History
For years, Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church has sought to be a blessing to our community. During the last ten years, that vision led to a perception that something “big” was on the horizon. Initial efforts focused on the building of a second campus that would serve as a physical place from which we would serve and bless the community. Land was purchased and preparation for “The Porch.” In the course of preparations, it became clear that RBCPC would not be moving forward with this particular method of blessing the community.
Various task forces were commissioned by the church and eventually it became clear that the way in which we would be a blessing would not be necessarily be a piece of church property in a certain place, but rather the church (as people) everywhere. This shift from focusing on church as a place to focus on church as a people is a central value of the Cascade initiative.
We celebrate the way God has used our church over it’s long history to lead and pioneer fresh and contemporary expressions of what it means to faithfully be the church in each generation.
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After the decision was made to return funds originally designated toward The Porch, an Outreach Fund was created to allow donors to re-designate their giving toward future endeavors to bless the community.
An Outreach Fund Committee, now called “Cascade,” was assembled in Fall 2010 to discern how those funds would be utilized. “Cascade” was chosen as the name for this initiative to use these funds in such a manner that the church community of RBCPC might “overflow” and “spillover” people and resources to “cascade forward” to bless our community. The members assembled were: Shauna Schneider (Chair), David Shalinsky (Co-Chair), Bruce Humphrey, Paul Sullivan, Scott Schimmel (non-voting), and Geoff Hsu (non-voting). In March 2011, Paul stepped down as an active member to become an ad hoc consultant. In April 2011, Patti Hunter, Deborah Kelly, and Steve Barclay joined “Cascade.” In July 2011 Ryan Ross joined our committee.
The committee spent a season of reading[1], learning and discussing what effective ministry will need to look like for this coming generation. The findings at this website represent our best understanding to date of how to move forward. [1] Resources studied include: Mark Foreman, Wholly Jesus, (Boise: Ampelon Publishing, 2008). Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005).