South Bend City Church

Jason Miller - As SBCC grows and evolves, we want our strategies and structures for church life to grow and evolve, too. This is the second half of our new vision for our life together.

What’s Happening

• Join us for the SBCC Picnic at Leeper Park on September 29 from 11a-1p. For more information, or to give towards the cost of lunch, head to our website. After the picnic, head over to the NNN for the Art’s Cafe!

Jason Miller - As SBCC grows and evolves, we want our strategies and structures for church life to grow and evolve, too. This week and next, we’re sharing a fresh vision for our life together.

What’s Happening

• Join us for the SBCC Picnic at Leeper Park on September 29 from 11a-1p. For more information, or to give towards the cost of lunch, head to our website. After the picnic, head over to the NNN for the Art's Cafe!

Mariah Keener, Zach Gillis, and Kelli Bowser - After spending four weeks being reminded of our mantras, we spent some time in intentional practice. We encourage you to join us in this hour of reading, singing, art, and more, even if it's a bit outside of your normal, and we hope that by the end you feel more connected to these mantras, to yourself, and to the Divine.

If you want to participate in the time of art, make sure to have some art supplies nearby. And if you are joining us in the Eucharist, make sure to have some form of bread or cracker and some form of juice or wine with you.

What's Happening

• If you have a student in grades 6-12, you can register them, and your family, for the Student Kickoff happening on September 15 from 5-8p.

Jason Miller - We’re returning to our community mantras. These four portable prayers describe what we’re learning from Jesus about how to be human and how to be a church. This week, we talk about simplicity, focus, excellence, and beauty.

What’s Happening

• If you have a student in grades 6-12, you can register them, and your family, for the Student Kickoff happening on September 15 from 5-8p.

Jason Miller - We’re returning to our community mantras. These four portable prayers describe what we’re learning from Jesus about how to be human and how to be a church. This week, we talk about the calling on all of us to bear the image of God, and to honor the image of God in ourselves, our neighbors, and even our enemies.

This weekend we also had the chance to see this mantra in action as we celebrate a project we've been supporting for a couple of years. The Book of Belonging is a book of diverse Bible stories for kind and contemplative kids that focus on wonder, contemplation, and identity; because everyone belongs. To learn more about this incredible resource, we had the chance to sit down and talk with the author, Mariko Clark, before the teaching.

Resources

• Pre-order The Book of Belonging by Mariko Clark.

What’s Happening

• RSVP to one of our next New to SBCC Tables happening in-person on October 6 or via Zoom on October 7.

Jason Miller - We’re returning to our community mantras. These four portable prayers describe what we’re learning from Jesus about how to be human and how to be a church. This week, we talk about performance pressure, having nothing to prove, how curiosity makes failure useful, and the importance of showing up.

Further Reading

What’s Happening

• RSVP to our next New to SBCC Table happening in-person on October 6.

Jason Miller - We’re returning to our community mantras. These four portable prayers describe what we’re learning from Jesus about how to be human and how to be a church. Up first, we’re talking about the recovery of an ecological imagination for our life with God and each other.

What’s Happening

• Sign up for a time to donate blood with the South Bend Medical Foundation. We will be partnering with SBMF on August 18th where they will have their mobile unit in our courtyard from 9a-1p.

Zach Gillis and Beth Graybill - In a world with so much relational strife, we are spending time talking about how to know when it’s time to bring that relationship to an end or, in some cases, when to lean in to restore and reimagine the relationship. This weekend, we take these ideas from the abstract and listen in on a conversation about how one beloved member of our community has had to lean in and out of different relationships in his life.

CONTENT WARNING: This conversation tackles some difficult topics such as addiction, abuse, and marginalization. As always, please care for yourself well while listening, consider processing this conversation in community, or skip it until you can do either or both of those things.

Beth Graybill and Zach Gillis both call South Bend City Church home and are actively involved in the greater South Bend community. Beth, who facilitates this conversation, is a collaborative consultant and storyteller that currently works as a Senior Talent Acquisition Consultant at the University of Notre Dame. Zach, who shares some stories from his life, is the Care Pastor and Worship Associate at South Bend City Church, is the Dean of Students at The Portage School of Leaders, and pops up around South Bend to lend his voice to a variety of music experiences.

What’s Happening

• Sign up for a time to donate blood with the South Bend Medical Foundation. We will be partnering with SBMF on August 18th where they will have their mobile unit in our courtyard from 9a-1p.

Mike Goldsworthy - In a world with so much relational strife, we are spending time talking about how to know when it’s time to bring that relationship to an end or, in some cases, when to lean in to restore and reimagine the relationship. This weekend, we reflect again on an instance of this happening in the early church when two leaders chose two different approaches to this question, and explore a framework for how we might think about the way we reimagine how we reengage relationships that have changed.

• Help us partner with La Casa de Amistad to distribute backpacks with school supplies through financial support or sign up to volunteer for their event on August 3. The fund will be open until July 31st and every cent will be given to La Casa.

Mike Goldsworthy - In a world with so much relational strife, we are spending time talking about how to be in relationship with those that we disagree with or, in some cases, how to know when it’s time to bring that relationship to an end. This weekend, we explore an instance of this happening in the early church when two leaders chose two different approaches to this question, and we explore a framework for how we might think about the level of access and vulnerability we give to the different people in our lives. You can find the visual for this framework here.

Mike Goldsworthy is a speaker, resourcer, and guide with a passion for connecting like-minded churches and leaders. He also has a podcast, space for faith: re-imaginging the church for our current moment, and started the Post-Evangelical Collective. He is also a long time friend of SBCC and currently serves on our board.

What's Happening

• Get more information or submit your art for our Advent Guide. Submissions will be accepted from now until August 11 and is open to our local and long-distance community members who are artists or creatives of any kind.