A creative collaboration between Trinity United Methodist Church and Sellwood Faith Community

This week the church modem was acting up, zoom wasn’t talking to FaceBook, and everything just fell apart when it came to worship.  Some might smugly say this is why they prerecord worship, but I’ve seen your FaceBook posts about spending 2 hours filming a 5 minute...

We have been online and physically distanced for 5 months now. We're in a very different place than where we were in March.  I have gotten comfortable with preaching to a green dot on my computer camera. My brain has definitely made a switch around seeing people.  It...

I was attending a training this past week on healing as part of racial equity work and the presenter talked about how we in American culture are particularly good at numbing ourselves from difficulty and pain. As she spoke about becoming unnumbed and how hard, yet...

This past week I was running the numbers of the budget and writing our quarterly report to the agency which funds our grant for Sellwood.  I was really discouraged.  We were on such a great path towards sustainability.  Our building costs were covered by all of our...

For several year now we have been part of the  Southeast Portland Collective youth group which includes United Methodist, Lutheran, and Presbyterian Churches. Every year the youth participate in a week of service projects in to serve our neighbors and learn about the...

Way back in March everything stopped really suddenly.  I forget how quickly I went from sitting in a crowded theater watching our daughter as an extra in an indie film to sheltering in place with every restaurant, school, church, and business in the city closed. It...

This past week leaders from the Southeast Portland Parish gathered over zoom to share what is happening in our ministries, talk about the supports we need, refine our protocols around slowly reopening using our bishop’s guidelines, and review an infographic from our...

We are in a bubble of social distancing with another family. We started with back yard visits, moved on to bbqs with separate tables and condiments, and have finally allowed our children to sleep over at each other’s houses.  And then last week a miscommunication...

This week I’m deleting Jayde as an admin on our Facebook groups, taking her contact info off the newsletter, and removing her access to the websites. It has made me sad to do this work, but it’s also a holy act of setting her free from the responsibilities of this...