Best Press About Quest
OK, I gotta rip this one off of Eugene..
He calls it the “best press about Quest” mind you, they’re always poppin’ up in the paper, Seattle PI, Pacific NW, but this time they landed it big when they unexpectedly appeared in The Stranger, “Seattle’s Only Newspaper”. Being from Bellingham I’m not sure what our version of The Stranger is. But my closest comparison comes from my days in NYC, reading The Village Voice, that’s a frame of reference for you East Coast readers, if I have any.
A Month of Sundays
Thirty Writers Visit God
30. Quest Church
3223 15th Ave W
Sunday services: 10 am, 11:30 am
The pastor ordered us to hug our neighbors.
“Make them a little uncomfortable,” we were instructed, “by squeezing them a little too hard—that’s okay. It’s part of the getting-to-know-you process.”
With charges of clerical sexual abuse still being leveled at churches great and small, you might think a Christian pastor would err on the side of not encouraging congregants to hug their neighbors past their comfort levels. The getting-to-know-you process? More like the getting-to-sue-you process.
I attended the early service at Quest Church—one of Seattle’s “emerging churches,” a sort of Mars Hill wannabe, if slightly more progressive—on an important day. Quest had been meeting in a warehouse space it rented from Interbay Covenant Church. Six years old, Quest was growing, attracting hundreds to Sunday services, while 65-year-old Interbay was slowly dying, attracting a couple of dozen at best. So in April, Interbay voted itself out of existence and handed all of its property—its homely sanctuary (picture the Brady Bunch’s living room pressed into service as a church), the converted warehouse, a parking lot—over to the upstart. Sunday’s 10:00 a.m. service was the first for the “merged” church, hence the getting-to-know-you hugs.
There was some insipid singing, led by an insipid worship band, and then a sermon preached by what I took to be Interbay’s soon-to-be unemployed pastor. It focused on a selection from Luke: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even life itself—such a person cannot be my disciple.” That verse was a favorite of David Koresh and Jim Jones; isolating someone from his or her family is what cult leaders typically do. But we were encouraged not to read that verse with “a cold, unimaginative realism,” because “Jesus uses hyperbole.” Good to know.
Then Quest Church’s pastor, Eugene Cho, tore a loaf of bread in half, we took Communion, and then we prayed.
A word about the praying: When I was dragged off to church by my parents, we folded our hands together to pray and assumed a posture of humility. In today’s emerging churches, you lift both hands up toward heaven, arms out, in what looks like a sort of double-armed fascist salute. It’s a posture that screams, “Look at me, God! I’m praying! To you!” The more enthusiastic worshippers looked like toddlers reaching up for Daddy, anxious to be picked up and hugged past their comfort levels.
Oh, and Communion? I lined up and tried to take it. But I dropped my piece of wine-soaked bread on the floor. It was an accident. Or a miracle.
DAN SAVAGE
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While I don’t disagree with Eugene, the article is awesome, I have a bad taste in my mouth. No, not that churches were bashed, go ahead bash us, what else is new, but it makes you wonder what it really means to be relevant. And more importantly so, do I gots the stuff to speak to a larger culture? It’s kind of scary, cuz people can read F.A.K.E. all the more so here in Seattle/Bham/NW. So it takes a LOT more than punk hair, jeans, Coldplay-esque praise choruses. Granted, The Stranger and The Voice bring a cynical edge – but still – is there any beauty that can be recognized in Church by a secular culture? What happened to the aroma of Christ? I’m just a little spooked if I had been on that list what would have been said… not that I care, but yes I do a little; shouldn’t the aroma of Christ give pause and cause to reflect even the most staunch athiest / skeptic? Or do I not know what I am dealing with? Have I not gotten my hands dirty enough?
wayne: my take on the whole article is that they sent 30 of their staff to go out the visit their list of churches and to do whatever they can to outwit and outrip one another. i read that article with that in mind and so laughed like crazy.
but i do appreciate your thoughts about the aroma of christ. what encourages me about the article is that it confirms to me again that whether people like to admit it or not, they’re watching you [or smelling you]…