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

We have such an amazingly lovely support network, thank you!  People have been asking us what we need as we adjust our schedule and continue to live our mission as new start planters.  My reply is fairly simply, we need three things:1. Prayers2. People3....

Things are continuously building and changing with our new church start.  We're always learning and that means adjusting as we go.  To that end we are moving back to having only one dinner a week, starting the week of February 8th.  Our core group of 9...

This work of planting a new church can sometimes feel like being on a trapeze without a net.  Part of this is because I sometimes feel isolated and part of it is the pressure to make something grow.  I'm not doing the same kind of work as many of my...

Our online banking username and passwords are scripture references.  This means that every time I log in to balance our checkbook or pay bills I start by typing scripture.  It is a way of being grounded in what I believe as I distribute and manage one of my...

Magic is not a subject that we often talk about in church.  In fact churches are known for being anti-magic, with a reputation for everything from burning witches at the stake to banning books like Harry Potter. In this rejection of magic I think we've lost...

We are about 18 months in to this experiment so it's time to share some data with you all.  I know that our story is not about the numbers, that stats don't capture changed hearts and transformed lives, however numbers are an indicator of life in a community, so...

The last of the four traditional values of advent is love.  Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love are the ways we look for God breaking into our world again and again during the season of advent, which is the four weeks before Christmas.Love is the simplest thing in the...

This past week I was working on the worship order for Sunday on the same day the torture report came out.  If you haven't heard this is the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on the use of torture by the CIA after 9/11.  We as a nation did terrible...

Advent is the time in the church year where we prepare ourselves to see God present in the world.  The traditional themes of Advent are Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love, so that is what I am writing about this season.Peace is the concept we focus on for the second week...

The season of Advent began on Sunday.  This is a time in the church year when we train ourselves to look for the times that God breaks in to the world.  Of course we remember back to the first Christmas when God came as a vulnerable baby.  This is one...