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| Rev. Darrell Goodwin. Photo by Karen Johanson. |
When someone told Darrell Goodwin, shortly after he moved to Seattle, that local people needed an inclusive place to worship, he didn’t know what to think. True, he’d ministered a church in Vermont at one time, but here, in Seattle? With him as pastor? He voiced doubt. In the following weeks, a similar message was repeated by others. And so, heeding the call, he set out to see if it could be done.
He decided the answer was, Yes, when, last March, he founded Liberation Ministries, a church grounded in a simple principle: making religion relevant. Modern-day relevance shows up in weekly Bible studies, where, Rev. Goodwin says, congregants mull over such self-generated questions as “What does the Bible have to say about gambling? Or pornography? Or marijuana?”
But such questions aren’t his ministering focus. What’s important to Rev. Goodwin, who also serves as associate director of multicultural affairs at Seattle University, is bringing people together, whether in the pews or on the church blog. In less than a year, the congregation has grown from the low 20’s to the mid-50’s, filled with a mix of gender identities, races, and cultures.
“But it’s not about how many people come,” says Rev. Goodwin. “If they got something out of being together, I’m happy with that.”
For more information, check out: http://www.liberationministries.net
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