ELLENSBURG, WA - The Lord seemed to be blessing local church plant Koinonia Fellowship since its founding - but under the surface, dangerous rifts were deepening among church members, leading to an ugly, public split late last week.
The debate reportedly centered around the optimal way to brew coffee for Sunday morning service, with traditionalists remaining staunchly in favor of the Bunn automatic coffee brewer that had been used for the past three decades, and younger revolutionaries advocating the controversial use of a Keurig pod-based coffee machine.
"Some things are worth fighting for. These young kids don't know how much blood was shed for the central doctrines of the faith, like the large-volume automatic coffee machine," long-standing deacon Hank Rollins told reporters. "Plus, brewing all the coffee together in one pot reminds us of the unity purchased for us in Christ."
"Hank and his supporters just don't get it," youth pastor Alexander Jordan said as he sipped a cup of hazelnut-flavored black coffee. "Each Keurig pod brewed is like a snowflake, unique and wonderful - just like each member of the church."
"It's a beautiful picture of our mosaic-like unity through diversity," he added.
The disagreement came to a head Sunday night, as traditional coffee supporters narrowly defeated a resolution to toss the old Bunn machines and replace them with all-new Keurig 2.0 brewers. Voting church members cited a watery, plastic-like taste and a wasteful distribution model as key factors in deciding to remain with the old models.
As expected, the vote rocked the church's congregants, with Keurig supporters splitting off to launch their own church in a neighboring industrial park, and an even smaller splinter group of pour-over coffee purists to begin their own house church.
At publishing time, church culture commentators had declared the move the beginning of a new "conservative coffee resurgence" within evangelicalism, while detractors labeled the move a "fundamentalist takeover" of denominational coffee beliefs.