Collaboration Helps Seattle Ministries
Eric Likkel and Tim Schaaf believe that collaboration between the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) and the Reformed Church in America (RCA) is helping to break down some of the stereotypes people in each denomination have about the other denomination.
“The more that we work with each other, the more we realize that it is not about being conservative, liberal, or anything likewise. It is about a commonality of people trying to do the next right thing for Jesus,” says Likkel, pastor of Emmaus Road (CRC) in Seattle, Wash.
He and Schaaf (RCA) are co-leaders of the new Seattle apprentice Kingdom Enterprise Zone (KEZ), which is part of the CRC/RCA church-planting initiative called the Church Multiplication Initiative.
“When I go to KEZ, meetings I have learned that I am not there to represent the RCA. Rather, I am just another person representing the kingdom,” says Schaaf, pastor of Refuge, a RCA congregation. “As soon as I realized that, all of the titles disappeared.”
Likkel says that becoming an apprentice KEZ in December 2012 made way for greater collaboration and growth. It was a big step forward for CRC-RCA relationships in the region, providing the opportunity to strengthen fellowship and to share stories of ministry and learning opportunities together.
“In our Christian Reformed cluster in Seattle, we’ve been gathering together and engaging in learning and fellowship for several years, and this feels like a really good next step for our cluster,” says Likkel.
“It feels like it is going to broaden the group of diverse ministries even more and connect us a little more to a fuller geographic area.”
Many people living in the Seattle area are resistant to the gospel and the church, so church planters have to look for new ways to reach the lost.
Yet, says Schaaf, he is at an established church that is seeing a growing number of converts.
“We are actually seeing a lot of people truly being changed by the gospel, and it is because we have our ear to the scriptures, listening to what God is saying, and also an ear to the ground and what is happening around us,” he says.
New ways of doing ministry, alongside the established, can be seen in the Seattle apprentice KEZ.
These include the Green Bean, a thriving coffeehouse ministry that has become a template for similar ministries across the country; Theology Pub, a conversational ministry that draws a group of 35 to 50 highly educated non-Christians interested in talking about theology; The Aurora Commons, a ministry that opens its doors to the poor, mentally ill, displaced, and addicted, as well as a growing group of former prostitutes; and Emmaus Road, which serves people from Union Gospel Mission who are trying to get their lives back on track.
