Ruminating on Communicating

YWAM San Francisco for our Thursday Food Pantry. Members of the community line up to receive food from warm smiles and loving hands 

Since my job here at YWAM San Francisco, as I see it, is to communicate missions, I figured I'd ruminate a bit on my vision form my path in the missions field.  Fluidity is an aspect best noticed in YWAM, as it seems everyone's titles are self-given in the fields they'd otherwise be known for in a more 'professional' sense.  With corporations, each person has a role, and aims to complete that role, and is satisfied when they do.  Here, It's far more about the mission.  As a base, we all have common goals, and work together to make sure they're accomplished, which often means people taking on tasks that they wouldn't normally in a corporate setting (harken: "This isn't what I signed up for!", is null and void).  As that stands, it's one of my goals as one of my roles to be able to take the work load people end up doing because it needs to get done, and take it myself when it falls into the camp of "Communications".  That often can end up being boring stuff like data entry, but can be exciting, like setting up systems to make sure we have good correspondence with people once they've left.

I Had No Hope

Here at YWAM San Francisco, there's a wonderful lady by the name of Janet Long who is one of our staffers working in many different titles.  She comprises part of our ministry backbone, involved with Hospitality, managing our Food Pantry, and co-leading our intercession times on Thursdays.  Another act of ministry that Jan exercises, is the very basic necessity of going out on the streets, and ministering to people.  Called by her times of 'Street Walking', Jan intentionally seeks to be an influence of hope, and spread the Gospel of Christ in a sometimes dark neighborhood.  This is one of her stories.

YWAM San Francisco Newsletters

Here at YWAM San Francisco, one of my responsibilities is to produce our base-wide Newsletter.  The newsletter hold the stories of our experiences in San Francisco and acts as a link to people's everyday lives and our happenings as we minister in the city.  I see it as a great pleasure to be help responsible for its production, and I enjoy it immensely.  At this point, I'm in charge of the layout design, editing, content management – as well much of the content writing – and analytics tracking.  It's a pretty big production for one person, but its part of my role as a Missions Communicator; it's part of my ministry.

In the future, I'll be posting stories we include in the newsletters and in our blog for YWAM San Francisco, which I also write and manage.  As we transition into different processes of approach, I want to start gearing our newsletter to point back to our blog, and broadcast content from it instead of being the source that create content.

All this, I guess, is just me processing to say, I'd like you to see the newsletter, and know that it's something I do.  For the few and faithful who keep track of what I'm doing out here in San Francisco, so you can know the face behind the news you receive.

Our most recent newsletter was our September newsletter.  My next task, which I'll soon be hard at work with, is to design, manage, process, and our yearly print newsletter set to go out in November (but don't hold me to it!  It may come out in December).  So if you want it, be sure to sign up for it on either our website or blog.

You can see previous newsletters, most of which I was somehow involved with, here:

Newsletters of YWAM San Francisco

Organize, Organize, Organize!

As I pursue my work here at YWAM San Francisco, I realize that one thing I don't often share are my methods, how they've changed, the effects it's had on me.  Since coming to YWAM San Francisco, becoming a missionary, becoming a missions communicator, however you want to look at it, my ways of doing things have been stretched, squeezed, and tested.  

15 Years in the Making

Last night here at YWAMSF, we were honored to have an event that has been years in the making.  We hosted the graduation from our 360° program of a guy by the name of Ali, who's been coming here for years.  It wasn't until the event was taking place that I realized the gravity of everything that was happening.

The Journey West: How I ended up in San Francisco

For those of you who don't know about my life in missions, I wanted to write the story of how I got here. I'll think to myself sometimes, and feel myself even that maybe I'm not able to give a good picture in conversations I've had with people.  I'll think, "If I don't even fully feel like I know what I'm talking about, how are they supposed to?"  So, to finally have a definitive place to say how I ended up on the path I'm on, full of evidence of God's guidance and plenty of adventure, here we are.

Missions: San Francisco

Over the last season of my life, I've realized some things about myself.  On of those things I've realized, is that I think more compartmentaly.  So because of this, I've decided to start a missions blog separate from my personal blog to be a more comprehensive picture of where I am in my missions work, what I'm doing with YWAM, and what season I'm in with life.  My other blog (which I will keep relatively separate) will still be a place for my personal meditations and thoughts, while this page will become the go to place for where I am in my missions journey.

Looking forward to many good times!