About Harbor

I thought that I would give a little information about Harbor Church and our internship - for those of you who don't have all the details.

Harbor started about 9 years ago with one location - downtown San Diego on 5th and G. It meets in the theatre building pictured here. This was the first site we visited. Harbor is one church with multiple sites - they currently have eight sites with a ninth in the "launch phase."

It is really incredible how it all works and I will just explain it from the "wife of an intern perspective" and Mike can correct anything I misrepresent.


There is one church office - downtown. One (small) administrative staff and one Session. You can imagine all the ways this cuts down on costs, but there are far more interesting benefits. When a planter goes out to a new community he goes with the support of an established session, administrative resources, and some financial resources. He still has to raise financial support to support his family and the ministry until the plant is strong, but he is not sent out alone to start from scratch. Furthermore, typically the planter has lived in the planting community for a time and established relationships - the people from his "launch team" - to use their language - are not just people from the Harbor home church, but they are primarily people from that community - another way he goes with strong support.

Another unique aspect of Harbor is how the pastors work together. Many churches long for unity among pastors in their cities and towns. It is difficult for this to happen if they rarely see each other and thus rarely get the opportunity to share in the ministry of the gospel together, work through conflict together, etc. I am by no means setting Harbor up as the perfect model of ministry or church planting, but we are sure observing the sanctifying benefits of pastors working so closely together.

All of the Harbor sites are on the same preaching schedule. For example, right now they are all preaching through Ephesians. One thing that has impressed me is the diversity in individual congregations and across congregations. Last Sunday we worhipped (at one service) in three languages. This morning's service was about %50 various Asian ethnicities - last week Hispanic and African. Two weeks ago we worshipped downtown with business folks, empty nesters, some young families, and a few homeless. The Uptown site reminds us the most of Crossroads - only instead of a 1970's church building they meet in an early 1900's Lutheran church. We go here every Sunday evening and then visit the other sites in the a.m.

That is probably enough information for now. There is plenty more to tell, but I don't want to write too much in one post. Please continue to pray for our learning while we are hear. I can certainly give testimony already to the Lord's faithfulness to grow us as a family, strengthen our marriage, and broaden our understanding of the wider Kingdom of God.