In 1989, my wife and I set foot in America. The first thing we wanted to do was get involved in a local church. From 1989 thru 1992, Alliance Bible Fellowship in North Seattle took good care of us. There we met some of the most loving and wonderful people whom we still greatly admire today.
In 1992, we had the opportunity to speak to our former pastor in the Philippines - from Word for the World in Makati. Through Him, God inspired us to start the work of forming a ministry in Seattle. Together with a sister who was also from Word for the World Young Adults and a middle aged couple from Shoreline, we started the work in Renton and kept it going for 2 years between Renton and Seattle, even without a pastor.
By 1994, Word for the World Seattle was established as we welcomed our pastor from the Philippines. We drew in more members and expanded the ministry in University Plaza Hotel.
Some time after that, probably around 1997 or 98, we became Word International Ministries (WIN) in Seattle. No, we didn't move - we just changed names. Something happened in the Philippines that caused our local church to become a separate ministry from Word for the World and become a part of this new organization. It was nothing that the local church members did or had anything to do with.
In 2002, our church changed names again to NetWork Christian Ministries (NWCM), even as Word International continued to do ministry in South Seattle. Same people, same theology, same Christian work. Once again, the name change having nothing to do with the actual church members’ day to day walk but more to do with disagreements in the higher places.
In 2006, NWCM became 3 churches in order to expand its base and reach more people in their neighborhoods (we were meeting in downtown Seattle even as our people lived in the suburbs). This is probably the first time we experienced an organizational change due directly to the experience of grassroots members who were living all over the city.
A year later, one of those churches affiliated with the Assemblies of God due to the uniqueness of their situation and with the local group's approval.
Now it's 2010 and we in NWCM-Federal Way, one of the 3 original NWCM churches, are potentially switching names again. Does it really matter? We are still in fellowship with the same people who started this whole thing 20 years ago. We still love them as friends, invite them over for parties, reach out to them when they're in need. Of course, because you're more likely to work with the people in your organization, that naturally tends to draw you closer to them than others who used to be really close to you but belong to different organizations.
Is there anything preventing all of us from working together? Could it be that maybe because we're in different organizations, there's an unwritten rule that we're not supposed to work with each other because we should only do things that benefit our own organization? Now that's a conspiracy if I ever saw one.
The Church of Jesus Christ is much bigger than our organizations and certainly the work of the Kingdom surpasses these boundaries. My prayer is that whatever name we choose to serve under, we shall all continue to work as one. After all, we are still the same friends, brothers, sisters that we've always been. We all have the same vision - to preach the gospel, to serve God and to serve His people. Different organizations may have different strategies and may place different emphasis on different ministry areas at any given time - but that's actually a plus. In God's sovereignty, all areas get addressed at the same time because all of us are doing something different.
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