Imago Dei Blog

We are about to make the biggest move in the history of Imago.

For the last nine and half years Imago has lived out of rented spaces all over the city. We have been nomadic in a real sense, moving Sunday locations every three or four years.
Our dream has always been to be in the heart of the city of Portland.  From the time that my wife and I moved our family back here to start a church, we dreamed of being a community in the heart of the city.  A few years ago we set out to find a space that we could lease or renovate. The problem that always seemed to keep popping up was that facility costs in this area of town were really steep, and there were very few buildings that could hold us.

So we moved to Franklin High School and officed out of a church building that was donated to us but was too small for our community on Sundays. This started a great relationship with that school. We have met for worship in their performing arts auditorium for the last four years.  Over these last four years God has matured us as a community of faith in very tangible ways.  Expanding our heart for the city, our love for the church and our own personal transformation, these are just a few ways that we “grew up” as a congregation.

A couple of years ago I started a conversation with Dennis Easter who is the Pastor of Portland Foursquare. Portland Four sits in the heart of the city, with around a hundred thousand square feet of space.  Portland Four’s congregation has needed to “right size” themselves into a space that fits them, so they could move onto mission. We needed a space to expand our reach into the city that would be a Kingdom outpost for the Gospel in the heart of Portland.

After two years of talking, praying and committing our hearts to a vision that would see both our churches win, we will exchange buildings on June 20th.  God has been really gracious to all of us, as we have worked together to make this happen. His will and timing are profoundly perfect.  Our rent will be close to the same as it was at the High School, but we will have seven day a week use of the space and be the sole tenants. Franklin High will continue to be one of the five schools we are working with in the Portland area. We are grateful for the amazing teachers, principal, and staff that we have been in relationship with over the last four years.

So now WE Move

When God moves, then we follow. For the last ten years it has been a massive gift to be the pastor of Imago Dei Community, and God has proved his faithfulness to us time and again. This is another installment of the kindness of God who is serious about the city.
Couple of things that I am captured by in all of this:
1.    We learned to not let our facilities determine our mission.
In other words, don’t ever say you can’t do what God has put on your heart because you don’t have the space. We have discovered that the space followed the vision and mission. We have already had people working all over Portland serving the city and inviting people to Jesus. This doesn’t change what we have been doing it expands what we have been doing.
2.    Wait on God, he knows what he is doing.
You can grow an organization pretty quickly, but it takes time to make a community of disciples. God is interested in creating a people of God who look like Jesus. That takes a lot of time and can mean places on the journey when he has you wait, grow up and learn what it means to pray and be creative about his mission.
Pray for us as we move, if you are in town come by and see the new digs, starting on the 20th, look for the Imago sign on 12th and E Burnside.