Harbor Golden Hill

Not Forgotten

2011-08-25T10:55:00.000-07:00

Friends,

If you click over here on occasion and wonder when we will give another update, don't fret. We have not forgotten about the blog, but we have been providing more regular updates via email. Please let us know if you would like to get those emails.

Yours in Christ,
Mike

December 2010 Update

2010-12-13T22:44:00.000-08:00

“He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God…” Psalm 78

Dear Friends and Family,

The temptation for every church planter is to go for youth and money. Young adults have an energy that is contagious. And young professionals have the disposable income to get things off the ground in a hurry. But youth and money can, quite unwittingly, cut a church off from the “glorious deeds of the Lord” (Ps. 78) that are passed on from one generation to the next. Without the presence of the previous generations, a congregation is left to figure out many things on their own – how to raise children, how to live as a church family, how to care for those in need, and how to apply God’s work of salvation in their lives.

Mandy and I have a passion for planting a church that is rich with the wisdom, energy, and childlike faith of many generations. Many of you have joined us in praying for an “age-diverse” congregation. The Lord is answering those prayers. For six weeks now we have been hosting a Bible study as a place for those with any level of interest in the church plant to meet one another, pray, and hear me teach. Of the 20 or so people who have come so far, we have had people in their 20s, 30s, 50s, 60s and 70s, plus a handful of children. Will you please continue to pray for age-diversity and deep relationships across the generations?

Praise and Prayer
• In September I completed my ordination exams. I was ordained as a pastor and elder in Christ’s church on October 29, 2010. The yearlong examination process was an important season of spiritual formation and preparation for ministry. Praise God for his powerful provision.
• On October 10, 2010, Harbor’s nine sites (i.e. churches) came together for a special worship to celebrate our 10th anniversary. I served as the coordinator for this 1400 person event as part of my internship with Harbor. Please take a look at this recap and watch the short videos of “Grace Renewal Stories” from the last ten years and “Harbor’s Vision” for the next ten years.
• In November we turned our full attention to church planting in Golden Hill. Praise God for my invaluable year-and-a-half internship.
• Will you please pray:
o For “divine appointments” in and around Golden Hill. As I was typing this in a coffee shop today, with my Bible on the table, someone asked me, “Do you know of a good church in the neighborhood?” I said, “Yes…”
o For Mandy and me as we serve as shepherds, to our kids, those in the Isaiah study and our community.
o For the Lord to continue to provide people to pray for this sprout of a church. If you are not already a part of our “almost weekly” prayer team, will you join? We send updates “almost weekly” as a reminder.
o For the Lord to provide the remainder of the $240,000 we estimate will be needed to incubate this church through infancy. He has already provided 43%.

Would you consider giving a tax-deductible yearend gift? We need just $10,000 more to meet our first year goal of $107,000. You can give online at harborlinks.blogspot.com, or send gifts to Harbor Presbyterian Church, 964 Fifth Avenue, #535, San Diego, CA, 92101. Please write “Golden Hill Church Plant” in the memo line.

Thank you for your partnership in the Gospel. So many of you are powerfully praying for us, supporting us financially, and constantly encouraging us. We could not do this on our own.

May the peace of Christ be with you during this Christmas season.

Mike and Mandy
Olivia, Joseph and Margaret

Vision for Harbor Golden Hill

2010-07-01T11:54:00.000-07:00

We sent this letter in December 2009 to share in some detail the vision for a new church in the neighborhoods surrounding Golden Hill, in the city of San Diego.

Dear Friends,

Praise God for his work in San Diego. In this city known for perpetual sunshine there is much brokenness and need for the good news of Jesus’ salvation. Yet we drive through the city and see the Lord working powerfully in many areas. And we are thankful, during this season of Thanksgiving and Christmas, that the Lord uses broken people like us to bring the healing of the gospel to mend some of the brokenness around us (Heb. 5:1-2). Thank you for holding us up by your prayers and words of encouragement.

We have been in touch with some of you with updates, but we are now writing to a larger group with some exciting news on how the gospel is advancing in San Diego. Please bear with us if we cover some familiar ground for some of you.

Where the Urban Poor and the Urban Professional Intersect
Mandy and I feel called to minister in an area “where the urban poor and urban professional intersect”. We started using this phrase four years ago to describe how we believed the Lord wanted to use our passions and life experience to serve in His kingdom. Both Mandy and I had worked and ministered with many successful professionals – Mandy during her time as Women’s Ministry Director at First Pres. Jackson and me during my time with Accenture and at Westminster Pres. in Atlanta. But we both also had a passion for the poor, and valuable related experience – Mandy during her time as a counselor for families under investigation for abuse and neglect and me during my seven years coaching inner-city youth basketball and related ministries.

So as we considered where the Lord was calling us to serve after seminary, the obvious answer was a place where these communities, the urban poor and urban professional, intersect. These are the “gentrifying” communities where urban revitalization is dramatically changing the landscape of entire neighborhoods. Wealth is flowing into neighborhoods where poverty has reigned for a generation and a half. But even as appearances and crimes rates improve in these communities, the divide between rich and poor is still great. Even though rich and poor often live, literally, next door to one another, the communities rarely interact. What reason do they have to interact?

Our conviction is that they have one very important reason to interact. Jesus. What do we mean by this? First, the message of God’s salvation puts rich and poor on a level playing field. Both are utterly dependent on God for salvation. Second, without both rich and poor the body of Christ is incomplete. Each of these communities has a valuable contribution to make in the body of Christ. How do the poor contribute? James gives us a glimpse, saying “has not God chosen the poor in this world to be rich in faith…” (James 2:5). Without the message of the gospel and the gathering point of the local church, the rich and poor have little reason to interact. This is why we are so passionate about planting a church where the urban poor and urban professional communities intersect, where the contributions of both rich and poor are valued, and where the light of the gospel can transform the community as it transforms individuals in the community.

A Season of Preparation
Communities of this kind exist in every urban center in America. Environments designed to sustain a young and inexperienced church planter and his family, however, are not as common. Harbor Church in San Diego is one of the best in the country at providing coaching from seasoned pastors coupled with a close community of other nearby church planters. So when Harbor called us for a one year church-planting internship to prepare to plant, we had to wrestle hard with the difficulties of moving so far from family and friends. But the Lord, our family, and our friends gently led us through the decision making process. The decision became very clear, and the Lord has affirmed it time and again since we arrived in San Diego four months ago. How? Through some specific places for practice and some amazing doors of opportunity.

It is a lot easier to talk about bringing wealthy and poor together than to actually do it. Even with our experience in both rich and poor environments, rarely did those communities intersect. We wondered what would happen when the rubber met the road. The Lord is giving us some windows of insight during our internship year. One of my roles this year is to serve as an assistant pastor at our Downtown site (www.harborpc.org has a map of Harbor sites). Two months ago an opportunity fell in [Mike’s] lap to lead a Bible study at one of the low income monthly rental hotels right in the center of downtown. It is literally across the street from where our downtown site meets for worship. I said “Sure, I’d love to lead it. But can we invite some non-residents also? Some of them are homeless, and others are professionals who work and/or live downtown.” So for the past nine weeks we have been meeting for an “income diverse” study of Hebrews at the Dustin Arms. 12-16 people come each week. And I (Mike) learn something each week about how to lead the discussion or about how the Lord teaches his people. Here’s an example.

The first week we met we spent the majority of time sharing testimonies and praying for one another. At the end I gave a 10 minute devotional to set the stage for our group discussion the following week. After I finished, one of the men, who is homeless, began to make again one of the points I had made just a minute earlier. I was annoyed, but didn’t say anything. As I was walking out of the building talking with one of the professionals, she said, “You know that point Mark made at the end, I have never realized that before.” I bit my lip to keep from saying, “But I said that!” Two days later I realized that I had witnessed the wealth of this poor man’s faith being poured out to this wealthy woman.

[Mike’s] internship year has many other components, not the least of which is the opportunity to preach twice per month. First I preach to a suburban congregation. Then I preach the same sermon to about 110 people who are homeless. Talk about great practice in making my sermons connect with both wealthy and poor.

A Door of Opportunity in Greater Golden Hill
Pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ… (Col. 4:3) Many of you have already been praying this for us and for Greater Golden Hill. Thank you. Greater Golden Hill is the area due east of Downtown San Diego. It consists of a few neighborhoods that are in various stages of change driven by the explosive revitalization of downtown San Diego pushing eastward. This is our target area where we want to plant a new Harbor site. And the Lord has affirmed this direction through many doors of opportunity in the community. Here are just a couple.

First, he provided a house for us to rent that couldn’t be any more centrally located for the purpose of planting a church in Golden Hill. Our house is nestled in a spot where we have walking access to all of the major gathering places in our community - dog park, coffee shops, business district, local urban ministry, playground, etc. We spent our first three months learning our way around, peoples' names, and some of their stories. Come October, we were ready to make a more concerted outreach to our neighbors. It is my (Mandy) favorite time of year and Olivia's birthday so we planned "A Pie Stop-by" in celebration of both. We invited all of our neighbors at our end of the block, folks we knew from the dog park, and a couple of families from church. I (Mandy) was nervous no one would come except the church people. It was a pretty vulnerable feeling. EVERY person we invited came. They showered Olivia with generous gifts (such a blessing to her mother who was so sad for her to be away from everyone she really knew on her birthday). And they stayed...for a long time. One neighbor commented that they had lived on the street for 15 years and never been in anyone's home. One couple we had been getting to know at the dog park came with their 10 day old baby. They are both navy doctors. Short story is, having a baby has rekindled their interest in spirituality. The Sunday following our Friday Pie Stop-by he showed up at church. And they have been there as a family the past three weeks.

Just a few weeks earlier, I (Mike) spent a Friday at Starbucks prepping for my licensure exam and sermon the following day. On my walk there, I casually said to God, “I feel pretty ready for tomorrow; if you want to give me some people to talk to today, I am up for it.” I talked with 12 people I had never met that day in Starbucks. That’s not counting the workers, except the one whose mother I met and then she joined us on her break. Most of the conversations were initiated by others when they saw me reading the Bible. I passed my licensure exam too!
These are two of the most exciting stories, but they are not the only ones. The Lord keeps opening doors for us to meet people and even find favor in the eyes of others. Explanations escape us. The Lord’s orchestration of it all is exciting to watch and be a part of. And the Lord’s call for us to church plant in Greater Golden Hill has come into clearer focus even in the few months since we arrived in July.

We Need Your Prayers and Financial Support To come out to San Diego for the one year internship we had to raise a portion of our salary. We went to a very small number of people who responded with great generosity. Thank you. As the Lord continues to affirm his call for us to plant a new church in San Diego, we are now going to a much larger group of people and asking you to consider supporting us in one or more of the following ways.

• Will you contribute a year-end gift toward our internship? (Two gifts of $3000 will cover the rest of our internship.)
• Will you commit to pray for Greater Golden Hill and for us at least once a week for the next year? We need at least 100 people holding us up in prayer each week.
• Will you consider including us in your 2010 budget, either with a monthly gift or a one-time gift to get the Greater Golden Hill church plant up and running? We will need to raise between $300,000 and $500,000 over three years.
• Will you contribute a year-end gift this year to the Greater Golden Hill church plant?

All gifts are tax-deductible. The page below is a printable prayer and pledge card.

Thank you for partnering with us in the work of the Gospel. Will you please pray that the Lord will raise up workers for the harvest here in San Diego, particularly in Greater Golden Hill? Will you pray for our family as we enter into the difficult endeavor of planting a new church? And please know that we pray for you. Not everyone all the time, but we have lists that hang on our refrigerator and a book of many of your pictures by our dining table. Thank you for all the ways you have already been supportive of us.

Yours Sincerely in Christ,
Mike and Mandy McBride

Support Harbor Golden Hill through Prayer and Giving

2010-07-01T11:32:00.000-07:00

Ways to support Harbor Golden Hill:

1. Join our prayer partner team - email michael.a.mcbride[at]sbcglobal.net to get weekly prayer updates.
2. One-time gifts online, click here.
3. Recurring monthly gifts, email michael.a.mcbride[at]sbcglobal.net for info.
4. Print this picture and mail it.

The Importance of Church Planting

2010-04-14T08:36:00.000-07:00

"The vigorous, continual planting of new congregations is the single most crucial strategy for 1) the numerical growth of the Body of Christ in any city, and 2) the continual corporate renewal and revival of the existing churches in a city. Nothing else—not crusades, outreach programs, para-church ministries, growing mega-churches, congregational consulting, nor church renewal processes—will have the consistent impact of dynamic, extensive church planting. This is an eyebrow raising statement. But to those who have done any study at all, it is not even controversial."
— Tim Keller

Generate Hope

2010-03-04T15:12:00.000-08:00

http://www.kpbs.org/news/2010/mar/01/safe-house-sex-trafficking-victims-opens-san-diego/

Check out this PBS interview with Susan Munsey and others. Susan is a member of Harbor and has started a safehouse to victims of sex trafficking in San Diego. Harbor has partnered with her in many ways. Mandy and I are hosting a "freedom party" next weekend to support Generate Hope. Handcrafted items made by women formerly enslaved in prostitution will be sold at fair market value, with proceeds going partly to the women and partly to Generate Hope.

Travel Plans

2010-02-05T13:49:00.000-08:00

We are making two trips back east to see family and friends, and for fundraising. Here's our plan for trip 1:

Feb. 17-21 St. Louis

Feb. 23-38 Kalamazoo

In St. Louis we are going to have two evening desserts with brief presentations for the Golden Hill Church Plant. Please feel free to invite people who may share a passion for urban church planting and mixed income churches.

Desserts:

Saturday, Feb. 20 and Sunday, Feb. 21 - 6:30-7:30 pm - Crossroads Lounge

Beyond settling in

2009-11-01T15:54:00.000-08:00

People are still asking us if we are feeling settled here and we realized this week that we have indeed past that temporary, but critical phase of transition and have moved into the next stage of life here. I'm not sure what we are calling it, but I would like to come up with a name I think.

Last Friday we invited about half of our block (the people we have talked with), several people we have met from the dog park (worthy of it's own post - the dog park), and couple families from church over to celebrate Olivia's birthday and our first Fall in San Diego. We called it A Pie Stop-by - so I had to make some pies, right?

I was nervous. Would people come? Would they stay? Would they like my pie? Every single person we invited came. We couldn't believe it. And they stayed...talking with each other for a long time. We found ourselves introducing next door neighbors to one another. One couple said they had lived here 15 years and never been inside another neighbors home. This is why we are no longer settling in. God has given us a job here. A role to play on our block. We knew we would have a role here, that is why we rented the ABF truck and moved our stuff. We just didn't know where it would start exactly and what it would look like specifically. This party is only one of the many ways lately God is affirming his call of us here.

The Dustin Arms

2009-10-15T10:50:00.001-07:00

This is an exciting report on what the Lord is doing here in San Diego. As you know, our vision is to plant a church where the urban poor and urban professional communities intersect. Recently, the Lord has been teaching me how to value the contributions of the poor in tangible ways. As James says, “has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom…” (James 2:5). Honestly, this is something that I have not done well in the past.

This past Friday the Lord gave me a glimpse to see more of this mystery revealed. He opened an opportunity for me to lead a Bible study in one of the low income apartment buildings in downtown San Diego – the Dustin Arms. It is literally right across the street from our downtown worship site. So I thought, “What if we make this study “income diverse” and invite some of the downtown professionals and even some of our regular attendees who are homeless?” The two-fold advantage is that our downtown church community would have more opportunity to interact across socio-economic lines, and I could get some more experience in facilitating those interactions for our church plant.

God showed up Friday in a mighty way. 14 people came, three homeless, seven residents, the apartment manager, and two professionals. I suggested we study Hebrews, and one of the residents said “I was going to suggest we study Hebrews” (no joke!). We shared testimonies, prayed for one another, and I gave a 10 minute devotional as a preview of Hebrews. But here is the most exciting part.

I gave my devotional, and a couple of people chimed in with some good comments. After I was done, Mark, one of the men who is homeless, restated one of my points as if I had not even said it. I was slightly annoyed, but thought “no harm done”. After the study I was walking out of the building with another professional in the group and she said, “That point that Mark made, I had never thought of that before.” My annoyance rose. “I made that same point!” I almost said. Mandy was picking me up. And as I walked to meet her, I understood a little more how valuable Mark’s contribution had been that night.

Licensure and Prayer Requests

2009-10-04T15:34:00.001-07:00

Thank you all for your prayers. This past Saturday I preached at presbytery for licensure and it was sustained (passed). My hands were shaking the whole time, but the Lord blessed the sermon and it was well received. I want to write more soon, but can I share a couple of quick prayer requests.

1. For an “income diverse” study of Hebrews I will be leading. The group will consist of a few people who are homeless, a few living in a weekly rental hotel, and a few professionals working/living downtown. It’s exciting, but not without many challenges.
2. For an investigative study of Mark with a few of our neighbors. I am just starting to discuss this with people.
3. Longer term – Please pray for leaders for our church plant like the man described in Ecclesiastes 9:13-16. These men are not on every corner, but I think they will be essential for a plant like we are describing. And may their words be heard.

Eccl. 9:13 I have also seen this example of wisdom under the sun, and it seemed great to me. 14 There was a little city with few men in it, and a great king came against it and besieged it, building great siegeworks against it. 15 But there was found in it a poor, wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city. Yet no one remembered that poor man. 16 But I say that wisdom is better than might, though the poor man's wisdom is despised and his words are not heard.

Grant's

2009-09-17T14:28:00.000-07:00

This doesn't show you much of the actual market, but it gives you a clue into what we do there. I (Mandy) go every Wednesday morning BY MYSELF to read or write or knit or pray or talk to whoever wants to talk. Mike goes 2-4 times a week for a few hours to study. Thank you Grant's (mostly God, but Grant's played a role) for passage of the first oral licensure exam. This week I started taking the kids up there to "play" Connect Four and have raisin toast. They have the best raisin toast - it is the tablespoon of butter on each slice I am sure. The owner's name is Joe and our Joe turns around every time someone calls the owners name. After this we walk about 4 blocks to the playground - today we met Lanny there. She is a hispanic nanny for a 1 year old little girl on our street. She speaks Spanish and I speak English and we can understand each other really well - the goal is to speak the same language at the same time to each other.Please pray for Lanny and Joe and our continued interaction with them...and for our family Spanish speaking skills.

Licensure and Ordination - Step 2 of 6 done

2009-09-11T13:54:00.001-07:00

For those who know the lingo, it is enough to say that I passed my licensure oral exam with the committee last night.

For the rest of us (me included before a few months ago), that means that I am done with the second step of a six step process to be both licensed to preach and ordained as a minister of the gospel. Last night's exam was probably the most nerve racking step of all six. Here are the steps:

Licensure
1. Open book, written exam (50 pages single spaced by the end)
2. Oral exam with a committee, mostly on the written exam answers
3. Preach at the quarterly presbytery meeting and field questions from the floor
Ordination
4-6 Repeat the licensure process with a different list of questions, on some different subjects

There's still plenty of work to do. But this step was nerve racking because I had never attended a meeting of the South Coast Presbytery and never met any of my committee. Some of my colleagues here coached me on what to expect, but I still felt like I was going in blind.

Even though it was nerve racking at times, the prep work was incredible. I opted to not just cram the facts in my head, but rather to read large portions of Scripture together, outline, synthesize, and then memorize some of the key verses. The text came to life in many new ways. Maybe the most exciting part of it came from reading the latter New Testament works - Eph., Phil., Col., Heb., 1-2 Pet., and Rev. especially. They have a great unity in saying - don't be concerned that Jesus hasn't come back yet. He will return, and he is reigning as King already, but the gospel must advance throughout the world first. It's exciting to be a part of Christ's kingdom expansion.

Becoming

2009-08-24T22:31:00.000-07:00

I (Mandy) don't know exactly how you all have been praying for us, but let me share with you a couple of things I have observed lately and you see how God is answering your prayers. It has been so excited to watch God meet all of Mike's needs and equip him to do what He has called us to. We had to move forward in our move to San Diego before we had a guarantee that our house would sell. God was confirming in numerous places his call of us to CA and we needed to start taking steps, trusting he would meet needs. It has been a similar step of faith moving into ministry. You move to seminary knowing this is the likely end and you tell everyone it is where you are headed and you have a decent sense that God is urging you, but still...you live with yourself and your spouse and you know what a mess you both are. And you look around at other wise, mature ministers of the Word and think, "We are nothing like them." And yet God continues to urge you forward. You know you are no where near where you need to be - in your heart or attitude or faith or knowledge or humility or whatever, but God continues to urge.

We still have years and years of maturing and growing to do, but it has brought me so much joy and excitement to really see God transforming Mike into a pastor. It would probably make him uncomfortable if I started listing specifics. But if you have been praying for wisdom or humility, or love for God's people or clear communication of the Gospel or excitement for ministry or teachability or retention of seminary education or perseverance through licensure...God is answering your prayers.

Don't get me wrong - he is still a stinky sinner. Just like me. We know it best about each other. But God really has met us here and is making Mike into what he has called him to be here. Thank you for your faithful prayers.

Look and see what the Lord has done!

2009-08-15T20:23:00.000-07:00

McBride Update - July 31, 2009

2009-08-07T15:44:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

Thank you for your love, prayers and support during our transition to San Diego. We have much to report, some sad news and some happy, and of course some humorous (at least to us). And in all of it we have experienced God’s mighty and comforting hand – by his Spirit, his Word, and through many of you.

I will start with the sad news. Yesterday we miscarried our little one. There were a few signs that things were not well, even from some early pregnancy tests that came back negative. But that doesn’t soften the sadness. As a child of the covenant, we rejoice that this little one is now rejoicing with Jesus. But we wish we might have had a few choruses with her (or him) too.

It seems that life and death are in sharper focus for us this week. Saturday we were at the park for a concert and I stepped on some fire ants. Within 30 minutes I had a severe allergic reaction that sent me into anaphylactic shock – unconscious for 30 minutes while Mandy drove part of the way to the ER then the paramedics revived me and took me the rest of the way. All is fine now (with Epi-pen in hand). And on top of that, a dear friend and former pastor with colon cancer has been given a prognosis of less than a week to live.

Yet even in the midst of all this we have not been discouraged or lost hope. Rather the Lord has encouraged our hearts time and again in various ways, your prayers and words of encouragement are not the least of these. And even two days ago I was working on licensure in Starbucks and struck up a conversation that included an hour-long presentation of the gospel. (Please pray for Michael as he wrestles with the truth of the gospel)

The Lord’s provision has come like manna – not a moment too soon, just in time, and just what we need. We received an offer on our house in St. Louis the week before we left. In fact, the buyer’s building inspector was dodging our (volunteer) moving crew as we packed the truck. Closing is scheduled for August 20 and still on track. Thank you for your prayers. It could not have been clearer that the Lord was having us take the step to make the move to San Diego without the comfort of having the equity from our house in the bank. As many of you know, all of our net worth ended up in that house by the time we finished.

I’m not sure if we could be any more excited about our house in San Diego. We are renting for a year as we consider where specifically to church plant. The space is modest, but just what we need. There is even a backyard with enough grass to pitch to Joseph. He wakes up asking someone to pitch to him. We are also in the area we’ve shared as our first choice to plant. We are just amazed at how well the location is working out having done our search remotely with the help of a few people in San Diego. Praise God.

Even the financial support has come at just the right times, bringing us great joy and encouragement as we consider the partnerships we have in the gospel. The Lord has provided gifts and pledges for 68% of our first year fundraising so far. Praise him and thank you as well.

Will you all please continue to pray for us, for Harbor Church, and for the people of southeast San Diego? As physical life and death has been brought into clearer focus for us this week, so have our hearts become more atuned to the spiritual life and death here in this great city. Will you please pray that the Lord would orchestrate divine appointments where the fields are ripe for the harvest of the gospel? And will you pray that he would revive many here just as the EMTs revived me a few days ago? We are excited to be serving with you. We are praying for you all as well. We love you.

Mike and Mandy
http://harborlinks.blogspot.com – specifically for ministry and support updates
http://mcbridelinks.blogspot.com – general updates on family life

New Contact Info:
1350 29th Street
San Diego, CA 92102
619-231-8018

Financial Support

2009-07-30T21:52:00.000-07:00

What are we raising and why?

Our first year with Harbor is officially an "internship". This time is intended for three key things.
1. Complete the licensure and ordination examination process.
2. Get pastoral and church planting experience under the mentoring of one or more of the local pastors.
3. Identify a church plant site and begin to develop relationships and a launch team.

For this year, Harbor is paying a portion of our salary and we are raising the difference. The portion we are raising is $26,000. 68% of this has been pledged so far.

If you would like to invest in this year of church planting preparation, you can send (tax-deductible) gifts payable to:

Harbor Presbyterian Church
964 Fifth Avenue, Suite 535
San Diego, CA 92101

MEMO LINE: McBride Internship

Harbor can also set up automated monthly giving.

Planting a new site will obviously require a much larger fund-raising effort which will begin in the coming months. We have been so encouraged by your generosity and desire to reach San Diego with the gospel. Thank you for your partnership.

Bye bye ABF, Hello project unpack

2009-07-21T16:23:00.000-07:00

We are here. We are surrounded by boxes, but we are here. We'll send out an email in the next couple of days filling you in on the transition, but in the meantime we just wanted you to know that we are safe and sound and appreciate all your prayers for this big move.

Side note: I feel a bit schizophrenic with two blogs. We are putting more regular and personal posts on our mcbridelinks.blogspot.com site. We just thought it was a good idea to have a seperate blog for those who are supporting us and praying for us as we venture out into this ministry call...which is pretty much everyone that reads the other blog already I suppose. It seemed good to have one place where ministry updates and prayer requests were consolodated. We likely won't go into as much detail on the process of the church plant, fundraising, prayer requests, etc. on the other blog. We are open for suggestions.

Contract

2009-07-05T20:28:00.000-07:00

We have a contract on our house! Please pray as we begin this tedious process of inspections etc.

Just checking readership

2009-06-25T19:35:00.000-07:00

Mandy's pregnant.

(Should know by the comments if anyone is actually reading this blog yet.)

Moving right along

2009-06-22T19:12:00.001-07:00

We have had a few things firm up over the weekend that you might be interested in. We found a place to rent in California. It is a cute little 2.5 bedroom 1.5 bath with a fenced in back yard - which means the dog is making the move. She proved herself on an 8 hour car trip to MI last weekend and we think she might just out shine the kids.

We are excited about the house. We had marked out four areas on our San Diego map of where we would like to live - in order of our most preferred. We are excited that this house actually lies right in the corner of our number one choice. It is a walking friendly area and Mike should be able to catch a bus just two blocks away to get downtown, which means we will be leaving the Jeep here for now. It is on the East side of the city which is the direction we were looking for planting and the neighborhood has some of the characteristics of genetrification that interest us. The landlord seems great - very personable and accommodating. All this even after we dropped our search to a lower price range. It was so hard to know how to search - property values are so inflated there. We really feel like this is an answer to your prayers. Thank you.

Also, we have set the date for the move. The ABF truck will be dropped off on July 6th. We will pack it on the 7th and they will pick it up on the 8th. That is when we will head out as well.

No bites on our house yet (showings, but no offers), we'll keep you posted. Sorry no pictures of the rental. It was referred by a friend and she didn't even have it listed on anything. Our new address is 1350 29th St., San Diego, CA 92102.

FAQ

2009-06-22T18:46:00.000-07:00

Sent on May 20, 2009.

Greetings to you all,

We promised an update and an attempt to answer some of the questions you might have now that we have made our decision to follow what we have discerned as the Lord’s call to San Diego. Here is that update…and a few weeks past the “couple of weeks” we initially promised. Sorry about that. We have been quite busy here – getting the house on the market and getting Mike graduated. We have done as much working as celebrating around here lately. It has been fun…and exhausting.

We thought we would do this in a Frequently Asked Questions format. Here are the questions we have received the most:

Where will you live in San Diego?
We are looking in the area South and East of Balboa Park. These are two areas that attracted us last summer because of their similarity to the area of the city we live in now - a lot of parks, sidewalk businesses and restaurants. Good local community – which makes church planting ideal because people live and shop and potentially go to church where they live, rather than commute.

Will you rent or buy?
Definitely rent for the first year. We are not sure exactly where we will end up church planting, so there is a good possibility we will have to move again in a year. We would like to plant in the area described above, but we just don’t know how the Lord will lead once we get there. We are looking at properties on line presently and have a couple of guys looking for us out there as well. It is our desire to find a place to live without traveling out there – oh, the glories of the internet.

When will you move?
The plan is on or around July 1st. We are McBride’s after all – nothing is set in stone. But that is the general time frame. That is the time at which monies they have earmarked for us will be available. However, if we get an offer on the house tomorrow, we will start packing.

What if your house does not sell?
We will move anyway, because we do not have an income here. Ideally we hope for the house to sell quickly – you can pray to that end. But if it does not, we will leave it in the hands of a very capable realtor and head West.

Can you tell me more about Harbor Church?
Nine years ago Dick Kaufmann moved back to the San Diego area from New York City, where he had been helping Tim Keller as Redeemer was growing… quickly. Dick, his co-pastor Doug Swagerty, and a small group of elders set the vision of Harbor, which was to “ignite a church-planting movement that so fills the City of San Diego with the Gospel of Jesus Christ that the people of the city are changed in every dimension—spiritually, socially and culturally.” The vision is being realized. Nine sites have either been planted, or are in the process of being planted. And there are many other parts of the city ripe for harvest, and needing churches.

But it is not quite correct to say that Harbor is planting churches. Harbor functions as a single church… with multiple sites. That means that they share many of the central office functions and the resources of the church planting center. Yet each site can adapt to meet the needs of its particular community. So, it is more accurate to say that Harbor is site planting. Site planting is what we are looking to do a year from now.

What will you be doing the first year?
Mike has been called to a yearlong apprenticeship under the mentoring of Dick Kauffman and the other Harbor pastors. In addition to just getting there and getting acclimated, he will be spending time with the pastors and serving along side them. Harbor is going through some organizational changes right now, and Dick has asked Mike to employ some of his consulting experience to help with the changes. He will also have opportunities to preach and will be studying for licensure and ordination which, Lord willing, will happen before we plant.

We will be identifying an area in which to begin building a core group and planting a church once the apprenticeship is over. Harbor has an incredible document that quite clearly describes their process of church planting from its inception with prayer to your first worship service and beyond. If any of you are interested in reading that we would be happy to forward it on to you. We might do that anyway in a year or so when we actually begin more of the specific work so that you have a sense of exactly how we are spending our time and energy.

Are you taking the dog?
Provided she quits yanking my diapers off the line in the backyard and we find a rental property that allows dogs, then yes she will be accompanying us to California.

How will you make the move?
We aren’t sure yet. Mike might drive the truck and haul the Jeep with a buddy and then fly back and drive out with us. We might all caravan at once and have someone to go with us and fly back. We might hire a “you load, we drive” service. We just don’t know yet.

Will you have to raise support?
Yes. The first year we will need to raise about 1/3 of our salary. Harbor has raised the rest for us. We always knew that fundraising would be a part of our ministry if we were going to church plant. It is somewhat of a relief to know that we don’t have to come up with everything straight from the start. There are plenty of folks who have to do that. So, our initial fundraising efforts will be just for that that first year. However, during that first year we will begin a larger fundraising effort that will cover both our salary and the cost of planting a church. The goal is to become self-sustaining as a plant as soon as possible, but you never know how long that will take – it depends a lot on the economic status of people you are ministering to and their spiritual maturity (in understanding and committing to giving). Of course, this is all speaking in finite terms. We believe that the Lord is able to accomplish much more than we often suppose, and so we do not fear that he will fail to provide what we need to do what he is calling us to do.

As we broaden our appeal and start to send things by traditional mail, you may receive information that overlaps with previous email communication. Please bear with us during the transition.

Do Olivia and Joseph understand what is happening?
Joseph does not. He is just happy to be here and we are happy to have him. We talk about it quite a bit with Olivia and she seems to understand. She has some memories from last summer and so has a context for San Diego. She talks about her best friend Annika staying here and both of them being sad (How’s that lump in your throat?). We will all have some adjustment issues, but the Lord will not be absent from that either.

How can I pray?
Thank you for asking.
v Our house needs to sell.
v Finding a place to rent in SD.
v Discerning the best way to make the move.
v There will be plenty of things to be busy with once we get there – getting settled, etc. Pray that more than anything God will be opening our eyes to the harvest field we are moving to and that our heart for and relationships with the people there will deepen quickly.

I am sure we have left out some details. Feel free to email us with questions. If you live in Atlanta and want to come hear more of the specifics about Harbor and church planting or are interested in supporting us, we are planning a get together on May 29th at the home of Erik and Amy Veerman. Email us and we can get you the details.

Yours in Christ,
Mike and Mandy

Decision

2009-06-22T18:43:00.000-07:00

After much prayer, we sent this letter on March 16, 2009.

Dear Friends and Family,

Hello again. First, thank you all so much for your prayers and encouragement. Your emails and phone calls have stirred up in us much energy for this next phase of life – being reminded by you of God’s faithfulness and the saving truth of his gospel, how can we not move forward with excitement?

A lesson that Mike and I have been learning over the past year is one of interdependence. Most of you know how independent he and I can be – for good and for ill. But the truth of the gospel is that we are needy, NEEDY people. We need each other, but ultimately we need the grace of Jesus to be sufficient to cover our sin. One of the main motivations in asking for your prayers a week or so ago was our conviction that we need you – your prayers, your knowledge of us, your faith and encouragement. Thank you for loving us in this way.

Now, (if you haven’t already skipped to this paragraph) start saving your pennies for a visit to San Diego. As we had already been sensing, over the past week God simply continued to allow the choice of SD to rise to the surface. How do we know?

We were only more and more convinced of our need for intentional, grace centered mentoring, which is Harbor’s strength.
Confirmation/encouragement in this direction from four specific people who 1. know us well, 2. have years of experience in pastoral ministry, and 3. are familiar with the set-up of Harbor.
External call – Harbor’s session unanimously approved our one year apprenticeship that will, presumably lead to church planting the following year(ish).
Our guilt was relieved. (Feel free to cry here. I have and will continue to.) I (Mandy) in particular, had been carrying an enormous amount of guilt for taking our children away from family. In fact, that was really the only reason I was resisting this decision. In all other ways I knew this is where we (especially Mike) needed to be. But I could not get past the guilt. So I prayed for the Lord to take it away. He did. Last week we were able to have conversations with our parents in which we could share our decision with confidence in God’s call and free from guilt. Don’t get me wrong – our hearts ache. But we are confident in God’s sovereignty in all of this, not just the initial decision making.

We realize that there are some of you for which this won’t make complete sense. Is it necessary to move so far away? Aren’t there church planting opportunities closer to family? Probably.

But as we looked into some of these options the Lord kept pointing us back to San Diego, even in surprising ways. In Chicago I (Mike) would have had the quick rapport that comes from growing up three hours away, going to undergrad two hours away, and having worked for the Chicago based company Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) for nearly a decade. But the church planting network in Chicago is not in a position to provide the type of support that Harbor in San Diego is, particularly for a new pastor and a young marriage.

This past Christmas I was driving through Atlanta thinking “You know, having worked in many of these skyscrapers they are not so intimidating anymore. I could church plant here.” But even as we pursued some avenues in Atlanta, the Lord simply did not open the doors… again, surprisingly. So, hopefully you are getting a sense for the many different ways the Lord pointed us to San Diego.

Thank you, again for your prayers. We will certainly continue to need them in the months ahead. We have a rough plan of action going into these next few months and we would love to fill you in on that, as well as just tell you more specifics about Harbor and what our life there might look like. If it is all right with you, let us be in touch. Look for more information maybe mid April.

Peace in Christ,
The McBrides

Prayer for Our Decision

2009-06-22T18:39:00.000-07:00

We sent this letter to family and a few people on February 26, 2009. If you did not get it, please don't be offended. SPAM got a number of people and a poorly compiled email address book limited our list. Many of you were praying anyway. Thank you.

Dear Friends and Family,

I hope that sounds sincere. It immediately implies that this is a bulk mailing which may feel insincere, but we’ve got a good bit of information that we want to send to a good many people and this seemed the best way to do it.

Hopefully most of you have read the recent update on our blog – just about where we are in our decision making process regarding what to do and where to go after graduation. We wanted to share a few more of the details and then make a huge request (no, we don’t need money…yet).

We came out of the church planter assessment with the recommendation that we are “provisionally ready to plant a church,” which just translates that we need a few years of experience before we venture into a plant. This recommendation was not a surprise to us, in fact we had already been thinking in that direction – looking for opportunities that allowed for experience that led to church planting.

We are currently considering two primary options: one in California and one in Chicago. These aren’t the only two we have thought about. After the assessment, a guy from Colorado contacted Mike about joining a church planting work there and even this morning we became aware of something going on in Chattanooga. Mike has also been making casual contact with various works going on in Atlanta and even some other assistant pastor options. I say all that just so you see where we have thrown the net to this point.

Regarding CA: This is an incredible opportunity for mentoring and ministry experience. Harbor Presbyterian Church is a multi-site model church. That means just what it says – one church, multiple congregations (with multiple pastors). It is healthy and stable and reaching the city of San Diego and surrounding neighborhoods in a variety of ways. This is where we interned last summer and they have asked us to come be a part of Harbor. Taking this opportunity would mean moving our family across the country, obviously. It will start with a one year apprenticeship during which, Lord willing, Mike would get licensed and ordained. After that year, we would begin identifying an area for a new plant (honestly, we have already been thinking about this), move into that area and start building a core group. It can take anywhere from 2-5 years for a plant to become self-supporting. A major attraction to CA is the network of pastors (and pastors’ wives) with whom we would be working with and learning from.

Regarding Chicago: This is an opportunity (that has not been extended to us yet – we have just been in conversation with them) with a plant that has already started. The planting pastor has been a part of church plants in the past, but this is his first solo plant. They have a core group of about 20-25 people and have begun worshipping on Sunday evenings. They are targeting the Lincoln Park area – which is primarily white collar and university students. Their goal is to grow to about 200 and then send ½ out to plant another church. This is an interesting opportunity because it would give us experience in the planting process (as an associate pastor) and then provide opportunity to plant in an area that has a demographic more like where we feel called to ministry – the urban professionals AND the urban poor. We have already spent some time with the planter and his wife and connected really well with them.

I know a lot of these details may sound very unspiritual. Honestly, I have struggled with that a bit myself. I keep feeling like I need to have a burden for a particular people group and be longing for them to know Jesus and move to where those people are – already loving them. I do believe God works that way with some people. In our case, however, it is more like God has burdened Mike and me with a general passion for urban and gentrifying communities, even though we don’t have a specific community in mind, and as that passion matches our gifts we are moving forward.

There is plenty more we could say and we certainly welcome questions. For those of you who think in lists and categories, I will share one more aspect of how we have approached our decision making to this point. There are three main categories through which we are weighing our information: The Normative – Is there a Gospel need? Certainly there is. San Diego and Chicago have been identified as the two least churched metro areas in our country. The Existential – What do we (our family) need? A guy at the church planter assessment gave a good example of this. You know when you are on an airplane and they give you the instruction to put on your own oxygen mask before helping others – this is the equivalent of that. Mike and I need mentoring and experience in order to strengthen the gifts and the call God has given us. In order to be able to minister the Gospel out of strength and health it is vital that we put ourselves in a position to receive these things. These are the emotional and spiritual factors. Finally, The Situational – What is the actual culture like where we will be ministering and how well do we fit there? Can we survive in this place? These are all of the practical things you might think of.

But what we are desperate for, even more than the thinking and weighing, is prayer - would you please pray for us? Through this whole process I have just kept hoping that one opportunity would rise to the surface with a pale, glowing halo around it and crescendo-ing music in the background. That has not happened yet – and I think that is to bring us to this very point. This is a new place for Mike and me – individually and as a family. It is a new place of vulnerability and dependence. In the past, we have been able to do pretty well at most we have put our hands to. I don’t say that bragging. God has been good to us, despite our pride. There are a lot of unknowns about this and we are going to be in a place of neediness for the Lord’s strength to be made perfect in our weakness. Honestly, I think this is actually the place that God desires for all of us to be all the time.

Plenty of you have already been praying for us (like my mother since the day I was born). But we are asking for a specific time of concentrated prayer as we make our decision. You all have been part of our lives to this point and will continue to be for years to come we hope – it doesn’t make sense that we should bear the burden of making this decision alone. We would like to make a decision by mid-March. Would you please pray for us every day of the first week of March? That would be the 1st through the 7th (though start today if you like). Pray that God would give us wisdom and quell our fears – and for whatever else the Holy Spirit inspires.

“Make me know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.” Psalm 25:4-5

Much Love in Christ,
Mike, Mandy, Olivia and Joseph