01
Faith
Spiritual exploration, prayer, worship, theological imagination, reflection, and spiritual formation. Alternative spaces for encountering God, deepening relationships, and discovering belonging.
A LYRICAL OPPOSITION PROGRAM / SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA
Lyrical
Assembly.
Faith. Arts. Activism.
Room to believe.
Room to belong.
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.
Discover how we assemble ↓01 / A COMMUNITY IN THE MAKING
Many ways to gather.
One invitation to belong.
Within the larger Lyrical Opposition ecosystem, Lyrical Assembly has developed its own identity, programming, relationships, and community. Poetry, spoken word, music, storytelling, visual art, spiritual practice, theology, and social engagement meet here.
Lyrical Assembly is an invitation to explore new ways of gathering, creating, believing, healing, and living together. It makes space for questions alongside conviction, and for creative expression as a way of encountering God and one another.
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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.
03
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.
02 / OUR STORY · 2019 → PRESENT
A gathering.
Then a growing possibility.
AUGUST 14, 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 support that emerging vision.
SEPTEMBER 22, 2019 / OAKLAND
Fight Evil With Poetry.
Lyrical Assembly Gatherings officially launched at Joyce Gordon Gallery. Local spoken-word artists and poets from Southern California gathered with approximately 40–50 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.
During its formative years, Lyrical Assembly functioned as a New Worshiping Community with important support from First Presbyterian Church of Hayward and the Presbytery of San Francisco. Becoming an independent PC(USA) church was a longer-term aspiration, not its institutional status in 2019–2020.
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.” These words document a stage in the community’s development; they are part of its history, not a substitute for its present-day positioning.
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.
03 / HOW WE ASSEMBLE
More than a service.
A life shared.
A poem. A meal. A conversation that stays with you. Assembly has taken shape through worship and public performance, book clubs and small groups, prayer and organizing, contemplative practice and digital gatherings. These expressions have changed over time; together, they show the breadth of the community’s life.
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.
04 / 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 archive ↗05 / WITH 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.
06 / 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 support of First Presbyterian Church of Hayward and the Presbytery of San Francisco, and the launch gathering at Joyce Gordon Gallery.
07 / 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 11:30 AM
Sunday, April 27, 2025 · 10:00 AM 11:00 AM
Friday, April 11, 2025 · 6:00 PM 8:00 PM
08 / WATCH + LISTEN
Voices that keep
resonating.
Watch the Assembly
Explore the surviving video archive of lyrical expression, performance, and community.
Lyrical Assembly on YouTube ↗Listen 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 Spotify ↗09 / THE INVITATION CONTINUES
Bring your voice.
Bring your questions.
Connect with Lyrical Assembly for current gatherings and ways to take part in this evolving faith, arts, and activism community.
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 ↗