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Faith
Worship, prayer, theological imagination, and spiritual formation, shared as a worshiping community. Alternative spaces for encountering God, deepening relationships, and discovering belonging.
1001 New Worshiping Communities | San Francisco Bay Area
Lyrical
Assembly.
Faith. Arts. Activism.
Room to believe.
Room to belong.
A worshiping community of faith, hip-hop, and spoken word. A PC(USA) 1001 New Worshiping Community in the Presbytery of San Francisco, with First Presbyterian Church of Hayward as our sponsor church.
Lyrical Assembly is a faith, arts, and activism community creating spaces of belonging where artists, believers, seekers, and communities can explore spirituality, justice, creativity, and communal healing.
Join a gatheringWHO WE ARE
Many ways to gather.
One invitation to belong.
Lyrical Assembly is a worshiping community that hosts free public gatherings rooted in faith and worship, expressed through hip-hop and spoken word. We are part of the PC(USA)’s 1001 New Worshiping Communities, and our sponsor congregation is First Presbyterian Church of Hayward.
We gather artists, believers, and seekers across the San Francisco Bay Area and online. Through poetry, music, prayer, and creative expression, we make room to encounter God and one another. We are grateful to be part of the larger Lyrical Opposition family.
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Arts
Poetry, spoken word, hip-hop, music, visual art, film, performance, and writing. Creative practices that give shape to lived experience and make room for voices too often overlooked.
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Activism
Art, faith, storytelling, and relationships in response to injustice. A commitment to communal healing and the work of imagining more just ways of living together.
HOW WE GATHER
More than a service.
A life shared.
Lyrical Assembly gathers for worship, prayer, and creative expression. Our gatherings have included Sunday worship, Advent and Blue Christmas services, Lenten spoken word, book clubs, and collaborations with our partner churches.
Fight Evil With Poetry
The 2019 launch gathering, where spoken word helped open an alternative space of worship and belonging.
Second Sundays
A recurring collaboration with Kairos, centered on poetry, faith, activism, sacred community, justice, and communal healing.
Artist Haven
Artist-centered gatherings for spiritual, mental, relational, and creative care.
Reads for Resistance
Reading, discussion, artistic response, and community formation around race, identity, liberation, faith, culture, and justice.
7 Last Poems
Spoken-word and artistic programming connected with Lent and Holy Week.
Lyrical Advent
Music, poetry, storytelling, reflection, worship, and community during the Advent season.
Blue Christmas
A gentle Advent space for people grieving, far from home, or carrying pain, with candles, music, reflection, and comfort.
Hyphy Theology
Exploring faith through the cultural language of the Bay Area: music, art, poetry, storytelling, community, and justice.
The Sunday After
A recurring collaboration with Oak Life Church, bringing music, poetry, storytelling, spirituality, conversation, art, and justice into a shared gathering.
OUR CHURCH FAMILY
Our church family.
Lyrical Assembly is a New Worshiping Community of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), part of the 1001 New Worshiping Communities movement. We are accountable to the Presbytery of San Francisco, and First Presbyterian Church of Hayward is our sponsor church. We give thanks for the pastors, coaches, and leaders who have walked with us since 2019.
PC(USA) 1001 New Worshiping Communities
A movement of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) that supports new communities of faith. Our founding leader has been coached through 1001 NWC and has taken part in its apprenticeship, accelerator, and leadership trainings.
Presbytery of San Francisco
Our presbytery, which has walked alongside Lyrical Assembly since its early days.
First Presbyterian Church of Hayward
Our sponsor church. First Pres Hayward has supported our ministry since 2019.
A CONTEMPORARY EXPRESSION
Hyphy Theology.
What happens when theological imagination speaks the cultural language of the Bay Area? Hyphy Theology explores faith through geography, hyphy, music, art, poetry, storytelling, community, justice, and lived experience.
It gives contemporary form to ideas that have moved through Lyrical Assembly’s history: contextual theology, lyrical expression, culture, spirituality, and communal creativity. The name came later; the inquiry continues to evolve.
The artist as a contemporary prophetic voice remains a thread through this work, speaking life, hope, justice, and truth to power. Relationships with Kairos of San Francisco and Oak Life Church form part of the wider community surrounding this exploration.
Explore the Assembly archiveWITH OAK LIFE CHURCH
The Sunday After.
A recurring collaboration between Lyrical Assembly and Oak Life Church, The Sunday After brings music, poetry, storytelling, spirituality, conversation, contemplative practice, art, and justice into a shared gathering.
Its significance reaches beyond a single performance or date. Artists and community members assemble to listen, reflect, and imagine what sacred community can feel like together. It is one expression of a close relationship that also provides context for the continuing development of Hyphy Theology.
BUILT IN COMMUNITY
Relationships make
the room.
Lyrical Assembly has developed through artists, churches, theologians, organizers, communities, venues, and collaborators assembling together.
Kairos of San Francisco
An important faith and community collaborator. Lyrical Assembly and Kairos developed Second Sundays together around poetry, faith, activism, sacred community, justice, and healing. That relationship belongs to a continuing exploration of theology, culture, art, and community.
Historical materials may name Kairos Fellowship. Current-facing language here uses Kairos of San Francisco.
Oak Life Church
A close community and faith partner. The Sunday After has brought the two communities together through creative expression, contemplation, storytelling, and conversation. The relationship is also part of the context for Lyrical Assembly’s evolving Hyphy Theology expression.
The formative story also includes the launch gathering at Joyce Gordon Gallery.
FROM THE ARCHIVE
The gathering ends.
The story continues.
Revisit selected gatherings from Lyrical Assembly’s growing event archive. Each gathering has one record, with its stories, recaps, and performance media kept together.
Sunday, April 12, 2026 · 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Sunday, April 27, 2025 · 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM
Friday, April 11, 2025 · 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM
WATCH + LISTEN
Voices that keep
resonating.
Watch the Assembly
Explore the surviving video archive of lyrical expression, performance, and community.
Lyrical Assembly on YouTubeListen more closely
The Lyrical Assembly podcast preserves voices and conversations from different seasons of the community. Historical episodes reflect the time in which they were made.
Listen on SpotifyOUR STORY · 2019 → PRESENT
A gathering.
Then a growing possibility.
AUGUST 2019
A seed of support.
Lyrical Assembly grew from Lyrical Opposition’s work at the intersection of lyrical arts, spirituality, community, and social justice. A PC(USA) 1001 New Worshiping Communities Seed Grant helped launch Lyrical Assembly.
SEPTEMBER 22, 2019 / OAKLAND
Fight Evil With Poetry.
Lyrical Assembly officially launched on September 22, 2019, at Joyce Gordon Gallery in Oakland, CA, coinciding with Micah Bournes bringing his Fight Evil With Poetry tour to the gallery. The gathering was curated with Aisea Taimani + Minor Islands and the rest of the Lyrical Opposition team. Local spoken-word artists and poets gathered with approximately 40 to 50 people for an evening of faith and creative expression.
The early vision centered artists whose expression did not always find room in traditional praise-and-worship or institutional church settings. It offered alternative spaces to deepen faith, create art, build relationships, and engage questions of justice.
THE FORMATIVE YEARS
A New Worshiping Community.
Lyrical Assembly is a 1001 New Worshiping Community of the PC(USA), connected to the Presbytery of San Francisco and sponsored by First Presbyterian Church of Hayward. That support has been part of our story from the very beginning.
Early materials described a “nomadic faith, arts, and activism community” and the arts as tools to “decolonize faith, speak out against injustice, and create communal healing.”
2020 / GATHERING ACROSS DISTANCE
The room became a network.
After Bay Area shelter-in-place began in March 2020, gatherings and small groups moved online in early April. Participation extended beyond San Francisco and Oakland to other parts of the United States and internationally.
At one documented stage, the rhythm included one Sunday Gathering, one Friday Outreach, and five online small-group meetings per month. Artist care, writing, prayer, Reads for Resistance, justice-oriented programming, and community organizing helped sustain connection across distance.
FUNDING
How we are funded.
Lyrical Assembly is grateful to have received grants through the PC(USA) 1001 New Worshiping Communities movement. These included a $30,000 NWC Growth Grant in 2022 and a $1,000 Pivot Grant in 2020. The Presbytery of San Francisco has also supported our ministry. We give thanks for every gift that has made this community possible.
THE INVITATION CONTINUES
Come as you are.
Whether you write, sing, rap, paint, pray, or simply want to listen, you are welcome here. Join us at our next gathering, or reach out and we will be glad to connect.
Thank you for reaching out. Your interest in Lyrical Assembly has been received.
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OPPORTUNITIES / LYRICAL AIR
One residency. The whole ecosystem.
Build relationships and share experiences within a residency that connects the whole LO ecosystem. Lyrical AIR is free to residents and is currently being established.
Explore Lyrical AIR + Join the Interest List ↗Artist opportunities ↗