My experience at Mountain Creek Christian Fellowship is one of the best ones I've had since starting this blog. This church is active in social justice, you are made to feel welcome while still being given space, both men and women are pastors (which is pretty usual in Free Methodist Community's I have learned) and I got to see how that social justice is tied to their religious faith.
Due to traffic in Seattle on my way back I was late to the service. Once I arrived it was the last song, testimonies had apparently already happened (as I would learn later, and offerings). The setup was that in the above picture, except there was a light on the stand similar to a Unitarian chalice that was meant to represent the congregation being the light of the world and bringing that light out into the world. I was greeted at the door by a nice older lady who gave me a cup full of goodies...talk about welcomings. She was also very sweet too and didn't mind that I was late.
After the song the pastor spoke. She also gave the prayer before the two missionaries who had been teaching the required Biblical course that Rwanda, and two other countries in Central Africa require (she was also an ordained minister) and her husband was the Doctor over there teaching surgery at the school that the Free Methodists International organization had set up. It was wonderful seeing the actual action of social justice...quite a few communities I've been to are only focused on internal happiness of the group, making them more like a social club rather than living action in the world. Their spreading their belief in the trinity was part of what they did too, but I noticed it was where they saw their motivation coming from for the humanitarian work in the first place.
The service took place at the senior center where the Church volunteers a lot, and also uses for throwing clothing drives for homelessness and also working the soup kitchen in Issaquah...this is local social justice and actions of love that I greatly appreciated about this community too. Afterwords I talked to members of the congregation and met the pastor.
It was there I learned that sometimes the pastor is there at the office across the street. I think I shall be visiting at some point and learning more. In my travels it is always nice to find a community that sees outside itself and lives the good of social justice that religion can inspire. Today's visit was a very nice and unexpected surprise.
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