origin story

Urban Skye began with Dave Meserve and a group of friends. The team was inspired by Saint Patrick, a priest sent to the Celts. Instead of establishing the "Roman Way” of faith, Saint Patrick walked among the people, learned from them, and saw a genuine faith emerge within them. The Urban Skye team knew two things from Patrick's story. First, there was a felt kinship with the Celt's passions. Those who founded Urban Skye, also, had a love for nature and of poetry, a deep appreciation for hospitality, and a spirituality of place and of journey.

Secondly, was the Celtic way that Saint Patrick summed up in the following prose:

Go to the people. 
Live among them. Learn from them.
Love them.
Start with what they know.
Build on what they have.

When it came time to put a name to their vision, Dave knew it was focused in the city – the “urban” part was easy – yet he and the team wrestled on how to bring in their Celtic roots. Over dinner on a beautiful Colorado summer’s eve in 2003, they discovered the Isle of Skye —a rugged, mountainous island off the west coast of Scotland. It was mysterious, beautiful and part of Patrick’s legacy thanks to Columba, a 6th century saint who exiled himself to the Scottish Island in penance for a war he helped start.  

Dave and the team loved the story and the imagery, thus Urban Skye was born:

We’ll be confined and free. Roads end fast
and water leads slow ways to open water.
The harsh names on this map are Nordic,
the soft words Gaelic. We can love there well…

- Richard Wilbur, The Right Kind of Madness on Skye

In 2017, Dave and new co-director, Cari Jenkins, along with the Urban Skye Board crafted a renewed vision. This vision came out of Dave and Cari’s pastoral hearts and desire for people to be formed in the way of Jesus. Out of these desires came the vision of cities where every person has a pastor and every people group a priest. Cari became the solo director and continued to carry the vision of Urban Skye. She handed the reigns to Mike Sares in October of 2020.