Hi! My name is Jon Hand, and I’m the pastor of Engage Community Church. I have been in pastoral ministry since 2000. I have a bachelor’s degree in theology and recently graduated with an master’s of divinity from Biblical Seminary, located in Hatfield, PA. I’ve been married to my courageous wife, Aimee, for nine years. We have three children Karis (6 years old), Addison (4 years old), and Cohen (1 year). Life is never dull with these three running around crazy!
My Story:
I grew up in a great family. My parents really loved us and were great! I hope you can meet them one day. Unfortunately, my parents were blinded by bad religion (I know-sounds like a weird ‘80s band; it is). We grew up seeing religion as an attempt to make God happy with us by doing a bunch of religious things. You know, reading the Bible, praying on your knees, showing up at church 80 times a week, or cornering your coworker at lunch and condemning her to hell. Those kinds of things. ☺ We lived with a collective sense of dread that God was always waiting to smite us if we didn’t conform, or if we screwed up, or couldn’t measure up. Needless to say, we felt guilty quite a bit. After a while I couldn’t do it anymore, so I check out of God and church.
After some years of thought, time, and meeting some incredible people, I started coming back around to God-not religion, or at least the kind of religion I had known. Even though I carry many painful memories of religion from my youth, I was given a huge gift through the whole process: the gift of understanding. I love meeting people who have been either burned by bad religion or people who simply don’t buy it. I could spend ten hours a day connecting with friends who aren’t fully convinced or those who have been burned. Not because I love arguing religion, or even because I believe I must convince them. No, I love it because it gives me hope that there can be a better way to know God than what they or I have experienced. And I believe one of the best ways to grow in understanding is to keep the conversations going-love and truth, without the judgments, just may result.
I love being apart of Engage. We aren’t perfect, and we aren’t better than anyone else. We are simply trying to be a church that understands where you are coming from, and we believe there is something more, something better than what you have experienced with God thus far.
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