Bruce Reyes-Chow, the founding pastor of Mission Bay Community Church in San Francisco, is the second person to step forward as a candidate for moderator of the 218th General Assembly, having been endorsed by San Francisco Presbytery on Jan. 15.
Reyes-Chow, a California native and a graduate of San Francisco Theological Seminary, is the grandson of Filipino and Chinese immigrants. He describes himself on his blog — and Reyes-Chow is an inveterate online guy — as “pastor/geek/dad/follower of Christ.”
He has written online about everything from “the top 10 reasons Bruce will stay Presbyterian” to the spirituality of motorcycles to the turkey potpie he had for dinner.
In a new blog he’s started for his moderatorial campaign (he’s also got a Facebook group and a Fan Page), Reyes-Chow speaks of his experience “bridging generations, worldviews and cultures.”
And, in announcing that he was considering standing for the office, in a blog posting last November, Reyes-Chow wrote that he considers the formative question for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to be “what kind of church are we going to be in the future?”
He writes that in order to thrive as a denomination, “tradition must be embraced and valued while at the same time radical transformation encouraged and unleashed.”
Reyes-Chow’s comments drew some response, and that’s exactly the kind of interaction he encourages in what he calls a Web 2.0 campaign for moderator.
Having grown up in Stockton and Sacramento, Reyes-Chow graduated from San Francisco State University in 1990 with a major in Asian American studies, sociology and religion.
Mission Bay Community Church, the congregation Reyes-Chow leads, is a multi-ethnic congregation with lots of young adults. Reyes-Chow, 38, and his wife, Robin, have three daughters.
In his statement to San Francisco Presbytery seeking endorsement, Reyes-Chow promised to create sacred space for people to “share who we are without fear of hostility,” to be involved in discourse about the realities of a shifting world.
“This is not the time to try to legislate our way out of disagreements,” he told the presbytery, “but to engage in the hard work of building relationships that are not about convincing and persuading but of authentic discovery of the voice of Christ within one another.”
Reyes-Chow is the second person to be endorsed for moderator. National Capitol Presbytery earlier endorsed William Teng, pastor of Heritage Church in Alexandria, Va.
