San Diego, California: After over two months since the City of San Diego ordered that Missiongathering Christian Church in North Park cease operations of its weekly homeless youth shelter and cancel rentals of its sanctuary for music events, Missiongathering officially filed a lawsuit against the City of San Diego on Friday, October 11, 2019.
 
“Our church has continually reached out to the City for over two months, urging them to come to the table and negotiate with us to restore our homeless ministry and music outreach.”, said Lead Pastor Brandan Robertson. “After hearing not a single official response from the City, we have decided at the direction of our legal counsel to file a lawsuit against the City for violating our first-amendment right to the free exercise of our faith on our property.”
 
The lawsuit cites several violations by the City, including violations of the Federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act and the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. “We have avoided filing a lawsuit at all costs, but the City’s unresponsiveness has put our congregation in a dire position where our very survival is being threatened” Pastor Robertson continued. Missiongathering is represented by Jennifer L. Bursch of Tyler and Bursch, LLP.
 
The church has launched a GoFundMe Page and is hosting a Community Oktoberfest Fundraiser on October 27 from 3:00 PM – 8:00 PM to help raise funds for their legal fees and repairs of the campus.
 
Missiongathering Christian Church is a progressive, inclusive Christian church in the heart of North Park. Led by millennial author and activist Pastor Brandan Robertson, we seek to be a force for justice and peace in San Diego and around the world. 

The past two weeks have been turbulent ones in the life of Missiongathering Christian Church. After receiving a notice from the City of San Diego to cease our youth homeless shelter and rentals of our Sanctuary, Missiongathering has been thrown into a very real struggle for the survival of our church at 3090 Polk Avenue. These days have been taxing on our staff, our board, and on our entire congregation. There is a genuine feeling that we are facing a disproportionate battle against powers much stronger than our small but faithful community. 
 
And yet. 
 
Over the past two weeks, we’ve also seen the Spirit of God move in the midst of our congregation in a mighty way. We’ve come together to pray, to worship, and to organize so that we can continue to be the hands and feet of Jesus on the corner of Polk and Illinois. We have received support from thousands of people around San Diego, who have given their time, their voice, their skills, and their money to ensure that we can keep moving forward. We’ve experienced so much love and encouragement from leaders- both political and religious- on every part of the spectrum. 
 
This past Sunday, our sanctuary was packed with not only our own congregation but visitors from around San Diego standing in support of our congregation. On Tuesday, volunteers showed up to greet those experiencing homelessness with hot meals, hygiene services, and a reminder that they will always be welcome at Missiongathering. It’s hard not to stand here, at the end of the second week of this battle, and not well up with gratitude for what God is doing in the midst of these trying times. 
 
With that said, we are still in the heat of the struggle. Over the past two weeks, despite immense pressure from thousands of constituents around the City, not much has changed. The City has shown no substantial evidence that they have any desire to help us keep our youth shelter running, to keep our sanctuary rentals going, and to keep our church alive. We are still being pressured to comply with the orders of the City with no evidence of grace or reprieve for our church. And if this pressure continues, our church will be forced to implement extreme budget cutting measures which would severely damage the ability of our church to function in an effective way. 
 
On our side, we have been working diligently to make the repairs around our campus to bring us into compliance with the City’s Codes. We’ve scheduled an initial reinspection of our campus for next Tuesday, September 17th, and we hope that the City will see that we have been making as much progress as possible with the limited resources we have at our disposal. We’ve also been reaching out regularly to Councilman Chris Ward, Mayor Kevin Faulconer, and Senior Zoning Investigator William Dauphin asking for help- and while Councilman Ward’s staff has been incredibly gracious and attentive this week, we have seen little substantial assistance extended to our church.  
 
It should also be noted that the City’s actions have already caused irreversible damage to our church. Because of the inaction of the City over the past two weeks, most of the rentals scheduled for the rest of the year at our churches ministry The Irenic have already been moved to other venues, meaning that we have already lost tens of thousands of dollars that were essential to our operations. 
 
Over the next week, we intend to engage in more direct action. I’ve reached out to Mayor Faulconers office and requested an emergency meeting to discuss our situation. Our legal team is planning to take official action in the near future. We are working with activists around San Diego to organize direct actions to encourage our leaders to step up and take action to help save our community of faith. We also are planning creative ways to continue our outreach to bless and serve those experiencing homelessness. More information about all of these efforts will be released in the coming days. 
 
As we continue in this fight for our life, I want to make four requests of all who feel connected to this struggle:

• Please continue to put pressure on City Officials. Contacting the following City Officials regularly will ensure that this issue will remain a top priority:   Mayor Kevin Faulconer | Councilman Chris Ward | Assemblyman Todd Gloria
• Please continue to share our GoFundMe page. We have been overwhelmed by the over $5,000 that has been donated to our fight thus far. However, our legal fees, inspection fees, and repairs are going to begin to build up and the reality is that our community simply doesn’t have the money to cover these expenses. Every dollar that is donated helps us to ensure we can fight this battle with strength! 
• Please follow our Facebook Page for Missiongathering and The Irenic whewww.sandiego.gov/mayor/contactre we will post regular updates about direct actions, protests, and emergency notifications related to this struggle. If you are able to, please show up and show your support in person. It really does make a difference. 
• Please continue to send ideas, connections, and resources to our office. We have been so blessed by the connections to people around San Diego who have offered assistance as structural engineers, legal consulting, political consulting, and organizing. If you have any connections to folks who may be able to help us, please send an email to our office here. 

 
Again, let me state that we are so humbled and grateful for the support of the thousands who have reached out over the past two weeks. We still clearly have a long road ahead of us, but together, I really believe we are going to be able to make substantial change in the City of San Diego that will serve the common good of everyone. But we must keep pressing on. 

After a week of fighting for the life of our church, our ministry to homeless youth, and our “Irenic” ministry, we are totally disheartened by Councilman Chris Wards statement this afternoon.


First, he states that we have known about these violations for months. This is absolutely inaccurate- these violations were received on August 31, 2019 after being told by the Senior Zoning Investigator William Dauphin that he believed “things were leaning in our direction.” Beside minor requests to correct repairs that we get every year during our fire inspection, we had no clue the City was planning to shut down our rentals or our youth shelter.


When I met with Councilman Ward in June, as well as Assemblyman Todd Gloria, it was to ask for support from being harassed by San Diego Police every time a particular neighbor called when we hosted an event at our church. It is true that at that time, the police suggested that they may begin asking us to get individual permits for every show, but everyone believed that would not be a problem. Councilman Ward pledged his support and we continued operating as we had. We did not speak of code violations or safety issues at that meeting.


Also, to suggest that this extreme order is a matter of “safety” and to question our churches commitment to the safety of everyone who comes on to our campus is absolutely absurd. San Diego Fire Department issued our yearly inspection report a month ago listing a number of corrections that we needed to make and offered us a gracious timeframe to make those corrections without shutting down any aspect of our ministry. Since receiving our fire inspection, we have installed fire extinguishers, emergency lighting, new exit signs, added smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, and cleared all paths of egress. We also provide staff during our youth shelter who monitor the campus all night to ensure the absolute safety of our homeless youth, and have ample security and staff on site during every campus rental. Safety is our highest priority and has always been.


It should also be noted that The City of San Diego runs its own private shelters that have many more safety and hygienic concerns than our own shelter (see the news report here.) If the City is allowed grace to operate their shelter in these shameful conditions, it seems unfair to demand we close ours in the name of “safety”.


There is an attitude of complacency in the City of San Diego towards providing substantive answers to our homelessness crisis, and there is a consistent effort by our City to make those experiencing homelessness invisible. The City has a track record of penalizing churches, activists, and non-profits who seek to provide direct services to this community, and despite our best hopes, Councilman Wards Statement only seems to reinforce this status quo in our city.


We are disappointed but also undeterred. With the support of activists, community leaders, and individuals across San Diego, we will fight this violation of our religious liberty, this attack on those experiencing homelessness, and this attempt to rid North Park of community venues.

​North Park, San Diego, CA: After over six years of uninterrupted operations of the only youth homeless shelter in the city and rentals of our sanctuary for all-ages music events, on July 31, 2019, officials from The City of San Diego came and inspected Missiongatherings Christian Churches campus to determine if the church was properly zoned and properly operating within city code. 
 
On Saturday, August 31, 2019, Missiongathering received a Civil Penalty Notice and Order from the City of San Diego, ordering that the church cease operations of their shelter and cancel all rentals of their sanctuary immediately- an action that will potentially cost the church an estimated tens of thousands before year end, and force the church to cease a ministry that is at the very heartbeat of their identity as a faith community. 
 
After calling on elected officials and City leaders to come to the table to negotiate for the survival of Missiongathering Christian Church and it’s ministries, Missiongathering will host a community prayer night on Thursday, September 5th, 2019 at 6:30 PM to call upon God to move in the hearts of The City of San Diego’s leaders about how we address the homeless crisis, how they respond to faith communities efforts to serve those experiencing those experiencing homelessness, for all those who will be turned away from our shelter going forward, and for the survival of Missiongathering Christian Church. 
 
The prayer meeting will consist of homilies by Missiongathering’s pastors and times of prayer and singing as we seek to find strength and encouragement for the fight ahead of us. The community is welcome and encouraged to attend. 

​Dear Missiongathering Family:

Last week at our Town Hall Meeting I informed you of a battle that has brewing between Missiongathering and the City of San Diego concerning our homeless shelter and our rentals of our sanctuary for live entertainment. In July, City officials came and inspected our campus to determine if we we're properly zoned and properly operating within city code. 

Over the last month, I have had two communications with the Senior Zoning Official who assured me that things were looking favorable for Missiongathering to be able to continue operating our shelter and renting our sanctuary. 

On Saturday, the church received a Civil Penalty Notice and Order from the City of San Diego, ordering that we cease operations of our shelter and cancel all rentals of our sanctuary immediately- an action that will potentially cost the church an estimated tens of thousands before year end, and force us to cease a ministry that is at the very heartbeat of who we are as a faith community. 

This notice also cited us with 29 violations and informed us that we may be back-charged at a rate of $300 per violation, per day, since the inspectors first noticed them on July 31, 2019. We plan to avoid these penalties by immediately working to correct all violations that have been identified. As of this writing, we have fully complied with a specific order which listed seven particular violations that immediately needed to be addressed.

After much prayer and consulting with legal counsel, I believe that The City of San Diego is violating our religious liberty as a church and that we must fight these actions for the sake of the survival of our church and our right to be who God has called us to be- and who we've always been. It is a fundamental call of Christ to reach out to those who are in need, to clothe the naked, and to be a good steward of our resources. The City is not only preventing us from doing that, they are penalizing us for it. 

This is a moment for us to unite as followers of Jesus and utilize the power of our faith and the power of our collective voices to speak truth to power. Over the coming days, we are going to have two opportunities to do just that: 

First, on Tuesday evening I would like to invite our entire congregation to show up and join faith and community leaders from across the City for a Press Conference where we will call on the City of San Diego to cease these attacks on our community and to work with us in a more reasonable manner to continue operating as a faith community. This conference will be at 6:30 PM on our campus. 

Second, on Thursday evening, I would like to call on our church to gather for a time of prayer and worship as we ask God for his guidance, provision, and protection in this season. The Prayer Gathering will begin at 6:30 PM in our Sanctuary and will conclude around 8:00 PM. It is essential that in this season of turbulence we are lifting our church up to God and ensuring that we are fighting this battle in his strength. 

The following weeks and months are not going to be easy for our community- the spiritual, legal, and financial pressure that The City is putting on our church is immense. Your Board of Directors is committed to meeting weekly, consulting lawyers, and seeking the assistance of our denomination as we prayerfully navigate the path ahead of us. 

In the midst of this all, I am confident that God is at work, and that through this trial, our church will be strengthened in our witness of Christ's radically inclusive love. On the other side of these challenges, we will stand victorious as beacons of the love of Jesus to our world. 

So Missiongathering, please know that your leaders are praying for you, and we certainly covet your prayers. Also, if you have any insight, wisdom, or resources that may be helpful to us in this next season, please feel free to reach out to our board at any time. 

Thank you all for your faithfulness to God and to this beautiful community called Missiongathering. 

With faith and love: 

Pastor Brandan Robertson | Lead Pastor 
Missiongathering Christian Church 
San Diego, CA

North Park, San Diego, California: Missiongathering Christian Church, a progressive evangelical church in San Diego, purchased a billboard on University Avenue in the heart of Hillcrest (directly on top of the popular gay bar, Uptown Tavern) that declares “Radically Inclusive: God takes pride in you, so do we!” The billoard is prominently situated in the heart of Hillcrest, San Diego’s historic LGBT+ neighborhood and was intentionally positioned to be along the route of the San Diego LGBT+ Pride Parade on July 14, 2018.
 
The background of the billboard specifically names over two dozen minority groups that have traditionally been marginalized by the evangelical church in the United States. Among the groups named are Bisexual, Black, Nuero-Divergent, Muslim, Transgender, Non-Binary, Refugee, Immigrant, Palestinian, Indigenous People, Elderly, Disillusioned, Atheist, and Queer, among others. 
 
“For far too long, Christians have been known for who we are against. We’re afraid of difference. We only desire to make the world conform to our image of what is right and good.” said Brandan Robertson, Lead Pastor of Missiongathering. “At Missiongathering, we believe that in our diversity that we best reflect God’s divinity- that when we amplify the beauty of our differences, all of us are challenged to expand our perspective and become more loving, more mindful, and more kind.” 
 
The billboard stands in stark contrast to the signs that many other evangelical groups will be holding at Pride. Every year, Christian groups stand on the sidelines of the Pride parade and festival declaring God’s “judgment” on the LGBT+ community. “Their message isn’t good news for anyone- it’s a distortion of the teachings of Jesus, and it must be drown out with the good news of God’s radical pride in each one of God’s children”, Robertson said.
 
It is Missiongathering’s hope that their billboard will provoke discussion and be a beacon of healing for the hundreds of thousands of people who will pass by it on University Avenue, reminding them that there is a different kind of Christianity- a more loving, inclusive version- than the one that’s being represented in our nation’s public life or in the national media right now. 
 
Missiongathering will also march in the Pride Parade and host a booth at the Festival that features large chalkboards which say “We Call Bullsh*t” which invite festival attendees to declare all of the ways religious communities have been harmful and hypocritical to them. On Sunday, July 15 at 10:00 AM, Missiongathering will host its annual Pride Worship Service, featuring Broadway songs as the worship selections for the service lead by church members and members of the San Diego Gay Men’s Chorus.  
 
Missiongathering Christian Church is a progressive, inclusive Christian church in the heart of North Park. Led by millennial author and activist Pastor Brandan Robertson, we continue to be a force for justice and peace in San Diego and around the world.

 The following announcement was made at Missiongathering's Sunday Service on March 25, 2018 by Lead Pastor Brandan Robertson. 

Yesterday, dozens of folks from the Missiongathering community marched in downtown San Diego in support of the “March for Our Lives”, an international demonstration to end gun violence. First and foremost, I want to commend those in our community who marched and took a stand for the way of peace and justice, which is the way of Jesus.
 
One of the most basic calls of the Scripture is to speak truth to power, and the March For Our Lives was a potent demonstration of just that.
 
Proverbs 31:8-9 says:
 
Speak out on behalf of the voiceless,
    and for the rights of all who are vulnerable.[a]
 Speak out in order to judge with righteousness
    and to defend the needy and the poor.
 
Yesterday, all who marched were fulfilling this command, speaking for those children whose voices were silenced when their lives were taken away by those who gained access to firearms.
 
Yesterday, children and adults, young and old, gay and straight, stood together to speak up on behalf of the vulnerable.
 
Yesterday, millions around the nation demanded righteousness from our lawmakers.
 
In our nation, we are addicted to guns. We are addicted to power. We’re addicted to our false sense of security. No other developed nation in the world has the sort of policies that we have concerning guns, and no other developed nation has seen as many mass shootings as we’ve had in the United States.
 
Church, this morning I want to be clear that this is not a political issue. This is not even primarily a policy issue. This isn’t about the second amendment at all. No, this is a gospel issue.
 
This is about whether we truly believe in the good news of Jesus and if we really believe in the message Jesus embodied. Jesus called his disciples to a posture of non-violence and of self-sacrifice. He revealed that the path of violence, even violence used to defend ourselves, will only perpetuate more violence.
 
There is absolutely no justification for followers of Jesus to support the lax gun laws that we have in this nation.
 
There is no justification for followers of Jesus to cling to weapons as a source of security or safety.
 
There is no justification for followers of Jesus to act out of the selfish motivation that would prefer to protect the rights of folks to shoot guns for sport before they’d support the rights of innocent children not to be murdered in schools by fellow children who gained access to those guns.
 
The Book of Isaiah calls all of us towards a day when:
 
“They’ll turn their swords into shovels, their spears into gardening hoes. No more will nation fight nation; they won’t play war anymore. Come, family of Jacob, let’s live in the light of God.”
 
That’s the biblical call of all followers of Christ.
 
The reason I am saying all of this this morning is because now that the march is over, it is time for us to take action.
 
Marches are great starts. They’re great soruces of inspiration and support. But if they end with a single event on a single day they’re useless.
 
Today, I want to invite every member of Missiongathering gathered here this morning to get involved in this important fight for justice.
 
In sacred grounds after service, there will be about 8 different clip boards floating around for you to sign up for the “Gun Sense” Pledge. The pledge is simple. It says:
 
“As a follower of Christ, I pledge to support local, state, and federal candidates  and policies that fight for common-sense laws to reduce gun violence.”
 
If you sign up, we’ll register you with “Gun Sense” and organization organizing around the nation to fight to reduce gun violence so that you can be involved more locally and nationally.
 
Again, this isn’t political. It’s not democratic or republican. We’re not Anti-Second Ammendment. In fact, we are pro-life. We simply want to see gun violence reduced so more people live abundant and flourishing lives here and around the nation.
 
I want to encourage all of us to do this- this is the heartbeat of who we are at Missiongathering- a community radically committed to following Jesus wherever he may lead us in our world today. Let’s let our light shine, church, and let’s be channels of transformation in our community.
 
Amen? 

The Board of Elders of Missiongathering Christian Church is pleased to announce that The Irenic, one of San Diego's most loved all-ages music venues housed at Missiongathering, will be getting a new look and new management in 2018, and will continue to host a wide variety of concerts and shows throughout the new year beginning in February 2018. 

In mid-2017, the Board of Elders decided that it was necessary to restructure and reorganize the operations of The Irenic to ensure its longevity and success as a non-profit music venue. By mid-December 2017, the Board of Elders reached a unanimous agreement about the organizing and structuring of The Irenic, and immediately began working with promoters to schedule shows as early as February. 

"The Irenic is a beloved and unique venue, and our desire is to continue hosting high-quality performances in our sanctuary for the foreseeable future", said Lead Pastor of Missiongathering Christian Church, Brandan Robertson. "Our restructuring was only to ensure that our church could feasibly continue to sustain The Irenic while growing in our capacity to do outreach to our community." 

Along with the restructuring, The Irenic was given a new logo to signify a fresh start and a turning of the page in it's history. The logo resembles a pigeon carrying and olive branch, which serves as an allusion to the meaning of the word "irenic", which means "to aim for peace." 

For more information and to view a list of upcoming concerts, please visit www.TheIrenic.com