Pancakes in the Park

The Outer Circle (SFOC) started as a team within InnerChange, which is an international ministry organization of communities of missionaries living in marginalized neighborhoods around the world. Beginning in 1998, the Outer Circle team walked alongside hundreds of traveling street youth living in Golden Gate Park and the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood.

The Outer Circle team began facilitating a weekly pancake breakfast in the park in 2006, and quickly became known by street kids around the country as “the pancake Christians.” The team connected with houseless neighbors through spending time on the street in conversation and prayer, using their home for hospitality, facilitating bible studies and faith discussions, bridging the local church to the street, traveling to Rainbow Gatherings and other places where traveling youth gather, and networking between churches and other ministries in San Francisco.

In 2014, Citizens Church began partnering with the Outer Circle. Because of various changes to the team, InnerChange asked Citizens Church to take on the leadership of the Outer Circle ministries in the summer of 2018. Since then, members and staff from Citizens Church have been facilitating SFOC Pancakes.

The SFOC’s original vision statement still holds true today: “We invite the lonely, the outcast, and the wanderer into restoration of their entire beings by drawing them to Christ, giving them what we have, bringing them into community, and by being their friends.”

The team arrives around 10:30 am, set out the food and drinks, and set up the griddle. A couple volunteers ask folks who are around what food or drinks they’d like, and hand them out. Everyone else chats with friends. People come and go, and it’s all very casual. They don’t do lines – it feels more like a living room.

"We’re a faith community who is seeking to love our neighbors and be more like Jesus: he hung out on the street and loved people who society had marginalized, and we want to do that too." - SFOC

Show up, listen well, be honest, respect boundaries (yours & others), be flexible and be a learner! Ask things like: How long have you been hanging out in the city / the park? Where are you coming from? Where are you going? What do you like to do? What are you favorite things about SF or the park? What’s your favorite thing about your dog? Do you play any instruments, are you into music, do you make art, do you write? What are some of your favorite places you’ve travelled? Be careful asking about: family, drugs, life history, “real names”, etc.

SFOC deeply desires to see friends deepen their relationship with Jesus and learn more about Him. They also know that everyone has had a different faith history so want to remember to listen to each individual’s story and to the Holy Spirit. They avoid assuming they alone know how to share this good news. They desire to listen and love and learn. They're ready to pray or share our personal testimony whenever the opportunity rises, but they aren’t pressuring others because they trust God’s timing and ways.

There might be people at pancakes who are high on meth, fentanyl, drinking alcohol, or smoking pot, etc. SFOC asks that friends don’t smoke near the food and drinks but we are in their living room and as such do not require people to be sober. We allow them to self regulate. Often a houseless friend will ask someone not to smoke nearby or to take it elsewhere.

People are very loyal and close to their dogs and consider them faithful companions. Make sure to ask someone before petting their dog.

SFOC feels It’s great to ask people their name and share yours with them. Names are really important to people’s identity. Many people don’t go by the name that they were given at birth, either because it holds pain and/or because they want to express themselves to others through a different name – please be respectful of this.