At least once every week, someone emails me to ask about Quest Church’s history, connection, and affiliation. Specifically, are we non-denominational, independent, cultic, or affiliated with some sort of denominational group? People tend to be scared of charismatic Asian dudes with long curly hair and bad patches of facial hair.
Minhee and I initially planted Quest as a non-denominational church. I had no interest in denominations. I was burnt out. I was weary and cynical about organized religion and chose to leave my then denominational affiliation. The theme of my life – then – was ‘rage against the machine.’ I was somewhat of an angry deconstructionist pastor. It was probably a good thing that I had no idea what ’blogging’ was back then because it would have been pretty intense. But after some months, I also came to realize that I didn’t want to pastor or lead a church on an island to ourselves. We felt we could do more in partnership and relationship with other like minded and like hearted followers of Christ. So, after some months of intense research, conversations, and reciprocal interviews, we decided to partner with the Evangelical Covenant Church.
Some of my friends still give me grief that I chose to partner with “a bunch of Swedes” particularly because diversity and multiethnicty was always an important ecclesiological pursuit for my vision as a pastor and leader. So, why did I partner with the ECC even despite no truth to the rumors that Covenant pastors receive 50% discount from IKEA? Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: emerging church, family, religion, evangelical covenant church
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