UPDATED: 03/23/20 12:55 a.m.
One of Different Church’s core beliefs is that it should “reverse tithe,” or give 10% off all money collected back to the community. Leaders are already putting that practice into action.
“We've been saving our 2020 funds for a big Easter reveal, but the coronavirus had other plans for us and our community needs help now more than ever,” Jarrett Haas, who co-founded Different Church with his friend Hannah Siegmund, told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.
So on March 18, the church put $3,500 back into the neighborhood by leaving a $1,000 tip at Punky’s Bar & Grill. It also donated $1,500 and $1,000 to Reach St. Pete and the St. Pete Free Clinic and Food Bank, respectively.
Punky’s—a gay-friendly St. Pete favorite—was one of Different Church’s original meeting spots, and members have grown close to the staff. Like all restaurants in the Tampa Bay area, Punky’s is operating at 50% of its normal capacity.
“That means the servers are living on minimal tips,” Haas added. “We gave Punky's a $1,000 tip to be evenly distributed to its 20 employees, which should equate to about a week's worth of groceries.”
Punky’s is also where Haas and Siegmund—a 30-year-old pastor who was raised in the Pentecostal tradition—started bonding over discussions about how the evangelical church needed to evolve. Together, they dreamed of what a different type of church would be.
They wanted to create one that was modern in its movements, but didn’t feel the need to operate like an evangelical-startup obsessed with tracking salvation on a scorecard. It would need to move beyond being accepting and progressive by abandoning hurtful “don’t ask don’t tell” policy towards many things. Haas—who was raised in the Methodist tradition—and Siegmund wanted to honor the intent of the biblical writers when they wrote their statements of faith, but understood that they had to view everything through the lens of love.
“What if the spiritual life is more subtle than repeating a prayer?,” Haas told CL in an email. “What if it’s about a transformed way of life?”
So Siegmund and Haas quit their jobs at the churches they were a part of. Siegmund was fired from her position as a professor at Lakeland’s Southeastern University, which calls itself a “Christ-centered institution of higher learning,” and even had her ordination revoked by her past employers.
They asked local pastors—including Andy Oliver, Preson “Tommy” Phillips, and Justin Woodall—for guidance. After that, they started to look for financial support and quickly realized it would take a core group of friends to fund their mission.
“The congregants want the pastors to tell them what they already say they believe, nothing more. And doing so earns you a tithe check. Which means doing something different earns you dismissal, and even criticism,” Haas wrote about the often “closed loop” of evangelical churches. He added that more than one potential donor refused to be a part of anything that granted the LGBT community equality or questioned the traditional American evangelical interpretation of scriptures.
“We were met with many, ‘I just can’t support something I don’t agree with, statements,” Haas wrote.
The non-denominational Different Church doesn’t necessarily expect its followers to do so, but most churches teach that members should give 10% of their money to the church.
“We try and teach a posture of generosity,” Haas said. “We feel like if people are expected to give 10%, then the church should certainly do it too.”
In addition to Punky’s, Reach and St. Pete Free Clinic, Different has also given to Metro Inclusive Health and Jason Sowell’s Current of Tampa Bay.
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Different Church’s organizers say their organization has a non-fundamentalist point-of-view on scripture plus “other differences to normal evangelical churches.”
In its bylaws, the church—which was meeting at the St. Pete Opera before the coronavirus put the ixnay on public gatherings—describes itself as “a community of questioners committed to exploring faith in Jesus Christ, love for our neighbor, and inclusion for all… and a safe space for people of every race, ethnicity, economic situation, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, background, and belief to discover faith and experience community.”
Its website boldly promises to be financially transparent and responsible while working to ensure that every penny donated works towards creating change in the world. At the moment, none of the donations go towards staffing; Different Church hopes to change that soon. Operations eats at 60% of the budget since the church didn’t even have its first meeting until March 1. Another 30% is dumped into the community through service projects.
“We’re encouraging those among us who have questions about the faith we were given,” Haas said. “We hope to be a place for those who don’t feel like they fit in to the evangelical machine.”
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This article appears in Mar 26 – Apr 1, 2020.