A creative collaboration between Trinity United Methodist Church and Sellwood Faith Community
Our community exists to embody the love of God in the world because we believe everyone needs a safe space to be loved for who they are already.
Peace
This week at SFC we explored the theme of peace. As we journey through the church season of advent, looking for Christ breaking in to the world we talked about what peace is and how we find it. This poem is about a peacemaker and the way that people are drawn to...
Hope
This week is the first week of advent, the season of the church year where we practice waiting for Jesus. Part of the theology around advent is training ourselves to see Christ coming to the world. While we remember the historic events in Bethlehem all those years...
Rule of Life
About a year ago I began using a liturgical planner. As I began using it the first task was to create a Rule of Life. Here is the explanation of that task written by the creator of the planner, Jenn Giles Kemper: "A rule of life is a commitment to live your life in...
Vulnerability
At SFC we do discussion based worship. We eat, we share, we talk, and we wrestle with big themes. This means that we are vulnerable with one another. At a table of diverse voices we began on Sunday with me sharing my personal, emotional reaction to this Tuesday's...
Investing in people
SFC is in a place where we no longer are worried about survival. We have a strong core group of folks who have given generously. With the continued support of the New Start Initiative grant we have the resources of people and finances to thrive. We are entering in...
Standing Together
One of the best things about this faith community is the way we support one another. We do that through prayers, by showing up when folks are sick, by attending birthday parties for each other, or attending events in which folks are participating. Recently two of...
Changing Habits
When I was serving my last church community I would go out to breakfast every Thursday to write my sermon. Moving here there weren't any places that seemed the right place to take over a table and spend hours working. I also stopped giving traditional...
Sacred Signs
I grew up in a progressive, social justice oriented church. My Sunday School classrooms had Corita Kent prints on the walls and her work has adorned everything from curriculum to my seminary text books, I just never really knew who she was. I'm lucky...
God on the Edges
I'm not one of those folks that thinks the church is dying. I think the church is changing, but that doesn't necessarily make it any easier to deal with the transformation from a cultural force to a voice on the margins. Working in an institution...
Low Sunday
This past week we had a low Sunday, mostly because the Sellwood Bridge and many neighborhood roads was closed all day so that cyclists could enjoy a lovely, if wet ride throughout the area. Sometimes when we have low Sundays I get bummed out. I worry about the...