For a visual glimpse into life at Heirloom, check out this video.

the impact of Heirloom

Retreat Guest:

My husband and I have been going through a rough patch of deconstruction surrounding our faith, and have even at times wondered about leaving our faith behind entirely. When we learned about Heirloom, we were immediately intrigued by how Christians were taking a fresh approach and breathing new life into their Christianity through intentional community living. Our visit at Heirloom was so refreshing. We enjoyed rich conversation with open-minded believers living out their faith in unique ways. We left with a renewed sense that the body of Christ is unendingly diverse and with a hope that we can rebuild our faith towards something more healthy and vibrant than what we had before.

Neighbor:

I’ve been so grateful for the community at Heirloom—their open table and welcoming presence, especially in a time of transition to a new city. Their creativity and commitment in staying involved during uncertain times with social distancing, has been so positively impactful on my mental health to know I have a place I can go and be heard and seen.

Work/Stay Volunteer:

I wanted to visit Heirloom to further explore my own journey towards living in community as the church and to see what living in closer relationship with the land might look like for me. While at Heirloom, I got to spend time with a community of people supporting each other and helping encourage one another to fuller ways of living. The community made it possible to support the unmarried community members, which is something I have not often seen done well. With our present epidemic of loneliness here in the west, communities like these have offered hope and home for people like myself. As someone who has been intentional about living in community, I recognize that it isn't always easy to navigate life and shared space with your own families, much less a wider community. However when effort is applied towards living well in community, places like Heirloom bloom into spaces of beautiful creativity, free welcome, tangible faith, and needed healing. During my time there, I was given rest and I found people willing to help me ask some of the harder questions about  moving with God in my own life. I'm grateful for places like Heirloom that are willing to keep dreaming new dreams and exploring what the kingdom of God looks like now as well as what it will look like in the future as the needs of our communities continue to evolve.

Current Resident:

I've really valued my time at Heirloom. It has become a place for me to be myself while growing my understanding of what it means to follow Christ daily. It is the "dailyness" of these small interactions with people, animals and the earth through work and play that create an intimacy I've missed in my typical "Sunday morning" church experiences. The Heirloom community is not a weekly jolt of spirituality, but a slow, thoughtful and tough engagement with my whole person.

Former Resident:

In a world that seems to attach politics and religion all too closely and a world where the Church receives a spotlight on all mistakes, but minimal attention for the good, we need to change the ways we relate with the world and with one another. I personally had a difficult history of engaging with our typical Sunday church traditions, but Heirloom brought me back to God and to the Church. I tell stories of my experience in Heirloom often-- to my partner, to my friends, to my coworkers. I eagerly describe to them the ways in which I've engaged with the Church, experienced the divine, and circled back to the loving arms of God with new understanding. I am eternally grateful for my time within Heirloom and believe with all my heart that absent such an opportunity, I would have "broken up" with Christianity altogether.  I believe there are many more people out there like me-- those who maybe are resistant to traditional church practices or experiences for a variety of (valid) reasons. If we as a church continue to reach for those people in the same way we've always done, we'll never get there. Our Creator is creative, and so we must be as well. Heirloom models what it truly means to be a community of God-- by making daily experiences divine ones, expanding horizons, establishing new traditions, and reaching the community and its members in new ways.

Current Resident:

Since I discovered Christ’s love, I have always had a strong belief in the church and the hope it is/should be in the world. The creative, compassionate, community building, just God I learned about in scripture gave me a heart for a lot of things - art, serving young people, caring for the planet and the people in it; and working to create systems of justice. My calling to all of those things is what led me to volunteer and then go on staff with the church of the Nazarene and to serve on my region (Eurasia), and to start my own business to make a difference. However-- honestly, after a lot of years of trying, I felt burnt out with trying to find a place or support in the church for all the things I felt were so important. I stepped away from my staff role, and began to seek ways to follow those passions in the business world. However - it was when I was applying for various internships and jobs that a friend told me about this community. After one email and one Skype call with the staff, I felt more understood and encouraged by the church than I had been in a long time! As I moved to a new country and joined the community, every person involved helped me to believe again in God's transformative work in the world and to see his love anew through the eyes of artists and creative thinkers. Living intentionally with people like that helped me to grow and develop spiritual disciplines in a safe place with accountability. There I found a church who were willing to sacrifice daily comforts and take risks and give their time to walk with me in commitments that care for the planet and the people on it. As the community has transitioned into Heirloom, I truly have discovered hope again that the church has a place in the changing world and that it cares for those who have new ideas and unique talents that don’t ‘fit’ in the usual places. As I have shared about its purpose and values I’ve seen new hope in the faces of friends and pastors across the world who feel weary. I’m thankful for a church that is willing to innovate, welcome the outsiders, take risk, and set a new normal of how to respect and care for God's creation.

Pastor Janelle Maher, East Bay Neighbor & Pastoral Colleague:

I love that the staff and residents of Heirloom are so intimately connected to the land, and that they invite the community to come and share in that experience. It is also important to note that Heirloom embraces a model of cultivating the land that is informed by care for the health of the land, its inhabitants and the wider community. The community of Heirloom have donated persimmons to the food pantry I direct, and to other non-profits in the area. Having lived in the Bay Area my whole life, I’ve seen the tremendous impact that the tech boom has had on this area. One unfortunate side-effect of the amazing innovation and development that have accompanied the rise of Silicon Valley is the increased disparity of wealth that has marginalized many whose income can’t support the ever-rising cost of housing and living. In this Heirloom has provided an inspiring model for communal living that demonstrates authenticity, cooperation, and sustainability that subverts the economic dichotomies that many of us blindly accept. As a Christian pastor, I am inspired by the model of Christian witness that Heirloom offers. Through communal living they are able to cultivate holistic discipleship in a way few traditional churches can ever even imagine. Their intentional community engagement allows a means of evangelism that is missional, culturally informed, and effective in the post-Christian, pluralistic context of Northern California. Heirloom is a faith community that invites those who are already fully-surrendered to Christ and those who are wrestling with faith around a common table and into shared rhythms of life and worship. It is a unique and precious embodiment of God’s Kingdom and is characterized by grace, mercy, and charity.

Rev. Brit Bolerjack, pastor, gardener, and director of Young Clergy Network:

This innovative, passionate ministry team changed everything about Young Clergy Network. They took a chance on supporting a young, upstart ministry to clergy in 2016 and never looked back. In 2018, they pioneered our conference in California called, Young Clergy Conference West--which quite literally would not have happened without them. Several young clergy left that conference inspired to continue their work in ministry, thanks be to God! But more than that, Heirloom has offered myself (and many of my millennial friends--both believer and skeptic) a view of what God’s redeeming work in the world might look like. There are few churches whose holistic view of God’s mission on earth inspire me the way theirs does. Being from a generation very concerned about both the planet and evangelical apathy toward the planet, Heirloom has been a beacon of hope. As we the Church seek to reach younger, more ecologically minded generations, we will desperately need witnesses like Heirloom to point to as we make the case that, “the church does care about creation.”

the Heirloom rule of life: pray, eat, work, play

Pray: We ground our life through communal + individual practices for our spiritual formation.

Eat: We create community as we share a table for meals together and with our neighbors, partaking in regular communion.

Work: We use our gifts, passions, and resources to do good works of love in our community and world.

Play: We care for our holistic wellbeing through sabbath rest and joy.

Values:

Acceptance + Transformation

We see everyone as created in the image of God and extend God’s welcome.

• “So God created humankind in God’s image, in the image of God, God created them; male and female God created them.” (Genesis 1:27)

We invite everyone into the journey of growing more into the likeness of Christ. 

• “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Ephesians 5:1-2)

Action + Rest

We put our faith into practice by how we live our daily lives.

• “So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” (James 2:17)

We take the sabbath commandment seriously and find ways to engage in holy Restoration.

• “Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.” (Exodus 20:8-11)

Community + Solitude

We commit to sharing life among others in intentional community.

• “And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:24-25)

We acknowledge the need for solitude in order to bring our best selves into the communal space.

• “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.” (Mark 1:35)