The founders of Bar Church are two couples in their early 30s: Derek Luckett and his wife, Natalie, and Nate and Amy Stone, all of whom had connections to Eastlake Community Church in Bothell, Washington, an evangelical megachurch that experienced a rift when its founder, Ryan Meeks, said the church would be “open and affirming” to LGBTQ+ people.
At first, “I was a fan of it because they didn’t talk about anything church-related,” Brown said. “I think that’s changed in the last few months, so my attendance has been down a bit.”
In a number of ways, this was not typical church. There was no mention of Jesus or the Bible until near the very end — when Nate referred to Jesus’ pattern of going away from the crowds to reflect and pray. It was not conversational either — the Stones talked for more than an hour, but didn’t ask those who’d come to share from their own experiences....
