A church in Washington, D.C. has gained the attention not only of hundreds of young Christians, but also the mainstream media.
King’s Church has a size of about 600 congregants and is located in the basement of a bar one mile from the White House. With its growth taking off during the COVID-19 pandemic, that appeared unique enough to have earned the church a lengthy exposé in Vanity Fair labeling it a “MAGA” hot spot.
Writing for the magazine, Tara Palmeri painted King’s Church as a “recruitment machine” and asserts that the congregation is a “long-term investment” for the Republican Party.
“What makes King’s so startling—even unnerving—for the secular left is how effortlessly it fills a void progressives never cracked: blending identity, community, and political machinery,” Palmeri writes.
Palmeri describes the church’s nondenominational contemporary worship service as “half revival, half silent disco.”
However, Pastors Wesley Welch, 34, and Ben Palka, 35, say they have never worked in politics. Palka says they would “have no idea how to engineer a ‘recruitment machine,’” adding, “we’re going to be honest about the issues, but we’re not going to wave a particular political banner.”
“What we’re doing is pretty typical church outreach,” Palka said.
“If a church is in a neighborhood, they’ll reach out to their neighborhood, they’ll canvass the neighborhood, they’ll invite people to participate in church and to explore Christianity, and that’s all we’re doing.”
Welch and Palka founded the church in 2018 with a mission to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to Washington, D.C.
More specifically, Palka says King’s Church aims to “take a robust biblical … worldview and apply it to people’s lives in a way that the jobs, the lives that they’re living are Christ focused and Christ centered.”
The church’s growth did not begin until 2020, when Palka says he watched amid the COVID-19 pandemic as “young people that previously didn’t take their faith very seriously started taking it very seriously.”
What Palka said surprised him most about the Vanity Fair piece was “how out of touch, the mainstream media is with just Christianity 101.”
“They looked into a pretty normal, young Evangelical church and the only way that they could understand it was through the framework of politics in power, because … that must be how they view the world,” Palka said.
Congregants of the church say they chose to join the community because of the positive experience they had after walking through the church, or bar, doors.
“I think it’s evident that God is moving in King’s Church,” Avery Lance, 27, says.
“By all reports and metrics, young people aren’t going to church,” Lance said, adding, “people in a city like D.C. are not going to church, but King’s Church kind of stands in defiance of all of that.”
Lance and his wife Danielle lead one of the 25 small groups for King’s Church, providing a time to study scripture, pray, share a meal and “bear each other’s burdens and encourage each other,” Danielle Lance explained. “It’s my favorite night of the week,” she said.
On a chilly Sunday morning in January, Welch preached from the book of Daniel in the Bible, using the story of Daniel living in captivity in Babylon as an exhortation to seek the Lord and represent Him regardless of the circumstance.
The church is roughly half Gen Z, 30% millennials, and 20% in the 45 plus age demographic, according to Palka.
“We didn’t set out to be a church for young people. It’s like the Lord’s just done a revival there,” Welch said, adding, “it has been amazing to see the younger generation come hungry for truth and hungry for the Lord, and receiving it.”
Washington, D.C. is young city with 34 being the median age, according to Census Reporter.
Husband and wife Sandra, 45, and Kristopher Klaich, 48, have been attending the church for over four years. As an “older” couple in the community, they quickly became mentors to many of the younger congregants, joking they are shocked so many young people want to spend time with them.
One of those “young people” is Jack Renner who, now 32, has been attending the church since the first year it was founded and believes so many other young people have chosen to join the church because they are hungry for community.
“When you enter King’s Church you can feel the welcoming hospitality there, the love for God and love for our fellow humans,” Renner told The Daily Signal.
As King’s Church continues to minister to the people of D.C. who join them on a Sunday morning or during the week for a small group, Wesley says the vision for the church is not only to one day have their own building, but also to “create a long term ministry here in D.C.”
