Response to Family Meetings

Yes the way to do that begins with self awareness of the areas that you may want to grow in or struggle with. Secondly, it involves vulnerability and sharing that desire with those you are in relationship with or with someone who can help in that area. It is important to seek out the help you may need, looking for wisdom and biblical counsel on how to grow or handle situations or challenges.

In addition to walking with others, being a disciple includes slowing down for loving union each day with Jesus, not just once, but as often as needed to maintain walking in the Spirit in the season that you are in. Our being with Jesus needs to be as great or greater than our doing for Jesus. This is paramount for a healthy walk with God. It involves making time for silence, solitude, worship, prayer and Scripture meditation and study. We have resources in our app to help with this, but it can be very helpful to speak to brothers and sisters around you about what they are doing to maintain a daily walk with Jesus.  We are here to help one another, but without asking for help it is hard to know what people need.

The season of wilderness is about walking with God step by step through changing circumstances. It is also about having to trust Him each step of the way when the future is uncertain. You can discern the wilderness ending when God begins to unfold his plans to you and the next steps get more clear. The slow emergence of longer term vision out of a season of fog is a good indication it is coming to an end. That being said we believe we are coming out of the wilderness.

Our leadership team and ministry team leaders reflect the different ethnicities found in our congregation. The representation in these areas: worship, kids, community groups, teaching, etc.is important to us. We value that representation because it means we have different voices, backgrounds, and gifts helping shape different areas of our church. Even though we are intentional towards that diverse representation, I’m sure there are ways we can improve in celebrating and empowering the different cultures within our congregation. Please make constructive suggestions if you have some.  

One of the best ways is to sign up for a coffee conversation with one of our leaders so that we can get to know your story. Secondly, this is found on our app in “Get Connected.” Secondly, you can also let us know your interest for a community group by simply clicking the “Community Group Interest” button in the app under “Get Connected.” You can also simply speak with one of our leaders on Sundays and ask for help.

First of all, I want to say that I am sorry you feel that way and are having that experience. We definitely don’t want you to feel that way or stay in that place. One of the best ways to overcome this is through vulnerability. That is choosing to share with someone near you whom you trust or a leader you trust what you are experiencing and giving them the opportunity to explore with you perhaps some reasons behind why you feel that way. You have a story, and perhaps there are experiences you have had that have contributed to you feeling this way. You may need healing or deliverance from lies the enemy has spoken to you through the past. We would love to help you overcome this and find a sense of belonging and family here at ENCS. It usually comes through sharing your life, discovering the truth, and working through the underlying issues with someone. We are here to help. Please reach out to someone near you and start that conversation. 

There are several ways to connect. First you can sign up for a coffee conversation in our app. This way one of our leaders can get to know your story, discover where you live in the city, and where it might be best for you to connect with others. You also can help us create connections beyond Sunday by taking advantage of our Sunday meet and greet. There you can get a chance to meet someone different, introduce yourself, and offer the chance to grab dinner or coffee together. Honestly, the more often you attend and connect on a Sunday the easier to get to know people and go deeper beyond Sunday. You can also sign up to host or attend a community meal, and then personally invite people for the best turnout. Community meals are one of the key ways we are encouraging people to get to know one another in the church. You can also sign up to check out a community group in your area and or serve on a team. All of these opportunities are found in our app under “Get Connected.” Lastly, you can choose to attend one of our discipleship courses to meet others and grow deeper spiritually.  Emotionally Healthy Relationships will be starting the week after Easter.

Owning a building can give a sense of permanence, stability, and the freedom to do ministry as a church desires. What matters is if it is in the right location, at the right price, and in the right season of a church’s life.  Buildings can be blessings for the reasons stated, but they can also become the proverbial “tail that is wagging the dog,” meaning the costs to continually upkeep it over time can be painful and negatively impact ministry funding and effectiveness.

We absolutely need space to meet, gather, worship, disciple, and equip God’s people for ministry and mission. In our last situation, though we were leasing, we were contractually acting as owners, giving us full responsibility for the building. We discovered that managing 20,000 sq. ft was a lot of demand on our small staff and budget. Now that we are back to leasing, we are thankful that we do not have the burden of handling all that comes with building management. Now, if something goes wrong, we pick up the phone, call management, and they take care of it. This has already given us more time to think about ministry and mission, and focus on people. We are ok to lease a space as long as it gives us what we need to fully do ministry and have 24/7 access. The Hub space gives us that, and hopefully in the near future, we will be able to do everything in one location again. Will we own in the future? Not sure. Only God knows. We are simply taking steps to secure our next several years and continue growing.

Yes, we have a board of elders, currently called our elder council. The elder council is the legal board of the church who works with the lead pastor in overseeing the legal, financial and staffing of the church while supplying wisdom in terms of policy and best practices to promote the spiritual and financial health of the church. They help ensure effective ministry and operations in the short-term and lay the foundation for ongoing ministry and financial viability for the future.

They help give wisdom to challenges the pastoral team are facing along with different ways to think and approach those, whether that pertains to major decisions when it comes to direction for ministry and focus, relational challenges in ministry, and finances to meet the growing needs of our church.

One idea we are considering is helping support Cross and Crown’s campus minister Bella in her ministry education. She is looking to go to seminary at Jerusalem University in the fall to pursue her higher education in ministry. We think it would be great to give her the opportunity to share with our church and then receive an offering to support her next steps. Of course, we could also give them a monetary gift to say thanks. We are exploring those options and in dialogue with Bella and Cross and Crown.

Seeing people come to Christ and get baptized is a constant joy. We made it through a pandemic with an online-only church for 14 months. That was a miracle. Wondering what Glenn Frank was going to do each week in the online meet and greet was fantastic! Seeing each other's faces each week through the online meet and greet was so powerful and encouraging.

Most honest, it is amazing knowing and seeing how our people truly are being the church throughout the week: meeting together in homes to discuss the scriptures and pray for one another, loving and serving people throughout the week, whether that is reaching out, texting, praying, encouraging one another in our walks with God, taking meals to moms who have given birth, meeting practical needs of one another. When we see and hear this kind of stuff happening… this blesses us.

Thank you. It means the world to hear this. We love you all too.

Before COVID, we had full-time youth workers who were focused on developing the high school ministry and had a team of volunteers serving an outreach to Shorewood High School. It was successful and growing, and COVID shut it down.

We are currently trusting God to rebuild that ministry and provide the laborers for it. It is our hope to have full time workers dedicated to high school and middle school ministry within the next 2-3 years.

In the meantime, we are looking for leaders who have a heart for this age group and would be willing to start relationships with high schoolers and or middle schoolers.

Could that be you? Come talk to us.

There is also an opportunity for parents to open their home for fellowship activities for either high school or middle school and at least start relationship building.

Additionally, we will be addressing this in how we structure group life for youth with our Group Development Team.

We understand that 4pm is not ideal for anyone. We chose this time so we could accommodate families with young children. It is like lukewarm water, no one really likes it. But we are all choosing to be together and this is the best time to make that doable.

While it is our hope to have meeting times that work for everyone, we recognize this is impossible. For some, Sunday afternoons are better than Sunday mornings - worship team for example doesn’t have to get to the space to warm up and practice by 7 or 8am, but, obviously it isn’t for everyone.

Once we establish ourselves in the Hub, we will work to have times that work for as many as possible. It is quite possible we will have more than one time slot to meet to provide the needed flexibility.

Men’s ministry and women’s ministry are a part of our relational discipleship process.  

The good news is there are several women already meeting to provide space for the women in our church family to come together. This was happening months before we left the building, but the move made it impossible to plan without a secured meeting place.

Laura Eitel is currently gathering a team of women to discuss needs of women and what next steps can be taken. You will be  hearing more details soon as they develop. If you are interested in being part of the team, reach out to Laura.

I’m not sure I know what “are we doing it again?” means but I sure hope we don’t have to go through all of that again. 😅

We believe it was right to focus on the building the first year we were in it, because we thought we would be there longer, and we had to settle the space and make sure it worked for everyone.

Now we are in the process of securing a longer term lease at Hub, and working on remodeling plans to host our whole church family, kids space, etc. We are happy to be leasing from great landlords, and not owning at this time.

We are currently putting together a Group Development Team to continue the Home Church Initiative discussion and re-design group life for our church. We will be taking at least one year to thoughtfully work on a plan and implementation. We long for a more comprehensive way for us to be the church and create Acts 2 community in our church and city. Pray for us. We are not going into this process with a predetermined outcome, but we know for sure that we will be doing group life differently in the future, in a way that empowers us to be the church more fully where we live.

YES! The equipment had already been researched just prior to our move, and it was purchased recently. We were trying to implement that in the old building but it got buried under the to-do list. Now- we need a team of people who will say “I’m available to translate”. We need to create a schedule, work to adjust the teaching pace, make a plan to get the notes ahead of time, etc. so that the translators are set up to succeed.

This is not uncommon for people. The 1st step is pray and ask God to give you desire. The 2nd step is to ask someone to help you read it and discuss it so you become more familiar with it, and see it from someone else’s eyes. Passion is contagious, and the more you read and engage the more you will want to. It’s kind of like exercise for some people- they avoid it then love it when they do it and want more if they can just overcome the initial struggle- which is often solved by doing it with someone.

We have staffed a position on our core leadership team specifically for families and children. Angie is building a team around her to continue to serve our families, build community, and help us equip parents for the work of discipling their children. We have recently hired a part-time admin to support Angie and our ministry. Our Children and Families ministry also has a solid ministry budget to ensure ministry needs are well funded.

When we considered moving to C&C, we found they use a security guard for their worship gatherings just to make sure that their ushers wouldn’t necessarily have to deal with any major complicated situation. Ushers can handle simple disruptions but from time to time, C&C did encounter some challenging moments with our homeless neighbors, and believed it was best to use professionals for protection. We decided to follow their example and hire the same kind of security.

We have done some training in the past, and more than likely will do so in the future.

Yes. We believe in collaboration with other ministries for kingdom building and encourage local mission engagement.  

Here are some of the current opportunities we are aware of (we also trust that our awareness will grow over time and we will share that info with you as we do.  If you know of any, please let us know.  We are always learning.)

Yes, we are currently planning a Good Friday worship gathering in partnership with Calvary Christian Assembly and another worship gathering for North Seattle churches in August or September. 

Also, you can also visit other churches during the 40 days of prayer for Seattle in one of the ongoing prayer rooms hosted each week by one of the partner churches. www.prayseattle.org

There are also other prayer opportunities once a month with the North Seattle Churches and with Adoration House weekly. www.adorationhouseseattle.com

When we gather to worship corporately, we involve kids in the front end of our gathering so that we are singing, reading scripture and praying together. Then they are allowed to go to their class because we believe in age appropriate instruction.

In their class we provide a relational environment and age appropriate instruction for our younger ones, so that they can hear the gospel and learn about Jesus at a level they can engage and in a way that is fun.

All this is done while the adults, middle school and higher, are worshiping and learning at a level that they can engage with.  

Parents are free to direct where their children will be.  They can keep them in the gathering as long as they are not disruptive, or they can choose to take advantage of the ministry we are providing for their children.

The best way to get connected is to sign up for coffee conversation or 121 in our app under “Get Connected.”  Also Pastor Jovy is our Connections Pastor you can reach her at jovy@everynationseattle.org if you would like more information.  

Yes we believe we need our own space 24/7 to be able to do the ministry that God has entrusted to us. The good news is that we do not have to own the space. We are looking to establish the Hub as our base of ministry. We are looking to lease the Hub space for a longer term that will give us 24/7 access to and be able to bring everything under one roof, having worship gatherings, kids ministry, community groups, discipleship courses, etc..

We have been approved for a solid 5 year lease with the option to extend.

We have also been approved for expanding our space, adding 2 units which amount to around 2000 sq ft.  We are currently negotiating the pricing for this.

It is unlikely that we will ever own this space. The current owners are planning to develop the property years down the road. It is not our forever home, but we are happy to make use of this space for the next 5 years plus.

We have architects that are drawing up plans now and once the lease is set, we will be choosing the plans and renovations that make the most sense financially and practically to meet our needs as a church. We look forward to sharing that with you as soon as we have them.  

We will begin renovations as soon as we can to ensure a timely move into the new space.

Yes we do. For the past 3 years, Peter Morrill, Rick and Connie Justus, and Manuel Garibay have served on our elder council. Connie and Manuel have stepped off of the council and so we are refilling it currently.

The elder council is the legal board of the church who works with the lead pastor in overseeing the legal, financial and staffing of the church while supplying wisdom in terms of policy and best practices to promote the spiritual and financial health of the church. They help ensure effective ministry and operations in the short term and lay the foundation for ongoing ministry and financial viability for the future.

We currently do not have an age limit on either policy wise. An elder or deacon must meet the character qualifications in I Timothy 3 and Titus 2. Each of these require not being a recent convert to Christianity or spiritual infant, so there must be a degree of spiritual maturity and ability to hold to the truths of the gospel to serve as an elder or deacon. There may be places in the future on teams, where a teenage deacon could be helpful and warranted.

The core leadership team are paid positions and considered the official staff of the church. The elder council are non-paid positions. Deacons are typically servants who volunteer their time to help one of our directors build their ministry. They can be given stipends for their work where it is warranted beyond normal volunteer hours.

Men’s and women’s ministry are a part of the discipleship path and are considered discipleship spaces where relationships, encouragement, and strengthening take place. The team leaders for these ministries are overseen and coached by a member of the core leadership team.

We believe God created male and female in the beginning. They are both made in His image and likeness, are equal in worth and significance, yet they are different. Men and women are different biologically, and have different experiences in life, including roles they play in the family, at work and in society in general. Therefore we believe men and women need spaces to develop relationships within their gender so that they can grow in friendships and help each other address their particular challenges in life.

 

We will be offering the Emotionally Healthy Relationship Course beginning April 19th. This is an 8 week course designed to give anyone relational skills to navigate life. This is a core discipleship course in our church. This course is great for anyone navigating relationships! - for singles, singles who are dating, those who are considering engagement or are engaged or for married couples both new and not new. 

As for marriage preparation, we have a mentor process for couples who are dating and at the place for considering engagement. The process for a couple that is requesting pre-engagement mentoring is to fill out the questionnaire in our app. We then do an intake session to discover your story, and then determine next steps. If our mentor process is the best next step then we will get you connected with a couple who has been trained to lead you through a few sessions of our pre-engagement program. This process involves an online assessment, acquiring a book, and meeting with the mentor couple for about 4 sessions over the period of a few months.

We currently do not have a singles ministry. We typically do groups and ministries as intergenerational, older with younger people together and not demographically inclined.

We have hosted a singles ministry, called the Stable, in the past at our building and are open to hosting more events like these and partnering with other churches and organizations to do so.

We value singles and want to encourage and foster healthy relationships there so we encourage singles to be a part of our regular church life and groups.

If someone has the heart and desire for this ministry or at least to see more social events and opportunities for relationship building to please let us know. 

You are correct. We have a church with pre and post pandemic and one of the challenges is for us to get to know one another.

We need to know each other's stories.

Yes, we currently support several missionaries: Elmer and Joy Matienzo, evangelist and church planters in the Philippines; Bret & Jorie Holman, church planters in Reno, NV; Simon and Shirley Bardone, church planters in Portland, OR; Warren and Lydia Flores, church planters in Romania; Abby and Ross Williamson, educators in Nepal; JJ Briehl, director of FCA at UW; Jeff Vanderstelt, micro church educator with Saturate; and Friends of Women’s Protection Center in Nepal.

We currently have an elder council which is the legal board of our church. They function as governing elders supporting the lead pastor in making church-wide decisions when it comes to budgets, buildings, staffing and overall direction of the church. They also supply wisdom in terms of policy and best practices to promote the spiritual and financial health of the church.

They are not pastors, but we do think they are pretty smart 😂. They are servants of the church that meet the character qualifications of scripture, and use their time and gifts to serve the church body. They help ensure effective ministry and operations in the short term and lay the foundation for ongoing ministry and financial viability for the future.

They are required to be involved and serve in areas of the church where they have gifting and grace.

Yes. We believe so. In the scriptures it speaks of elders that rule or govern well (I Timothy 5:17) and those that shepherd (I Peter 5:1). There are elders that are more gifted at governance, and others at shepherding/pastoring or preaching/teaching.

While our elder council is focused on governance, that’s not all they do. Our current elders shepherd and council people within our church body, lead community groups, and help with premarital mentoring, etc.. it just may not be as visible as some are used to.

 
For example, Peter Morrill has led a community group alongside his wife Megumi for the past several years and they have led premarital sessions. Pastor Rick and Connie led a community group for years. 

In our model, we have divided up the primary responsibilities of governing and shepherding, because we believe it is healthy for the long-term health of the church and for those who serve in an elder role.

We are currently developing a team that will help redesign our group life and oversee and shepherd the group leaders and groups. They will function more as pastoral elders, while our elder council will function more as governance oversight and our legal board.

Yes. Our current elder council has been involved in teaching, one-on-one and in small groups, solving disputes when needed, giving wisdom, they have prayed for the sick, though not in more formal or structured ways, and have helped protect the church spiritually by watching our doctrine and teaching and overseeing our leadership decisions by giving wise counsel to the lead pastor and core leadership team (CLT). However, our elders are not the only ones doing the work described in the question. It takes all of us to care for all of us.

The Elder Council has the responsibility to affirm and challenge leadership decisions of both the pastor and CLT. The CLT also has the responsibility to affirm or question the leadership decisions of the pastor and the Elder Council. The Group Development Team will also have that responsibility. We are accountable to each other. They also have the responsibility to offer creative solutions to kingdom problems, walk in the spirit while doing so, and keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace with each other.

There are other Every Nation Churches that operate this way, particularly in terms of dividing up responsibilities from legal boards and shepherding elders, and in doing ministry in teams. Role descriptions and structures are similar, while titles or terms may differ. Every Nation Churches does not prescribe the structure of a local church and allows us to shift as our needs change.

Please come to the next Welcome and Engage, where you will meet many of our staff and leaders. We believe a healthy church model is not pastor-centric, meaning most ministry happens in small groups rather than it being via the paid staff. The lead pastor's primary job is to equip the whole church for ministry, not be the sole provider of ministry. That being said, the lead pastors want to get to know new people, and actively have coffee conversations and make space for opportunities for lunch or dinner. Within that system part of the way the lead pastors show care for new people is staffing to help them get connected where they receive and give ministry. The connection pastor's role is that specialized help to people get connected to others in the church within different discipleship spaces.

Yes we still have a distinction. Obviously due to covid, we stopped many of our normal processes, however we have begun to restore them. We added new members last fall, and will be doing that again soon. The Welcome and Engage lunches are the first step and then we offer opportunities for people to learn more about ENC and say yes to belonging to our church as members.

We are a community church with a campus reach. It is reflected in our choice of location for sure, but it is also reflected in our staffing. We currently have a campus missionary in training at our Every Nation School of Campus Ministry. RRutanna Lamphear-Ramirez will be returning soon to join our team. She will be leading the charge for outreach to the campuses. She will also be building a team around her to serve the campuses. A portion of our budget is also dedicated to campus outreach and supporting the work of our campus staff.

Yes. Every community meal is intergenerational. Just please let the host know if you are bringing kiddos and need any additional help. Getting a sitter may free you up for conversation, but we know that's not always easy or practical.

Yes. Community meals are completely separate from C-groups. Though C-groups are encouraged to participate either by hosting a meal or by attending others.

Community Meals are meant to be a way for people to get to know each other.  They are helpful for those who want to meet new people in the church community.

There are some similarities in that they are going to care for and coach community group leaders. The difference is that this group is involved in redesigning our group life and will then help implement and oversee it.  

We will not know the exact timeline until we have finalized the longer term lease agreement and choose the plans from the architect that we want to go with. Once we finalize these and present them to the contractor we will be able to get a firmer timeline… well as firm of a timeline as one can get from a contractor.

We plan to negotiate with our current parking partner to use the open parking lot next to the AMC theater and perhaps the lot next to Petco. We will no longer need gated parking which should reduce the hassles we currently have. Street parking, while not plentiful, is free on Sundays.

If for some strange reason, we are unable to secure the 5 year lease agreement, then we will keep our 3 year agreement in place, do minimal renovations to make this work, and task our elders with finding our next space for longer term tenure. We will trust God for His direction and timing for this. It is possible that during the next 3 years, we could do a campaign to raise additional funds that would position us for making a more solid move in the future. That has not been decided yet.

This has not been discussed or decided upon, but worthy of a discussion when we get to the planning phase.  

Yes this is something that we would be open to discussing if it is with the right partner and works well with our needs for the space.  We do recognize the need for good solid childcare in the area.

Every Nation Churches and Ministries has the ECFA highest approval rating. As an Every Nation Church we normally give 10% of our tithes and offerings to support the global work of church planting, campus ministry and world missions. Due to our interesting last year challenges with the building and extra expenses above our normal budget, we were given a reprieve from paying the full amount. We are currently working to fully restore that amount. Starting at 5% and working our way to the full 10%. We are trusting God to increase us so that we can.

Our practice is that the elder council reviews our local budget each month to see how we are performing, discuss what additional financial opportunities or challenges we may be facing and recommend steps to take to ensure financial stability and blessing.

Each year we reset our budget based on past performance of 3 years, and project forward conservatively. We always aim to spend less than we make and save when we can.

Those specific categories were on the Big Give slide, so I believe you may be referring to the “Big Give” which is a one time fundraising opportunity that we do at Christmas to fund ministries above and beyond our normal budgeting process. Our overall budget is directly focused on the needs of the church, including the staffing, and ministry budgets. All of that is for the needs of the church.

We set goals for the Big Give fundraising and didn’t reach them all this past year. The new building budget category was over funded due to a special gift that came in at the end of the year. The numbers accurately reflect what was given in each category but they do not reflect the percentage of all of the needs of the church.

The pastoral leadership category covers areas like pastoral events & travel required by Every Nation, staff development resources, leadership coaching, subscriptions, pastoral meetings, and men’s ministry. 

The current price is $7,967.67 per month, including triple net. We are currently waiting to hear back from the landlords on new terms and pricing, which we will negotiate with them. Hopefully we can get agreement on this soon. Pray that we do. 

Danielle and I are both from North Carolina. We met while attending the University of NC Chapel Hill and served in ministry together there.

Support our leaders, lead where you can, and develop new leaders!

You can pray for us daily that God will fill us with the Spirit and give us the carefulness to listen to His voice and the courage to do His will with all spiritual wisdom and insight.

You can also look for opportunities to encourage any of our leaders and speak words of comfort and strength to us. We need them. If any of us are doing well, tell us and say thank you.

Lastly, if you want to carry weight and help us, you can make our burdens lighter by volunteering for needs when they are presented - inviting people for coffee conversations, opening your home and having meals with people, taking time to get to know others, or simply love the people around and use your gifts to serve them, these are all efforts that help us all be the church not just go to church. This kind of culture is healthier because it helps people not look to the pastors to fill every need of every person.

Awesome to hear. It would be good for you to sign up to serve in our app, and have a coffee conversation with one of our leaders that handles worship. That way you can get that answer pretty quickly.

It is not the same. There's a significant difference between honoring God and honoring your pastors. When we speak of honoring God, we take the reference from I Timothy 1:17, which says, "To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen."

This means that all of life is to be lived with Him in mind so that we live for His glory and honor. It is our responsibility and joy to image God in all that we do, and reflect His character and nature to others. This includes honoring our leaders, and parents, but it is much more comprehensive. As Paul said in I Corinthians 10:31, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God."

Your leaders should be worthy of honor, which I’ll call respect here.  But you are also tasked with thinking through their teaching, checking what your leaders say against scripture, and praying over things that give you pause.  Simply accepting teaching or guidance because it comes from a person in authority is indoctrination, and we are not advocating that. 

We would much rather have a conversation and dialogue about such an important issue because this answer will not represent the full scope of the conversation.

ENCS believes our friends in the LGBTQ community are people to be loved and invited to explore who Jesus is and what it means to be saved by Him and live for Him in the context of a loving community.  

We affirm that every person regardless of background, beliefs, or sexual orientation are to be valued and treated with dignity and respect, because we are all made in His image.    

We also believe that His image in all of us is flawed, that we are all distorted by sin and are all sexually broken. We all need the atoning, redeeming, and sanctifying work of Jesus Christ to save us from our sexual brokenness, and we need the scriptures to show us the way to sexual wholeness.

To those who are struggling with same sex attraction, their sexuality, or gender, we want you to know that you are loved, and welcome here. We are here for you. You have a story and are important to Jesus and us. These struggles require discussion, listening, compassion, understanding, and wisdom. We believe Jesus and the scriptures offer hope and healing and restoration for all. There is much more to be said on this topic of sexual desires, sexuality and gender, and discussed. Something we can do more of in the future.          

For now, I do not know if you are also asking about our view of marriage, but I’ll answer. The scriptures define marriage as the covenantal relationship between a man and a woman and we hold to those scriptures and the Church’s historic teaching on marriage. (Genesis 1:26-28, Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:5-6, Mark 10:8, I Corinthians 7, Ephesians 5:21-33)

At the same time, we recognize our U.S. governing laws define marriage differently, and we respect the right of each individual to live according to those laws.

There is a lot of important theology and understanding of Scripture behind the church’s view of marriage and sexuality historically, and there is also a lot of misunderstanding about that theology and how we handle that in practice.

We understand there may be some of you who are still questioning and unsettled about what you believe either about sexuality, marriage and gender or are of a different opinion.

So many people have been hurt by the church in the way they have been treated. We want to change that and present a different spirit if you will give us the opportunity to do so.

We have resources to help those who may be struggling with this view and want to further study it.  One of our key resources on this topic, we worked through with our staff last year is Preston Sprinkle’s book, “A People to Be Loved.”  We highly recommend this resource.

Please reach out to set up a coffee conversation with us if you would like to discuss this further.

We recently invited our entire church to attend a learning opportunity with Union Gospel Mission on March 4. Pastor Perry attended along with Peter Kim to see what opportunities are there. We are still engaging with UGM about further opportunities and as we learn we will let that be known. If you are interested in learning more or being a part of an effort to serve our homeless neighbors, please contact our office and let us know.

Globally: Yes, we currently support several missionaries:  Elmer and Joy Matienzo, evangelists and church planters in the Philippines; Bret & Jorie Holman, church planters in Reno, NV; Simon and Shirley Bardone, church planters in Portland, OR; Warren and Lydia Flores, church planters in Romania; Abby and Ross Williamson, educators in Nepal; and Friends of Women’s Protection Center in Nepal.

We also look to take short-term teams on mission trips throughout the year. COVID shut a lot of that down, but we are hoping to restore sending teams again through 10 Days Missions with Every Nation. As those opportunities come, we will make them known to our church family.

Locally: We are currently partnering with JJ Briehl, director of FCA at UW, supporting outreach to athletes at UW, SPU, and SU, and Jeff Vanderstelt, micro church educator with Saturate here in Seattle. We are also looking to partner locally for other outreach efforts as mentioned in a few other questions above. We will be planning our own outreach to UW once our campus missionary, RRutanna Lamphear-Ramirez, returns from training school, and lastly, we are putting together outreach training starting this month, and making plans to do Alpha as a church later this year.

We do not have one on the calendar right now, but we will let you know as opportunities arise. In the meantime you can check out Ten Days and see if there is a trip that interests you.