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

 On Sunday afternoon I was completely out of energy.  This past week had been fairly intense.  It's lots of work to move in to a new office and get all the pieces in place to pull off that first worship experience.  Physically I was tired from all the moving and...

Today as I finally finished setting up my work space in the new collaborative Southeast Portland Parish office at Trinity UMC I set aside some time for my daily devotionals.  The psalm for the day is 86 and my reading began with: Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may...

This summer my daughter and I are focusing on art.  She was really hoping to have an art class during the school year, but wound up in other awesome electives instead.  This week we are engaging with landscape art.  I have a friend who is a painter and she is hosting...

This week I've packed two boxes and bought a standing desk.  Amanda and I have talked about the art work we'll be hanging in our new collaborative office at Trinity UMC and we have an appointment next week to buy chairs. We'll be liberating her table from the SFC...

One of the more experimental parts of our life as a new church has been the administration piece. With the new Southeast Portland Parish we had to think through all sorts of issues.  How was money going to be handled between the two groups?  Who was responsible for...

This past week our community was rocked by a violent crime.  On a commuter train in the NE part of the city a man began yelling atrocious threats at two teenage girls, one african american, the other wearing a headscarf.  People intervened, telling the man he could...

This week Jeff, Amanda, and I got together to plan the themes and some of the worship and gathering details for July-September.  It took us 3 and a half hours of praying, reading scriptures, listening to Jeff play songs, laughing, trusting, and collaborating....

Several of my friends offered sympathy to me this week that I had to work on Mother's Day.   I think I actually had the perfect day.  I got to share time with wonderful people over a meal, which is one of my favorite things in the whole world.  I love hosting people...

This year we planted a garden.   Last night I cleaned and reorganized my vanity.  Sometimes I sit on the Sellwood Bridge on a bench overlooking the river and watch the birds dance in the air as one of my favorite songs plays on my iPod and the warm evening breeze...

In July SFC will launch into a crazy new reality, a collaborative ministry with a traditional church in the next neighborhood over. As we prepare for this work we've been praying and talking as a community about the logistics of the collaboration for our portion of...