One of our new joys since returning to Seattle has been worshiping at Quest Church in Seattle. This is a newer church that started in an urban center about 5 years ago and seeks to minister to the community through a community center and local cafe.
Their story has been written up in the Seattle P-I and Seattle Times because of its noteworthy and non-traditional approach to doing church and for being a part of the community. They are not seeking to be a model to others so much as have a presence in the community that truly serves that same area. Their outreach team last week held a memorial service for a homeless man that they serve who had no family or community of his own. The warehouse which up until now had served as their worship space on Sundays doubles the rest of the week as "a community center with a computer lab; a tutoring/mentoring center, and conference rooms. Profits from the coffeehouse will be used to the outreach ministries" [from Quest church blog].
Quest church is currently in the midst of a merger with Interbay Covenant Church, which owns the original warehouse and property of the church campus. The last two Saturdays I have helped volunteer with basic work projects as they are preparing for their new launch in the older Interbay church sanctuary this Sunday. This picture is one I took last week when we were busy pulling Rhododendron stumps and laying new dirt around the church building. Our backs started to give up doing the back breaking work near the end of the day so we decided to extract the stumps with a truck and chain. Why didn't we think of this before!?
I'm meeting new people in the trenches, so to speak, and thoroughly enjoying our times working together. Most, but not all, of the workers are much younger than me. It has been a joy to meet them and begin to hear their stories and to join the emerging "good news" story at Quest church.
