Loving and Leaving my Seattle Church Era

First Church Seattle (a United Methodist congregation) has been the most consequential appointment of my almost 20 years of ministry. After seven years as their senior pastor, I’m moving out of downtown ministry in July 2024.

Day 0 – Rogue One

2017 was a tough year in the church and society. In the church, it was after the 2016 General Conference of The United Methodist Church that continued to uphold its sinful ban on LGBTQ+ inclusion. In society, the 2016 presidential regime that wanted to regress American politics and eliminate the New Deal was in full swing. 

After both of these events, I was appointed by The United Methodist Church to serve as the senior pastor at First United Methodist Church of Seattle (First Church Seattle). This move to pastor in Seattle was unexpected when you consider the qualities of most of the previous senior pastors. 

• The previous pastors at First Church Seattle had predominantly come with decades of ministry behind them; I was under 40 years old in year…11.
• They had all come internally from within the annual (regional) conference; I was being brought in from the next conference over.
• The most immediate previous pastors were queer; I was a straight white man from Oklahoma!
• They had all served as Senior Pastors; I was previously an Associate Pastor at a large urban congregation in Portland, Oregon.
• I went from supervising 2 positions to 10, and presiding over a church budget that was 10x my program budget as an Associate.

But the lack of typical qualities didn’t matter, as I was strong in what they needed: First Church Seattle is a politically active pulpit. I was appointed to First Church Seattle with the express purpose of pastoring this urban congregation, yes, but also informed I would be supporting the resistance against the powers who prey on the vulnerable in society. In my congregation were lawyers who sued Trump’s regime, medical practitioners who supported COVID public health restrictions, corporate LGBTQ+ organization leaders, union reps, immigration advocates, teachers, and non-profit directors, along with legions of tech workers who often spoke against tech industry excesses and failures, and grandmothers who would write postcards to fight voter suppression. 

If I could provide spiritual support to undergird their social action, then that was a role I was happy to serve in and well suited for. The fact I had been visibly active as a brawler faith leader online for a decade at that point probably helped! 

1000 Days of A New Church Hope

First Church 2017-2020 was a unique place. 

• As I have written before, First Church Seattle is a cathedral congregation, and most of its members commute to the church.
• The church also had both a thriving children’s ministry and progressive theology. Most churches have one or the other: a big children’s ministry alongside conservative theology or a primarily adult ministry with progressive theology. It was amazing to serve a congregation with both!

Having served in an urban parish before, the first 1000 days, just under three years, were joyful. The church was growing, our youth had their largest confirmation class in recent memory, our social witness was well established, and our mercy programs to the hungry and houseless were running well. I had some hard learnings on leadership and supervision, but the congregation and staff stuck with me. We were set to fundraise to eliminate our mortgage from relocating in 2010, were dreaming of expanding our weekly feeding program, and had just hosted a national gathering of United Methodists at the LEAD 2020 conference. We were publishing pastoral letters responding to political news, hosting lunch & learns about social justice topics, and were on the up and up across the board as we were halfway through a 2018-2021 Vision plan for the church.

Then, that all changed in March 2020. 

500 Days of Pandemic Strikes Back

In addition to the obvious, the COVID-19 pandemic impacted First Church Seattle in two unique ways compared to other congregations:

1. We did very well weathering the transition from offline to digital church. We are in tech-centric Seattle, where they have a geek pastor and innovative staff. We looked around to get everything we needed, and we made the jump in 3 days’ time as our bishop closed our sanctuaries before the second Sunday of Lent, March 8th, 2020. We had some trial and error, and I shared our learnings using this blog’s channel for maximum reach.
2. But financially, the pandemic cut off our momentum. While the congregation remained incredibly generous, and we could manage shifting costs, 1/3 of the church revenue came from a parking garage by Seattle’s sports arena and cultural district. With all that shut down by COVID, we instantly lost 1/3 of our budget. Thanks to donors and government assistance and unexpected and VERY well-timed gifts, we kept afloat. Ironically, any consultant’s church sustainability strategy was to diversify our income—and we had! But that meant we were immediately financially affected by the pandemic in ways many other churches who were tithes-only were not.

These 500 days were a lonely, difficult trek filled with innovative mountains we climbed and despairing valleys we fell into. I don’t need to dwell on it because we all know it sucked. 

Finally, the church was able to re-open to hybrid worship earlier than many other churches in our region for a number of factors:

• We penned our reopening plan, which was shut down by–and then essentially adopted by–our annual conference (I said what I said!).
• Our musicians did an amazing job of mixing in-person with recorded music.
• Because we had a recently built sanctuary in 2010, we had an up-to-date HVAC system that could cycle the air fast enough to meet public health expectations.
• As I’ve written before, because of urban public health requirements, our church required attendees to be vaccinated, and those who refused vaccination (there were not many in our socially conscious congregation!) could continue to worship online.

Because of all of those things, we were able to open again in July 2021, and to date, we have had no instances of communal transmission of COVID-19.

1000 Days of Return of the Church

But that’s not to say that all was sunshine and puppy dogs. Returning to “normal“ did not happen at the same rate for the various groups in the church. 

We found we did not minister to two groups well during the pandemic: young adults, and families with young kids. Both of those groups were particularly susceptible to zoom burnout, given that they were on their computers all day doing e-learning or remote jobs. Sitting through an online worship service or learning experience, even good ones, didn’t resonate with these two groups, and the lack of gatherings and providing parental relief was particularly hard. While most of the young adults made their way back after a while and are thriving again, young families did not. It’s demoralizing to be a pastor with young children at home and have the children’s program shrink under your watch. I claim my responsibility for not having pastored this community well enough, and I hope for new energy with this transition.

However, in all other areas of the church, growth was slow but noticeable. 1000 days later:

• The parking garage funding returned and has surpassed pre-pandemic levels.
• We are on track to eliminate the mortgage a year from this writing.
• The hybrid church model has become routine: we have a good tech system, and those who need it appreciate it.
• A massive church reorganization (30 committees to ~8 ministry teams!) and visioning processes happened and continue with intentionality and purpose.

While I know I didn’t accomplish everything I wanted, and the church has some decisions that need fresh leadership, there is joy in the air at the church. I am in prayer for the upcoming new pastor at First Church Seattle, and I know the marker of whether I transitioned well is held in their assessment, not my own. 

Looking Ahead

I write the above to bookend my particular pastoral experience. I have so many stories to share, but those will come over the years with more distance and perspective—certainly not in the days after ending a pastoral appointment. 

I’m sitting in gratitude for an experience I did not merit but was definitely the pastor “for such a time as this” in downtown Seattle during a global pandemic.

I will have a follow-up soon about general learnings from my years of hyper-urban ministry…because I’m no longer going to be in that ministry context. My new church appointment is in a community miles away from downtown, and ministry life will look very different for me. This blog will look different without the daily, gritty experience of urban life shaping it. Thank you for stepping into the unknown with me.

Thank you for reading over my shoulder (I wrote this mostly for me), and be in prayer for continued participation in downtown ministries you are connected to—or should be!

Your Turn

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