Getting up enoughcourage to walk in, we entered the projects and wereimmediately stopped by a group of eight or nine gang members asking us what we were doing there. Wesimply responded that we were here to give them someHip Hop CD’s about Jesus. They welcomed us in andwe got to share the gospel with them and answer someof their questions as well.Before we left, one of the main leaders said to us,“You guys have our permission and are free to come inhere whenever you want.” It was such an answer toprayer to have permission to walk in and freelyminister with the approval of the guys who run thisblock. We are now planning on future visits to continuethis relationship and see this gang come to know Jesus.Keep praying!

Y W A M

S F

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Bayview Hunter’s Point is aneighborhood of majorhousing projects scatteredthroughout with gangs.Gang members can’t gooutside their projectwithout fear of being shotby other gangs. Our heartis to use friendship, sports,discipleship andevangelism to reach themost at risk youth in thegangs.