An update on our move

As some of you will remember, about six months ago, we almost moved to a new location.  After building up a great deal of excitement about moving to the Excelsior District and the site of Ocean Avenue Presbyterian Church, the folks at OAPC eventually decided it was not in their best interest to have us come over.

While that experience was disappointing, we think it may have indeed been the best move.  The building that we were going to occupy turned out to need quite a bit of work and we were not willing to put a great deal of resources into the space without know that it was going to be permanent.

Soon after that, Advent and the holidays came so our search had been put on hold in order to let us breath a bit.  Over the past few months we have again stepped up the search for a new location*.

There are many many irons in the fire at this moment.  Conversations are ranging everywhere from buying a building to renting a Sunday-only space.  Right now we feel like our best bet in order to maintain current energy levels as well as use our resources well would be to share space with another church.  The zoning and safety issues seems to be the biggest obstacle in finding a suitable space in SF and current churches are already zoned and configured for what we would need.

This is where we need your help.  While I am pounding the Presbyterian pavement and working some other relationships, we need more eyes and ears looking for potential sites.  What we need is for you to heighten your awareness of churches and/or other gathering spaces along your normal routes of travel: muni, driving, etc.  If you see something, jot down what info you have and send it to me. I can make the initial contacts and then see where we go from there.

If you do happen to have some connection or see space, here is what we are thinking:

LOCATION
Preferred: Mission Bay, SOMA, Mission, Excelsior, Noe Valley, Potrero Hill
Willing: City-wide

TIME
Preferred: Sundays, 8:00-2:00
Willing: Sundays, 2:00-9:00

SPACE
Preferred: Reconfigurable space for 150 and 3 rooms for kids
Willing: Traditional space with pews/chairs for 150 and 2 rooms for kids

OTHER
Storage for band equipment
Kitchen access
Possibility for other periodic times of use

LOGISTICS
Monthly rental is negotiable depending on what is provided.
We are targeting a June 1, 2008 move-in date.

In the end, our physical location is not what makes MBCC, well, MBCC.  It is the people, the culture and the communal nature of our life together.  Still, our space matters to help create and sustain so much of what has happened, is happening and will happen in our life as a church.

If you have any thoughts, comments or suggesting, please feel free to leave a comment on this post of eMail me directly.

Thanks in advance,
Bruce

* If you are new to this conversations, while we love our current space in many ways, the main reasons we are leaving are as follows:

• Building is not zoned for our current size and usage;
• Lease will go up dramatically in November;
• Our space configuration is not what we need for a growing youth/children's program;