Root and Branch (interviewed by Shanay Scott)

The History

            Three friends who attended the University of Chicago Divinity School together were facing the same tension. Timothy Kim, Neil Ellingson and Andrew Packman were all in there twenties while in divinity school. They had similar divinity school church experiences. While seeking a church to attend in Chicago they all found that the local churches were not intriguing to them. The churches they visited were either too traditional for the young men or too boring. Inevitably, it became hard for the young men to find an outside community they felt connected with. Although, they experienced a comparable tension all three men had their own unique experiences with church prior to divinity school. 

             The three friends all grew up in theologically diverse homes. However, they were seeking something similar in the context of church. Neil Ellingson was not raised Christian at all. He found Christianity later in his adult life. Due to this for him, the sky was the limit when it concerned church. Neil in particular was looking for a creative way to commune with others. Andrew Packman was raised in an interfaith home. He had a myriad of experiences with religion. He also was looking for a community of people that he could continue the conversation around religion and faith with. They noticed very early on, that traditional churches do not support this type of conversation. Andrew grew up under the Disciples of Christ denomination. He felt that main line churches were dying. Helping to start this new community was also a point of revitalization for Andrew.

            I had the pleasure of interviewing Timothy Kim. Timothy grew up near Los Angles in a conservative church environment. He was raised Pentecostal and was familiar with a charismatic type of worship. Timothy was ready to explore his faith and new ways of church. He was prepared to be less conservative and more creative in his approach to God and worship.

            While their backgrounds are starkly different, all three young men had a desire to see God move in a distinctive way in their lives. They also had a vision of planting a community that would support other twenty something’s looking to relate to people and God in a new way.     

Timothy, Andrew and Neil decided to start their own community. Timothy says “church planting was something very normal for me, growing up in an evangelical environment everyone planted churches. My parents were church planters it just seemed like the right thing to do.”

The vision

Timothy, Neil, and Andrew all spent six months to a year discerning what their new community would look like.  They all agreed they found great benefit in a community where seekers could come and ask questions. They purposely wanted to target theologically diverse people who were in need of community. Apart of the vision statement for the Root and Branch community is, “Forming not so common communities, loving everyone indiscriminately, even if they happen to worship, look, dress and have sex differently than we do.” “Welcoming everyone no matter what they believe and not trying to make them believe the same thing.” I found this vision very interesting and innovative. These three men were up to the challenge of fostering a community that supported individuality. In my church experience, churches always looked to produce people who were as similar in lifestyle and perspective as possible.  Timothy Kim says “This type of environment was very important for us.” “ Since, we as planters were so diverse theologically and in practice, we all believed that the community should also feel comfortable in their assorted beliefs”

            The three men also made it a point to be very intentional about their preaching. They decided very early on that the preaching would not include a high Christology.  Although it is a Christian church and they do not deny that, they purposely try to preach messages that can be relatable to their mixed crowd.

Surely there were some moments of inspiration and unity in the visioning process. Still, Timothy spoke of the challenges of planting with three planters. “Because there were three planters it was harder to agree on stuff” “Many things we had to spend so much time talking about like rituals, and communion.” “We had many theological conversations about why and how we could do things, sometimes these conversations were very frustrating”

            I asked timothy “what would you keep the same or do over in this plant” he responded “ I would not do over planting in a team and using the team model.” “ I couldn’t imagine planting alone” “I would change from the very beginning setting up strict structures for people to have freedom to do what they want.” “There were hardships to get to the point of individual projects and freedoms within the church” Nevertheless, this frustration grew into a precise vision. The three men were able to simplify and agree on the nature of the community.

            During their time of discerning and visioning, they wrote a vision statement and constructed a detailed budget. They submitted this budget to the Disciples of Christ denomination in the Chicago region. This was the easiest denomination for them to go with because Andrew already had connection to the Disciples. The three planters were approved for the funding and was able to rent a building shortly after.  The start up crew for the Root and Branch community was approximately twenty to twenty five people. The community now gathers thirty five to forty five people. Neil, Andrew and Timothy started and received the funding for this community about a year and half ago.

Gathering

            The Root and Branch community is now in the gathering stage of church planting. The community offers two services. They alternate between dinner church and Sunday worship. Dinner church was a new concept for me. I had never heard of it before my interview with Timothy Kim. Timothy said “One of the planters Andrew got the idea from a church in Brooklyn NY.” “ He attended a dinner service and thought it went well.” “We decided to use the model in our own community once we saw how excited he was about it”

The dinner model includes all the members and visitors of the church sitting around a meal and eating together. During this meal the community also takes communion together in an informal way. I asked Timothy who provides the meals? He responded, “ The meals are sponsored by the church and are purposely not potluck style.” “We want our community to feel like the church is doing something for them” “ we just ask that they come and eat with us” 

            This dinner model helps them to be more intentional about building relationships with each other and having productive conversation. I also asked Timothy about the worship model.  He replied. “ On the Sundays when we don’t do dinners we gather in the morning to worship.” “The root and branch worship is not done in a traditional church way” “we have a full band with guitar and base, the music is similar to old black gospel” “ we also are intentional about playing secular music as well.”

            The Root and Branch community chooses not to do contemporary Christian music.  Timothy is the co pastor and he is the music director. He has the liberty to be as artistic and imaginative with the music as he likes.

            The other two planters Neil and Andrew also have their own set of responsibilities in the church. Mostly, Neil does the preaching and the pastoral care. Andrew is a PHD student and he works a quarter time at the church.

            I also asked Timothy about the church’s use of small groups. He said, “There are some small groups that meet, and have become really close. “Its really inspiring to see people meet for the first time at dinner service and later on in the week they are helping each other to move or something else” “There are other small groups that don’t work so well” “I realized when you have a small church community small groups become less important because everyone gets to know each other anyway”

Project Morphed

I asked Timothy, “How has the project morphed, since you started? He responded “The project hasn’t morphed much conceptually we met a lot of our marks as far as worship and community structures are concerned.” He also says, there were some expectations they had in the beginning that have not quite been met yet. “Finically we expected to raise money on our own without the help of the denomination as much, we haven’t done as much fund raising as we would like because of how long other things take to run a church”

            The people that gather in the Root and Branch community are between the ages of twenty-two and thirty-five. This age group is less likely to give to offerings to a church because most of them are not used to church culture. Seventy percent of the funding for the Root and branch project still comes from denominational resources.  Timothy says the community hopes to improve their fund raising in the future. “We hope to find the time to raise more funds, however we have been really blessed because we all have mentors in our lives who also donate money periodically, which helps to keep things afloat.”

            The last question I asked Timothy Kim was “ what inspired you? What experience did you have while in divinity school that helped you to make the decision to join this team and plant a church?”  He responded, “ Before I planted I interned at a plant called urban village. I was the music director there for three and a half years.” “ I learned what success looks like and I got a sense of church planting being possible. “I was lucky to work in a vibrant plant, that was a motivating and helpful thing.” “If I never had that job I am not sure if I would have went into church planting” My church planting partners Andrew and Neil also were able to observe vibrant churches as some point in their journey along the way.

            The Root and Brach community continues to service their population as a relational, deliberate, creative, and diverse space for people to worship, seek the divine and build friendships with one another.