Our Story
In late 2019, Steve & Amy Joh were both feeling a growing call and heart for three groups of people. Steve at the time was an experienced pastor at churches in Palo Alto, Mt. View and San Jose and Amy a long time urban ministry leader in East Palo Alto. The first were the growing numbers of people for whom church wasn’t work well for - people they knew that were disconnecting from church, but still had an active and sometimes even vibrant faith. The second was the growing group of friends they knew who were secular or unchurched, but very spiritually alive and curious, yet a traditional church was the last place they would go to explore that curiosity. The third was a group who cared deeply for the world and desired a community connecting that care to spiritual things, yet also had a hard time finding a home.
After a season of reflection, quiet listening prayer, and intense learning, research and exploration, they decided this was the moment to begin to build something new - spacious spiritual community centered on Jesus that took the structure of a network of confidently small communities that were creative, contextual, relational and real. In March of 2020, Steve and Amy joined Rewire (although Amy continued to work as a non-profit ministry leader), a team of spiritual leaders seeking to create communities of contemplatives in action in order to build this in the San Francisco Bay Area where they served and lived.
That began a fun, uncertain, and amazing journey that began four days later with COVID shutting down the world. In lockdown, they started two small online communities that later grew into 6 communities (a mix of in person, hybrid and online groups) as well as coaching relationship with local churches and pastors. During her sabbatical in 2022, Alison Moscoso, a fellow Rewire staff, began to contemplate what was next for her and after several serendipitous conversations with the Johs, she joined Arbor as its third staff member and moved out to the Bay Area from Chicago to join them. Along with her infectious laugh and joy for life - she brought her gifts as a licensed spiritual director to help co-lead this network as well as her leadership of Grey Space groups, cohort based communities for small groups to safely process spiritual deconstruction, trauma and identity.
With the support of Rewire and their incredible supporters and partners, Arbor was born as a gift to the people in it and the world around it. We’re just beginning to explore where this story will lead and excited to share it as a gift with others.
