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The Interfaith Center was invited into the Presidio in the first place to provide hospitality for the Main Post Chapel. Hospitality seems intrinsic to grassroots interfaith relationships and has provided a financial foundation for the Center. Public open houses are held six or seven times each week are held at the Chapel, part of nearly 100 events each month. Interfaith weddings and multi-faith gatherings are everyday activities at the Chapel. Presidio Interfaith History - Groups visiting the Presidio can arrange for a tour of the park focusing on the rich multi-faith history of the site.
To the delight of musicians, poets, and audio artists of all kinds, acoustics in the Presidio's Main Post Chapel are superb. The two-story mission-style sanctuary and rounded chancel come alive with sound. Artists of every discipline - keyboard, drums, wind, voice and strings - find the Chapel a friendly partner in their work and creation. |
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The Chapel boasts two acoustic instruments - a mammoth pipe organ and a grand piano. Up to 20 musicians can perform in the chancel at the same time. Microphones and folding chairs are available. The Sanctuary seats 150-160 and there is plenty of free parking. A map and directions to the Chapel can be found on this website.
The Center's founders hoped to create a Bay Area umbrella organization, and to that end the Center organizes and cooperates in all sorts of collaborative events and programs. These activities generate a variety of opportunities for the Bay Area's interfaith community as a whole to develop. Active relationships are maintained with local faith and interfaith organizations, many of whom have became partners in the programs mentioned below. Methodists, Mormons, and Muslims have all used the Chapel, to name but three traditions, and a number of interfaith programs receive multiple sponsorship. Local members of the United Religions Initiative and the Parliament of the World's Religions have both regularly used the Chapel and the Center's collaborative support.
Bringing the Global Ethic Home - The Interfaith Center is partnering with The Bridge (a United Religions Initiative circle promoting the Parliament of the World's Religions' agenda and interests) to sponsor a Bay Area-wide 24-month effort, inviting groups of all kinds to consider the document "Towards a Global Ethic - An Initial Declaration." This powerful statement calls all religions to take hands in making peace and reducing the suffering in the world, and was affirmed at the 1993 Parliament of the World's Religions. Seventy-five participants from across the Bay Area spent a full day on March 9, 2002, as a planning day for the coming project. Another event followed on October 27. Beyond Bigotry: Recreating our Ethnic, Racial, & Religious Harmony in a Post-9/11 World - is the last in a series of events promoted by the city of San Francisco in commemoration of September 11, 2001. This interfaith gathering is devoted to considering how we can be transforming agents who proactively nurture friendship, diversity and peacemaking. 52 leaders and members from various faiths participated in the event held at the Jones Memorial Methodist Church on September 17, 2002.What Do You Believe? - The Interfaith Center serves as fiscal agent and supporter of this 56-minute film, based on interviews with 200 teenagers in the Bay Area. The film premiered in San Francisco's Cowell Auditorium on February 23, 2002. It inquires into the beliefs and practices of young people, with extended portraits of three girls and three boys representing American Indian, Buddhist, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and Pagan traditions. At this writing What Do You Believe? is being evaluated by PBS for possible national broadcast. You can learn more about the film and order it from www.whatdoyoubelieve.org. |
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One Light, Many Mirrors - An Interfaith Festival - Six hundred fifty celebrants came to the Center's first festival, held May 10-11, 2002. It featured an outdoor stage, booths, food, music, drama, a day of programs in the sanctuary (including Huston Smith & Bishop William Swing in conversation). Concurrently, the day included an interfaith video mini-festival, a popular Interfaith Cafe (for dialogue programs), and activities for children. Circles in Motion - Gifts to Share - The Center served as fiscal agent and provided leadership and fundraising for the design team of United Religions Initiative's first North American summit, a five-day event in Salt Lake City in June, 2001. The Center's board and staff were extensively involved for a year; 17 of 200 participants in Salt Lake were ICP connected. In the process a dozen URI Bay Area cooperation circles became connected to the Center.
In everything at the Interfaith Center, the hope is that we respect each other and the Spirit so that the time and space we share is held safe and sacred. The words below suggest our intuitions about creating sacred space. Space becomes sacred... Sacred space for all peoples and faiths is secured... |
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The Interfaith Center | Members & Affiliates | Activities | Update & Calendar | Contact Us |
Donate | Links | Resources | Store | Home Page