Harambee hosts Jesus Dialogue with local Muslims

(SEATTLE, 3/30/10) - Some 300 members of a Renton area Evangelical church, a Redmond area mosque, and other local mosques and churches participated in a dialogue on the Islamic and Christian perspectives on Jesus on Saturday, March 27th at the Harambee Church in Renton, WA. Read More

Harambee Church is now an Expression of Soma Communities

For the past two years, the Elders of Harambee have been working through how we can more strategically and effectively fulfill the Great Commission to make disciples of Jesus (who make disciples of Jesus) and plant new churches in our region. Soma is made of Missional Communities--small groups of people being the church in their neighborhoods. Several Missional Communities under the oversight of local elders are called an Expression of Soma. Recently, through the Spirit's leading, the Elders of Harambee Church decided to join with Soma as an Expression of Soma Communities, uniquely expressing what it means to be the church in and around Renton. We are continuing to bring the message and the ministry of reconciliation in the gospel to the cities in the Renton area.

The Harambee building will continue to be used as a Center for Community Development, and our Sunday morning Corporate Gathering will now include both the Renton Expression and the Southcenter Expression. Soma also has another Sunday morning Corporate Gathering in Tacoma where several other Expressions come together in one place to celebrate God's grace and be equipped for the mission.

To help us better understand all this, for the next several weeks, we'll be going through a teaching series at the Corporate Gathering(s) called Soma Basics, and then discussing in our Missional Communities. You can also learn more about who we are and how live because of the gospel on the Soma website

All Teaching Audio now on Soma website

As Harambee is now part of Soma Communities, all Teaching Audio will now be located on the Soma website (including podcasts). Read More

Online Contributions

Harambee and Soma Communities now offers a way to help fund the mission securely and electronically straight from your bank. It's called an eCheck.

* All you need is some info printed on your paper checks.
* You can give once or set up a recurring giving schedule.
* For each eCheck, Harambee/Soma is charged less than the price of a stamp.
* It's even better than your bank's online bill pay. Since it's all electronic, no one has to receive, process and deposit the paper check your bank mails for you.

To give to the Harambee Expression of Soma Communities, be sure to select Harambee in the Expression drop-down box.

Give Now via E-Check

If you must use a debit card, you also have that option but know that the church is charged much higher fees for these transactions, so less of what you give is available for the mission of making disciples. We don't believe accruing debt in order to give to the church is faithful to biblical principles of giving, so we are not providing the option of giving with a credit card. Give now with a debit card...

Missional living – The basics

As mentioned in several excellent previous posts on the Pastor Rant site, Harambee has joined with Soma Communities and adopted the Missional model of living out church every day. For many of us, this is a dramatic shift from traditional church structure, where we as consumers go on Sunday to get charged up, and continue to think of church as a place where we gather to worship, study, learn, receive, etc. We (the Elders) keep hitting on this topic because we know that some people are really struggling to make this change. Read More

What is a Missional Community?

Over the past several months, Harambee has been making a transition to the Missional Community model/structure and joining forces with Soma Communities. I will post a section soon that outlines why the Elders believe God is leading us in this direction, but we’ll begin with trying to answer the question of “what is a missional community?” first Read More