A new light: The Refuge provides a new worship opportunity in St. Charles
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| Bill Barrett photo -- Intern Damein Schitter and his wife Leah worship at The Refuge, a new church in St. Charles. |
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Candles and a live band set the stage for a different type of worship experience for the 60 people, mainly in their 20s and 30s, who attended on a recent Sunday.
Church Intern Damein Schitter led the opening prayer: "I pray this would be a safe place," he said. "A refuge."The still-young church called The Refuge was started a year and a half ago by a man who wanted to reach out to people who were disillusioned with more traditional churches.
Lead Pastor Trey Herweck grew up in St. Charles and went on to try several different jobs before he realized he was called to start church. He interned at The Journey, a church in St. Louis, for a year before planting The Refuge in St. Charles with a team of 35 people.
"It's not that the churches here are not doing their job," he said. "There are some people that are either burned by the church or just have this horrible perspective of what the church is. Those are the people that we wanted to at least engage in a conversation."
Kristen Hite, a seventh-grade math teacher, was part of the core team who helped start The Refuge. She said the church offers something different for people in St. Charles.
"I like the feeling of acceptance," she said. "Trey doesn't spend a lot of time - he's not so hung up on the formalities of church. He's more about the relationship with Jesus."
Starting a different kind of church
The practice of sending out leaders to create new churches dates back to the very beginning of Christianity, said Rodney Harrison, assistant professor of church planting at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo. In more recent times, though, churches have begun more intensely mentoring new pastors who are planting new churches. The Refuge is a part of Acts 29, a church planting network that provides training and support to pastors as they plant new churches across the country.
At the same time, Harrison said, there is a new focus among pastors toward reaching out to people who grew up in the church and then left it or turned away. Through the mentoring process, the churches equip church planters to go after the people who have "opted out," Harrison said.
"(Leaders in the Acts 29 network) have this understanding that we want to reach those who are un-churched and the opt-outs are not going to go back to same old, same old," he said. "The chances are they are not going to go back to the church they came from."
Growth
Membership to The Refuge has grown through word of mouth, Herweck said. Most of the 100 members are in their mid 20s. A few teenagers have attended, but most of the youth programs are aimed at a younger crowd - the church has 25 children younger than age 5.
"We pray constantly for gray hairs," said Herweck, who is 32.
Wade Jackson, 57, is one of the few "gray haired" members. He began attending regularly after he visited one Sunday with his children, and found it to be different than what he was used to.
"Every other church seems to be made of the same kind of hellfire and brimstone stuff," he said. "'If you die tomorrow, where will you be the next day?' I revolted and bolted away from that mentality."
One way that members of The Refuge stay connected is through weekly small group meetings at people's houses. One week the members will discuss the sermon and the next focus on fellowship, Herweck said. Small groups are places where people can really talk about what is going on in their lives.
"It's a weekly battle to come in the door and bring your crap," Herweck said. "We all have things that enslave us. It does you no good if you can't walk into a church and be real."
Church members also are trying to push out to reach more people in St. Charles by volunteering in the school district and participating in volunteer projects around town. In May, they will be starting a new series of discussions about everything from steroids to politics, which will be at restaurants on Main Street.
The discussions are a starting point, a place for people to share ideas. Part of the goal for Herweck is to break down barriers people have to Jesus and to be culturally relevant.
"We don't want to be an escape from the world," Herweck said. "We want to be a place that can exist, we want to be a hospital in a war zone."
