Mark Scandrette

I am an extrovert, addicted to people 24/7. But once a month and several times a year I sneak away to be alone to listen and pray. Last year we did our first silent retreat collectively and it was great to practice silence and solitude in community over 3 days. We are inviting people to join us again this year. Details below.

*Guided Silent Retreat*
*Hosted by ReIMAGINE
Friday March 23rd 5pm to Sunday March 25th 1pm
Cost: $85
Email peeps(AT)reimagine(DOT)org to register *

/Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are,
not for what they say./
-Thomas Merton

/But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed./
Luke 5:16

Silence and solitude are the gateway to communion with God. In our
first world, over scheduled, media blitzed lives, these virtues often
get pushed out. This retreat will allow us to practice these
disciplines as well as examine how we might incorporate them into our
daily lives. The primary focus of the retreat will be to practice
silence and become aware of the voice and presence of God. To that
end, participants are asked to leave all distractions at home. No
music players. No cell phones. No computers. No books. Bring yourself,
a journal and a pen. There will be a welcome dinner and session Friday
night where we will cover the ethos of the retreat and go over the
exercises that will be handed out. All scripture and guidance will be
contained in the packet and therefore no reason to bring your own.
During the day Saturday there will be a check in and each participant,
if they so desire, can meet with a director to discuss what they’re
learning or struggling with through the exercises. All meals will be
provided for and each person will be asked to help out in some way
during each meal. The retreat will conclude with closing session
during Sunday’s lunch.

The retreat will be held at Kirkwood, CA. Kirkwood is a small
mountain community 3 hours northeast of San Francisco off highway 88.
All participants will be staying in large house located just off a
meadow and will have either a bed or air mattress to sleep on. Being
that space is somewhat limited and to keep with ethos of the retreat
we are limiting it to 20 participants.

The retreat will be led by Adam Klein, Nate Millheim and Mark
Scandrette.

Adam Klein is the Director for Collaboration for ReIMAGINE and is a
founding member of SEVEN. A teacher, poet, Ironman triathlete,
engineer and debutante chef he has experience in multiple
environments. Adam spent the last 8 years as co-director of high
school ministry at Willow Glen Baptist and worked as a computer
consultant. Currently you can find him leading workshops, speaking and
offering generative spiritual friendship. He lives in the Mission
District of San Francisco.

Nate Millheim is the Director of Training Initiatives at ReIMAGINE
and is a founding member of SEVEN. Nate is an ordained minister and
previously served as Pastor of Student Ministries at Creekside
Community Church. He frequently speaks for churches, classes, retreats
and camps. Nate enjoys hosting groups from all over the country for
the “Jesus Dojo”, training groups to live and love in the way of
Jesus. He and his wife Andrea reside in San Francisco with their two
children, Kayla and Chase.

Mark Scandrette is the executive director and cofounder of ReIMAGINE,
and a founding member of SEVEN. With extensive experience providing
leadership in churches and community based organizations, Mark has a
B.S. in Applied Psychology, studied theology at Bethel Seminary in St.
Paul, MN and has been a minister, writer and spiritual teacher for 15
years. Mark is the author of SOUL GRAFFITI: Making a Life in the Way
of Jesus (Jossey-Bass Wiley 2007) and contributor to several other
books including: AN EMERGENT MANIFESTO OF HOPE (Baker 2007) THE
RELEVANT CHURCH: A Vision for Communities of Faith (Relevant Media
2004), and COMMUNITY OF KINDNESS (Regal 2003). Mark is also a senior
fellow with Emergent, (www.emergentvillage.com) a growing generative
friendship among missional Christian leaders. He lectures frequently
with the U.S. Center for World Missions, leads retreats and workshops
and provides life coaching and spiritual direction. He is married to
Lisa Scandrette, the educator and textile artist. They have three
children and live in an old victorian in San Francisco’s Mission
District.

The summer and fall were marked by violence in our neighborhood. In mid August Adam and Dan, two of our housemates, were the first on the scene of a homicide across the street in Garfield Park. A group of kids from the projects were taunting people in the park. A man stepped in to deescalate the situation. Two boys, approximately 10 and 12 years old went home and got a gun and came back and shot the man in the head. This incident prompted a group of us to initiate Barrio Libre: a grass roots neighborhood advocacy project aimed at curbing violence by addressing blight and encouraging neighbors to take greater ownership for the conditions in our community. OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: What we do matters has been the tag line for this project, which included a poster campaign, neighborhood trash pick-up, attendance at police meetings, and graffiti removal. One night a group of us went out to pick up trash and to pray for peace, and I wrote the following poem:

25th and Shotwell
25th and Treat
25th and Portrero
24th and Mission, Capp, Shotwell, Folsom, Harrison, York
Harrison and 24th
Treat and 25th
Around the corner, down the street, outside my door
These are the places
I can remember off the top of my head
Where brothers, sons, daughters sisters
Were found dead
Shot down in retaliation drive bys
While wearing blue or red

We hear the sirens
and we turn our heads
When the gunshots wake us
And We rise from our beds

A mother weeps
His sister cries
as the mass is sung
Before the blood has dried
In the cracks along these sidewalks

They say He was a street soldier
But why couldn’t he have been older?
What revolution, good cause or war did he loose his life for?

We hear the sirens
and we turn our heads
When the gunshots wake us
And We rise from our beds

After the candles and trinkets have been swept way
We try to forget about the violence which overshadows this day
But tonight, under the street lights, I will remember and pray

Peace to the immigrant child
Hope to all those in exile
Love to fatherless children
Waiting to born into the family of the kingdom of love

I’m helping to organize this little experiment:

A quick update on Emmaus Road, a Bay Area Emergent Cohort.

In 2006 we gathered in a variety of venues to promote generative friendships among missional Christians. We met in locations around the bay area for meals and discussions on a variety of topics– and in the later part of the year a group of us committed to meeting once a month over six months for a more intensive Peer Learning Community. In 2007 we’ve decided to try a
topical approach.

The conversation continues in 2007 with a series of theological discussions we are calling: The Sugarlump Theology Salon

WHEN? Feb. 15 at 7-9 P.M.

WHERE?

Sugarlump Coffee Lounge
2862 24th Street @ Bryant
San Francisco CA 94110
(415)826-lump

TOPIC: How Mass Collaboration changes everything. Contextualizing ecclesiology in an era of a participatory world view and a culture of mass collaboration.

DISCUSSION FACILITATOR: Dr. Linda Bergquist, adjunct professor at Golden Gate Theological Seminary, missional strategist and lover of theology.

You can prepare for this discussion by downloading a sample chapter of the book Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything and also I Corinthians 12.

Wikipedia defines salon as “a gathering of stimulating people of quality under the roof of an inspiring hostess or host, partly to amuse one another and partly to refine their taste and increase their knowledge through conversation and readings”.

The Sugarlump Theology Salon is a gathering of Christian theologians and thinkers in the San Francisco Bay Area who meet in order to share and discuss their ideas and get peer feedback from one another. In the tradition of “The Inkling” (the literary group of C.S. Lewis’s and J.R.R. Tolkien that met in a pub for readings and criticism of their own work) we meet in a
coffee house (the San Francisco equivalent of a pub) called the “Sugarlump Coffee Lounge”.

We will determine the topic for the next monthly Salon following our initial discussion.

Please R.S.V.P. two days prior to this event by contacting Derek Flood:
derek.flood@yahoo.com

Looking forward to connecting!

This is a shameless plug for a workshop I am cofacilitating beginning this month. When we did this offering four years ago it was very helpful for those who participated. Some people got “unstuck” creatively. Other people discerned that it was time to quit a job, change careers, move to another place, go back to art school, or start becoming more disciplined with their creative endeavors. The practices of morning page journaling and artists dates helped us connect the good dreams of our maker with the messy details of daily life.
Rediscovering Creativity Workshop

Do you aspire to be more creative in 2007? Perhaps you can remember a
time when you had more freedom of expression. Many people have experienced
profound personal transformation through practices that combine
spirituality and creativity. This seven-week workshop will explore how to cultivate
your artistic voice and talents more fully. Through daily personal exercises
and group process we will help one another tap into our creative potential,
using Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist’s Way, as a guide for inspiration
and discipline. Sponsored by ReIMAGINE! A Center for Life Integration. We are
a collective of artists and activists that fuel initiatives to integrate
spiritual formation, creativity, community-building and social action. We
believe personal integration comes through revolutionary thought,
experiential learning and transformational relationships.

Team facilitated by Mark Scandrette and Adam Klein. Mark Scandrette is a
writer, poet and life coach (and author of the forthcoming book on
integrative spirituality called SOUL GRAFFITI ). Adam Klein is a poet,
athlete and mechanical engineer.

Wednesdays 6-8 P.M.
January 17-February 28
Location? Golden Gate Community Inc. 21st @ Shotwell.

Cost:$30 which includes a light dinner each week. (Scholarship
information available upon request) Text for the workshop will need to be purchased by
each participant.

To register email peeps@reimagine.org by January 12th.

For more information call 415-235-9552