Brian felt himself overwhelmingly compelled by the person of Jesus Christ and His teachings. Jesus was truly becoming the person he wanted to follow wholeheartedly. But at the same time, he rarely felt that same compulsion towards most forms of American church and religion. For whatever reason, Brian just did not seem to find there what he was finding in the Scriptures and the stories of Jesus and his early followers. God seemed to be using these experiences to one day lead Brian into beginning a new church that would somehow attempt to be an avenue for others to connect with God in Jesus.

A few years later, Brian and his new wife, Stephanie, moved to Lancaster County, where they began their adult lives. Brian continued to work on his education and also served as an associate pastor in the church Stephanie grew up in.  Eventually, they also completed a year of full-time internship specifically in the area of beginning new churches.

In these churches, Brian and Stephanie began to meet and serve alongside others with whom they felt they had a real kinship. Here and there, they met people who also felt the dual tension of an overwhelming commitment to follow Christ, while at the same time feeling an uneasiness with—and an incompatibility with—much of popular American church and religion. These relationships continued to deepen, and they formed into a close group of friends who were all very different, both culturally and socially.  Yet at the same time, they all felt a compulsion towards one another and a unity in what it meant to follow God in Jesus. They were realizing in new ways that God does not only call us to follow Him on an individual level, but to follow Him and learn from Him as He works through a group of people who are all different, yet together form a healthy community.

To Brian and Stephanie’s surprise, not only did these people become great friends, but one by one, they, too, began to feel compelled to help form a new church that would somehow attempt to be a vehicle for people, many of whom just did not “fit” in many other churches, to find God. These people became the core of what is now Koinos Community Church.