Our Church Affiliations

We’re excited to share two new partnerships for The Well Church. Since our inception, our church has been non-denominational. We believe there is nothing inherently wrong or sinful about remaining non-denominational. However, our desire for several years has been to fellowship with a denomination that could provide (i) a broader community reflective of our catholicity with the historic church and (ii) global resources to benefit our church and healthy structure and accountability. When we instituted a board of oversight for our church in 2016, this met a need we sensed regarding outside encouragement and accountability that denominations can sometimes meet. In some ways, the board of oversight functioned as a pseudo-presbytery for our elders.  

Over a year ago, our church was unilaterally removed from the Acts 29 Network. Our affiliation with the network was never denominational, as Acts 29 is not a denomination. This departure gave our elders a greater urgency and focus, and they felt a need to explore potential denominations for our church to join. Because we have been Baptist, we knew we needed to seek fellowship with either explicitly Baptist denominations or ones that would permit Baptists to join. The elders of The Well Church settled on two potential denominations, the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC) and the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Lead Pastors Matt Patrick and Chase Davis were tasked with networking and participating in functions of each denomination in order to vet our church’s compatibility with each further.

Matt and Chase attended a Presbytery meeting of the Knox Presbytery of the CREC in the Fall of 2022 as well as the General Council in 2023. Subsequently, they also began to meet with leaders of the SBC, such as Mike Powers, the Executive Director of Colorado Baptists, and Matt Olson, Pastor of Valley Community Church and Director of the Mile High Association. Both denominations afforded great opportunity for The Well Church to be edified and better resourced for our mission of advancing Christ’s Lordship for God’s glory and our good.

The CREC is a natural fit for The Well Church, given our penchant for taking clear biblical stands on crucial cultural matters. We also have many long-standing relationships with ministers in the CREC. After attending the Knox Presbytery and General Council gatherings and seeking clarity on certain doctrinal distinctives, our elders were and are glad to move forward in pursuing fellowship with the CREC. After discussing the potential of joining each denomination with respective denominational leaders, we were surprised and delighted to find out that we could join both the CREC and SBC, reaping the benefits of each. While the SBC is considered a denomination, in many ways, it functions like a network of independent churches. The CREC was founded in 1998 and welcomes a variety of churches into the denomination with several different confessions. While the majority of CREC churches are Presbyterian in their practice, they are open and eager to have Baptists join, given that they abide by the distinctives and policies of the CREC. The SBC has incredible resources and many established churches in Colorado that are aligned with our church. They also provide access to mission and relief work, financial partnerships, and church planting. The CREC has several churches in Colorado (many of which our church has been walking in mutual edification with for many years) and provides a unique set of convictions on cultural matters that closely align with our church’s beliefs and vision. We have recorded podcast episodes with pastors from each denomination (Brian Brown with the CREC, and Matt Olson with the SBC) in order to discuss the benefits of partnering with each.

At a church town hall in the Fall of 2023, the elders of The Well Church shared with the church our intention to join the CREC and SBC and answered any questions or concerns regarding either affiliation. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. At the time of this writing, The Well Church has officially joined the SBC, and we are a candidate church in the CREC moving toward full membership next year. We are excited about this new phase of our church’s greater fellowship. While no denomination is perfect, we believe that both of these affiliations will serve our church and advance Christ’s Lordship in the state of Colorado. Already, we are seeing the benefits of joining in the way of mission partnership, theological equipping, and glad fellowship.