drama. pain. passion. a dream. this is what the refuge was built upon. early 2006, through a crazy turn of events, there was a small group of us who had left a mega-church experience pretty wounded, hurt, and, to be honest—a mess! we were in absolutely no position to start a new church but we had this crazy dream that maybe, just maybe, we could create a different kind of faith community where politics and power did not dominate, where relationships superseded programming, equality and diversity were high values, messiness was embraced as a normal human experience, and excellence defined as “perfect people only” was a four letter word. so we had an informational meeting and decided “hey let’s just go for it, we have no strategic plan other than to try to simply live out the mandate to love God and love others” and in april 2006 karl, kathy, and a leadership team of 7 others began meeting and praying and thinking about ways to build the culture of the refuge. we started with 3 of our core values—generosity, healing, and community, and tossed out the sunday service template in favor of something more interactive, participatory, and experiential. we started trying crazy things. some people came expecting to be part of the seed of a new mega church and quickly realized that valuing community, loving the poor and honoring equality do not make for rapid growth.
as time progressed, things have settled in a bit, and who we are has become more clear. we are committed to the marginalized, the oppressed, the ones on the fringe of their faith, of society, the ones who are asking tough questions and know there aren’t any easy answers, ones that are seeking a deep, purposeful life with God and are tired of the status quo. we are a place of brokenness, a place of hope. we tend to mix copious tears with unrestrained belly laughs. we are hacking away at trying to actually live what we say we believe instead of just talk about it. and we have found that it is really, really hard to do. our church has no money. the people in leadership are probably too honest, too messy for the average evangelical church to feel comfortable with. we don’t have a building. we know that worship has to include those who are angry at God as well as though who are exuberantly in love with Him. and it’s all a little unpredictable. but at our core is a deep love for people and a longing to experience at deeper and deeper levels the hope that only Jesus brings. our story is only beginning, we are certain of many more twists and turns we never saw coming. but we know this, our heart is to lean into the story, risk failure, have more courage, and learn what it means to really follow Jesus.
