Community, News | by Pastor Justin Keogh

As we enter the summer months and our city comes alive with sunshine, festivals, and cook-outs, so too do our communities shift gears to enjoy this short and wonderful season together. In years past, communities have seen great fluctuation over the summer months as folks take vacations, travel, hike, camp, and seek to engage with neighbors and coworkers during the extended sunlight. So this year, as we enter the summer, we’re intentionally planning for a shift of rhythms over the next two months. Understandably, this may raise some questions – and so I’ve captured some FAQ here.

Why are we adjusting our rhythms?

In part, there is a recognition that rhythms naturally change over the summer as mentioned above. But more than that, this is part of an intentional structure to enable rest for the community leaders and apprentices, women’s discipleship leads, and community hosts who faithfully serve during the year week in and week out. Rest is a means of grace and spiritual discipline, and is essential for the health of those leading, which significantly impacts the health of the communities overall.

What will our communities be doing?

We’ve encouraged the leaders of each community to pursue a rhythm that fits for their community this season. With 21 communities, that is likely going to mean 21 different plans for the summer – and that’s okay! Some communities are leveraging this time to seek intentional missional opportunities to host neighbors and non-believing co-workers; other communities are adjusting to serve together; still others are taking space for prayer and worship together. All of the communities will be doing something together, whether that’s a structured gathering or something informal, at least once a month over the summer (many doing more).

When will we be back to the regular rhythms?

We’ve set July and August as the designated time for this summer schedule, and will return to our regular rhythm of weekly discussion gatherings in September, following Labor Day.

How else can I stay connected over the summer?

There are a number of great ways to stay connected, even while our community rhythm shifts. Consider the following means:

1. Continue in worship on Sundays. While you’re at it, why not invite someone new to grab lunch following the gathering?

2. Continue serving, or join a service team. Our Sunday worship will remain and still needs your help to run smoothly. Not only does serving on Sunday bless the church body, it also creates and supports meaningful relationships with those that you serve with.

3. Continue meeting with your community in the adjusted rhythm. Just because your community may not be meeting for the regular meal and discussion, doesn’t mean the time isn’t relationally valuable. If your community doesn’t have plans set just yet – consider taking the lead to put together a social, missional, or service event!

4. Save the date and join us for our corporate gatherings this summer

• July 31st – Prayer Night
• August 25th – Summer BBQ @ Myrtle Edwards Park

What if I’m not currently in a community – can I still jump into a community over the summer?

YES! As mentioned above, there is still great value in being connected to other brothers and sisters in our local family. If you’re not yet connected to a community, check out the map of existing communities here to find out which community is nearby your home or work, and then  and let us know which one you’d like to jump in to, and we’ll connect you!

 It is our prayer that everyone who calls DCC home will be meaningfully connected to others in our body for their mutual discipleship and spiritual up-building. If you have any questions on how best to get connected, don’t hesitate to reach out!

May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints. (1 Thessalonians 3:12-13)

Community, City Life, Stories of Grace

“The Stories of Grace series is intended to capture snapshots of God’s grace and glory amidst our every day lives. They are real stories of real people who have seen the fingerprints of God amidst the ordinary—God’s favorite canvas. Each story is personal, unique and, often, unfinished. Through it all we get glimpses of God’s steadfast love, sufficient grace, and ongoing presence with his people.”

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Three years ago I was on a plane, flying out of Honolulu. In the last week, I had stayed in a high-rise resort, dined at five-star restaurants, and visited the most exclusive venues. From my first-class seat, the ocean below was otherworldly, a perfect blue.

It was just another business trip: days overflowing with meetings and projects, and very little sleep. On these weeks, my colleagues and I arrived at the airport on Sunday morning at 5:00am. I traveled a few times a month – once, five times in five weeks. At home, I lived alone. In the office, I alone knew Jesus.

Before, the weekly presence of God’s family in my life had been constant. They were the people with whom I learned, sang, and prayed on a regular basis. Now, time together was rare. I read and prayed alone, and listened to hours upon hours of sermons. In isolation, luxury, and fatigue, the months passed in a blur.

This work was never meant to be a long-term situation, just a stopgap while I figured out what to pursue after college. But work and worry closed around me like a trap. The breakneck pace and all-nighters that were supposed to end after graduation only increased. I was too busy to let anyone into my life, too tired to have any profound time in the Word, and too stressed to think about making a change. Underneath the glamour, my heart felt deeply anxious. I knew, and learned again, that not even professional success can satisfy the deep places of my soul like Jesus can.

One year in, I took a long-planned mission trip with a small team. During those two weeks of kingdom work in Christian community, I knew more joy, more clarity, and more peace than I had known in months. God graciously gave me time to pray deeply with people, enjoy his company, and consider the direction of my life. Shortly after, I decided to trust God with my priorities, leave the familiar safety of my job, and move to Seattle after my projects ended to be closer to family.

The terrifying thing was that I didn’t know what was next. I had no job and no plan. But week by week, Jesus was with me as I prayed, thought, and researched. He encouraged me with his promises to sustain me and provide for me (Matthew 6:19, 25-34). A friend offered me a place to stay outside the city while I looked for housing. Two days before the move, God gave me a great job downtown. I unpacked and got involved with a gospel-teaching church near my friend’s house. All seemed to be falling into place.

But in the next few months, my social safety net unraveled. Best friends got married, moved churches, and drifted apart as they either neglected or forgot to live out the gospel and show grace to each other. I also struggled as a friend and roommate; the long commute and a shared room left little time for me to be alone with the Lord. After months of looking for an affordable place, and heartache over all the personal and relational failure, I moved into the city. I learned that not even my greatest friendships are as trustworthy as Jesus’ care.

It was wonderful to have my own room and to cut an hour each way off my commute. But it was very challenging to get to the suburbs during the week in time for community, and then back to the city. I asked Jesus what he wanted me to do.

A few days later, a work errand brought me past a large “EASTER” sign posted on a nearby building. Surprised to find a church two blocks away, I read its doctrinal statement and discovered with joy that it taught the gospel and the whole Bible. The first visit confirmed that it was indeed home. My church in the suburbs sent me off with their blessing, and I have been with DCC for the last two years.

My life is so simple and quiet compared to what it was three years ago. Instead of jet-setting for demanding projects or rushing through a work-filled week, I have time to be with the Lord and his people. For the past year, I have relished living in a house with four dear sisters in Christ and a family downstairs. We pray for each other, challenge each other, and delight in giving grace to each other. We host coworkers, family, and friends, making connections between them and disciples of them. I am daily in awe of God’s kindness to us. It is a mighty gift to know that my life’s greatest accomplishment is simply to know and love him and others in the ins-and-outs of life.

Two months ago, we were on the plane, flying out of Boston. A dear DCC sister and I had just spent a week walking, laughing, and learning about this city and each other. Every morning, we took time to be alone with Jesus. The trip used the last of my frequent-flyer miles from business travel. It was a special chance to celebrate not only a sweet friendship, but also the gracious way the Lord taught me to treasure his design of life together, for his glory and our joy.

“He brought me out into a broad place; he rescued me, because he delighted in me.” – Psalm 18:19

– Megan Addison, DCC Member

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If you are a member with DCC and have a story of grace to share please email .

Mercy Update | by Pastor Justin Keogh

The Bible contains numerous exhortations for God’s people to care for the sojourner and the alien (Deut 10:17-19, Jer 22:3). And even as we read these passages, we know that we were once ourselves alienated from God by our sin. In 1 Peter, Peter uses this language of “sojourners and exiles” to call our attention to the fact that our home is not of this world, but with God in heaven. He then speaks to our new corporate identity, saying “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Pet 2:9-10). And it is from this mercy that we have received from God that we also extend mercy to others, including the sojourner and alien in our midst.

Mercy Focus Highlight: Refugees

As recently as 2015, Washington was the eighth largest refugee-receiving state! Over the years, we’ve had a number of our members working with organizations like World Relief to serve refugees here in Seattle. World Relief is an international ministry that focuses on disaster response, health and child development, refugee and immigration services, economic development, and peace-building. If you are interested in some ways you can continue to learn and get involved alongside others in our church, please join the Mercy Focus: Refugee group on the City, which will be a go-to place for information and upcoming events!

June 20th is World Refugee Day. This is a day intended to honor the strength, courage, and perseverance of millions of refugees, show support for those who have had to flee their homes, and raise awareness of the situation of refugees around the world. There are a number of special events coming up this month hosted by World Relief and other organizations in the area. Please check the list of upcoming events below to learn more about those, as well as events related to other mercy ministry focus areas!

Upcoming Events:

June 16 – Caregiver’s Evening Out (DCC Building)
June 16 – Stand with Refugees (Seattle)
June 19 – Refugee Community Garden Work Day (Kent)
June 20 – ARTvocavy: World Refugee Day (Seattle)
June 24 – Worship Service @ King County Juvenile Detention Center (Seattle)
June 28 – Swing for Life Golf Tournament (Kent)
June 30 – World Relief Golf Tournament (West Seattle)

To learn more or get connected, email

Partner Prayer Requests:

Refugees

Pray for increased awareness, compassion, and advocacy for refugees through the upcoming events hosted by World Relief and other refugee focused groups on World Refugee Day.

Orphan Care

Caregiver’s Evening Out event on 6/16 – Pray that this event would be a blessing to caregivers and parents, and that God’s love would be made evident in our service to them.

Sex Trafficking & REST

Due to recent legislation, the number of clients seeking aid from REST doubled in the month of April. Pray for the safety of those involved in the sex trade, for lives to be transformed by God’s grace, and for REST to have the resources and ability to support the increase in demand.

Homelessness & UGM

A recent count indicates that the homeless population in Seattle has increased to over 12,000 individuals. Please pray for the safety of those facing homelessness and for the efforts of organizations and ministries like UGM who serve those in need, and that God would use them to bring people to him.

Juvenile Detention

Pray that through the upcoming worship service on 6/24 kids in detention would hear and respond to the gospel.

Life & CareNet

Continued prayers for the mobile unit, that CareNet continues to make progress in the communities they are currently serving (Eastside, Burien, Rainier Valley). Pray that the women who need their services seek them out and use their services, and that they’d choose life and get support they need.

Prayer, Stories of Grace

“The Stories of Grace series is intended to capture snapshots of God’s grace and glory amidst our every day lives. They are real stories of real people who have seen the fingerprints of God amidst the ordinary—God’s favorite canvas. Each story is personal, unique and, often, unfinished. Through it all we get glimpses of God’s steadfast love, sufficient grace, and ongoing presence with his people.”

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Years ago, I prayed: If you teach me, Lord, I would learn. Teach me to fear You, to love You.

When I prayed that, I hadn’t the faintest idea exactly what it would require for me to learn those things, and I probably still don’t. In my more foolish moments, sometimes I think I would have liked to retract that prayer, but I am so thankful that the Lord in His infinite goodness went ahead and answered it anyway.

Circumstances took place this past September that brought me along the hardest and loneliest path I have yet walked, resulting in great depths of depression. Coupled with my acutely self-aware, introspective, introverted self, things were hard, to say the least.

In my many lonely, bitter hours this year, the Lord Himself sat with me–sometimes I did not even recognize Him–and did some of the most painful and tender searching of my heart. I found out how confused I was: I confused discipline with condemnation, I confused God’s voice with my own, I confused Christ’s righteousness in me with the call to “work out [my] own salvation with fear and trembling,” (Philippians 2:12) among other things.

It was okay for me to be confused; it was good for me to learn the difference between all of those things. But it was not good for me to do it alone. In all my confusion and navel-gazing, I would not go to God for answers or comfort or assurance, determined I could find them all within myself if I just looked hard enough. But I only became more confused and despairing of my sin, all the while thinking God was unapproachable.

When I came to the end of all these roads I walked alone, God met me there every time. Through a mess of sermons, books, and conversations with some trusted friends, He bid some storms to cease in me. He helped me and He taught me, with all patience. I learned that, of course, Satan would do everything in his power to keep me from going to God. The good word Jesus had for me was a word I was looking for for a long time without even knowing it: self-forgetfulness. There was no assurance that I would gain from mere self-analysis, because I could always doubt its genuineness. My best moments of assurance were not when I was thinking about my assurance. As Frederick Buechner wrote, I was “too busy apologizing for my own unworthiness to notice” the loving face of the Lord, which had never turned away from me. It required the power of God to simply lift my head and see it.

I am thankful that God is God, and as a college student, I know very well that it makes the world of difference to have a good Teacher.

If you teach me, Lord, I would learn. Teach me to fear you, to love you.

Would you pray this again, Vanessa? Will you continue to pray for this? I hear the Lord ask me sometimes, this side of September.

Yes, Lord, yes.

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My word of encouragement is to all, but directed especially toward those who, even in the church, feel silenced by uncertainty or shame:

First, go to God, look to Him, ask Him. He is big enough for any emotion, and give the devil no opportunity for a foothold, because there is nothing to be gained the more we delay going to God.

Second, seek all of the above with the Lord Himself and with community, too. One thing I learned especially this year was that Christ called me out of my loneliness to dwell in Himself, but also to dwell with the family He gave me.

Lastly, it is cause for rejoicing and thankfulness when the Lord brings us to the day when we can say, in our own voice, that the gospel is good news to us. Even on days when we cannot do the things required of us, things we know we should do but have not the strength to do them, He will continue to do good anyway. And if you can’t believe that, He will help our unbelief if we would but ask. He who does not lie has promised it.

“O LORD, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways…Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts. And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Psalm 139:1-3, 23-24

– Vanessa Lim, DCC Member

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If you are a member with DCC and have a story of grace to share please email .

News | by Pastor Adam Sinnett

This week we announced to the members that, after much prayerful deliberation, the elders have decided to make Sunday, June 10th, the last Sunday that we will gather at 5pm (This will not affect our morning gatherings). We started the 5pm this past October. Since then, that gathering has made up approximately 15% of our total Sunday adult attendance, so it has not been a failure. At the same time, it has not taken root, nor opened up more space in the morning, as we hoped it would. The five o’clock hour doesn’t seem to be a particularly attractive gathering time for us, as a church.

We know that some of you are fans of the 5pm, but it’s not many of you. While we genuinely want to create as many opportunities as possible for people to grow in Jesus, we believe our limited resources would be better stewarded, for the good of more people, by cancelling the 5pm and reevaluating for the fall. We are currently considering three morning gatherings beginning mid-September.

We want to thank the handful of committed volunteers, and band members, that have selflessly sacrificed to make the 5pm happen over the last eight months. Thank you! We will keep you posted as plans come together for the fall. 

Q: When will the 5pm be cancelled?

A: The last 5pm gathering will be held on Sunday, June 10th. Therefore, there will be no 5pm gathering beginning, Sunday, June 17th. 

Q: What do I do if I’m a volunteer at the 5pm? 

A: Don’t quit yet! If you are on a 5pm service team, your Ministry Lead will reach out and help get you connected to a morning service team. But, keep in mind, we still have two weeks until our last 5pm gathering.

Q: What will we do in the fall? 

A: We are still deciding, though moving to three morning gatherings is a real possibility. That means we will only have three months (June, July, August) before we’re back to three again in September. 

Q: Why not change to three morning gatherings now? 

A: Changing gathering times is no small feat and requires significant coordination and communication. Therefore, it seemed most prudent to not attempt that as we enter summer, but wait until the fall. 

Q: Does this mean we will never have an evening gathering again?

A: No, not at all. We are still open to an evening gathering when timing, circumstances, and the life of our church align in such a way that it makes sense. Though, I will say it would be our preference to be able to have everyone gather at the same time! Let’s pray Jesus would make that a possibility. 

Q: Will this change how long I can park in the lots next to the building? 

A: Yes, we’ll be adjusting our parking lot reservation timeframe to end at 2pm on Sundays. So, please ensure you do not leave your car beyond 2pm or you may be ticketed. 

This isn’t a withdrawal, by any stretch, but a recalibration for more effective gospel ministry. The Lord is at work among us, friends. Let’s pray for the Lord to use this change to shake off any spiritual sleepiness and alert us to the importance of the realities we are swimming in as his people. Together, we are “the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15) in Seattle no matter what time, or how many times, we happen to gather on Sunday.  

Christ is all, 

Pastor Adam