There is an excellent interview with Mike Jentes, founding pastor of the innovative Columbus-area church entitled “thequest” on Brian Orme’s blog. Here are the first three paragraphs–to read the entire interview click here.
Interview with Mike Jentes from “The Quest”
1. Tell us about the origin of your church.
thequest (www.thequestcolumbus.com) came about through the vision of Mindi (my amazing wife) and I. She actually came up with the name. We had articulated 7 things that we wanted to be involved in before we jumped into this effort: 1) a church plant, 2) a daughter church, 3) a church that was home church/small group centered, 4) in an urban area, 5) in a community with people our age (20s & 30s), 6) in a community that was multicultural and possibly multi-lingual, 7) that was with our Grace Brethren family.
God answered all seven…We found a “mother church” in the East Side Grace Brethren Church www.esgbc.org which was doing home groups and had a heart for the city of Columbus (it is in the Eastern suburbs of Columbus, OH). In partnership with Grace Brethren North American Mission www.gbnam.org and our network of central Ohio Grace Brethren Churches we endeavored to plant a church in the city, in an environment that reflected where we wanted to be.
God called us to start in the Short North—the Arts District of Columbus (www.shortnorth.org). He gave us a vision for all of urban Columbus, yet we had to start somewhere…and this neighborhood was where He placed us. This neighborhood is a diverse place and is bordered by downtown and The Ohio State University (50K students). It is an important place in influencing this city and we believe other urban centers and parts of the world. . .