The Interfaith Center at the Presidio is . . .

• a San Francisco Bay Area grassroots interfaith friendship-building nonprofit organization,
• your host at the Main Post Chapel in the Presidio of San Francisco and
• the San Francisco International Airport Reflection Room, two interfaith sanctuaries welcoming people of all faiths, and
• an inter-religious advocate of peacemaking among religions, locally and globally.

Never has the need for healthy cross-culture relationships been greater. The Interfaith Center at the Presidio has an historic commitment to healing and peacemaking within, between, and among religious and spiritual traditions. The Center's mission is to welcome, serve, and celebrate the diverse faith traditions and spiritual wisdom of the Bay Area.

The Story . . .

When Congress decided the Presidio of San Francisco would become a national park, the National Park Service asked, "What kind of activities should go on in the 800 buildings of this park!?" When "swords into plowshares" surfaced as part of the answer in late 1992, the religious community responded. The San Francisco Interfaith Council took the lead in gathering a coalition of Bay Area interfaith organizations and forming a steering committee. Their goal - to create a long-term interfaith peacemaking presence in the nation's newest national park.

As plans developed, the committee discovered the Main Post Chapel, one of the Presidio's most beautiful buildings. Built in 1931 by the U.S. Sixth Army, the Chapel's Spanish mission revival architecture is graced by magnificent stained-glass windows and mural art. The Chapel's historic use has been interfaith worship - a sanctuary available to different religions. The fit was perfect for an Interfaith Center whose mission is to welcome, serve, and celebrate the diverse faith traditions and spiritual wisdom of the Bay Area. The Steering Committee went to work.

September 1995 – Interfaith Center at the Presidio incorporated and multi-faith Board assembled (currently including American Indian, Buddhist, Catholic, Hindu, Jewish, Mormon, Muslim, Protestant, Shinto, Sikh, Sufi, Unitarian, and Wiccan representation)

March 1996 – Center invited into historic Main Post Chapel to respond to growing public demand for access

October 1999 – Completed Chapel rehabilitation design and estimation phase and a capital campaign feasibility study, resulting in a positive prognosis once the young Center develops its natural constituencies

January 2000 – Main Post Chapel declared an official Peace Site

March 2000 – Center awarded opportunity to negotiate long-term Chapel lease, contingent on renovating and bringing up to code the historically protected building

February 2001 – Received stewardship for the San Francisco Airport International Terminal's new Reflection Room, the first airport chapel in California

July 2002 – Received a seed grant to plan and begin implementing a new Interfaith Center Academy, a professional graduate program to address issues of ‘interfaith literacy’ and relationship building, starting with seminarians

July 2002 – Published One World, Many Voices, an interfaith songbook

August 2002 – A dozen Interfaith Center board and staff attended United Religions Initiative’s Global Assembly in Rio de Janeiro

November 2002 - Pacific School of Religion, one of nine seminaries in Berkeley's Graduate Theological Union, invited the new Interfaith Center Academy to teach a course on interfaith literacy and ministry at PSR in the Spring 2004 semester.

May 2003 - Sarah Feinbloom's "What Do You Believe?" chosen for multiple broadcasts at WGBH-TV in Boston. Earlier in the year KCET in Los Angeles broadcast the film, fiscally sponsored by the Interfaith Center. Based on 200 interviews with 15 and 16-year-olders, it was awarded one of ten best videos for young people in 2003 by the America Library Association.

2004 – Initiated a young adult multi-religious group focused on concerns of youth.

February-March 2004 – An Interfaith Sacred Space Design Competition focused on ‘creating sacred space where all traditions feel at home’ drew 168 submissions from 17 countries. An exhibit and workshop were featured at that summer’s Parliament of the World’s Religions in Barcelona. For more about the projects and the submitted images, go to http://interfaithdesign.org/.

April 2004 – Started Bay Area Interfaith Connect, an electronic monthly newsletter and calendar that goes to more than 1,500 readers.

September 2004 – Staffed a collaborative project called “Waking up in a New Religious America” at Dominican University in San Rafael, which enrolled more than 150 in a course and conference.

2005 – Experimented with weekly interfaith services on Sunday mornings, generating wonderful but under-attended worship events.

January 2005 – Initiated monthly “Second Tuesday” potlucks, each with an interfaith program.

November 2005 – Collaborated with the Guild for Psychological Studies for an all-day workshop on comparative spirituality.

January 2006 – Led the planning and facilitated an all-day Appreciative Inquiry with 150 participants focused on renewing the 25-year-old Rossmoor Interfaith Council.

January 2007 – Consulted with and provided a dozen presenters for Pacific School of Religion’s 106^th Earl Lectures in Berkeley, titled “All Rivers to Paradise – Christian Responsibility in an Interfaith World.”

January 2007 – Opened “Remembered Light – Glass Fragments from World War II,” a stained-glass exhibit of 25 new windows built with shards collected by U.S. Army Chaplain Frederick A. McDonald in 1944-45 in Europe. A book about the collection was published on January 21, the day the exhibit opened at the Presidio’s Officers Club. For more information about the McDonald Windows, the exhibit, and their eventual home in the Presidio’s Main Post Interfaith Chapel, go to http://www.interfaith-presidio.org/mcdonald/.

July 2008 – The Interfaith Center will host the North America Interfaith Network (NAIN) annual conference in San Francisco in July, 2008.

Today the Interfaith Center at the Presidio has become an umbrella interfaith organization for the San Francisco Bay Area, and the Main Post Chapel is a familiar gathering place for dozens of organizations with similar goals. In terms of goals, the Center's leadership is committed to promoting enduring, daily interfaith cooperation, ending religiously motivated violence, and creating cultures of peace, justice, and healing for the Earth and all living beings.

Through membership in the United Religions Initiative, whose Charter was signed in June 2000, this agenda is shared with more than 200 networked interfaith groups around the world. Four years earlier the Interfaith Center had made a long-term commitment to healing religious wounds, beginning at the Presidio. The Center's leaders believe building strong, value-based collaborative relationships among people from all sorts of different religious and spiritual traditions is critical in the world's quest for real peace and justice among all peoples.