imago dei community
Imago Dei Community began as a dream to see a church where people could explore the claims of historical Christianity and believers could connect with God in a deep way through Christ. In November, 1999, Pastor Rick McKinley moved with his wife, Jeanne, and their four children back to Portland. He left a ministry in LaGrande, Oregon, where he ran an alternative service on Saturday nights.
It was clear that some major shifts were in full swing and people were struggling with the lack of meaning in our modern world. As we began to really ask God what he wanted to do, doors began to open to enable Imago Dei to move from a dream to a reality.
YEAR ONE On January 9th of 2000, we started to meet weekly for worship, teaching and gathering in community to develop our core group. The group grew a bit over the next few months, until we realized that we weren't really all that serious about loving the city of Portland. We talked a lot about it, but in our moments of honest confession, we realized that we really didn't want to get our hands dirty feeding the hungry or caring for the disadvantaged. So, we began a season of prayer and repentance in which we asked God to give us a genuine love for the city and to help us love people like he does.
YEAR TWO
YEAR THREE
YEAR FOUR
Not much seemed to change about our statistics and attendance figures during those months of prayer. The indicators of change, however, came in our attitudes and our outlook. We began to change. We began to care about the brokenness of our city. As that happened, the group began to grow again. Soon, we had to move out of Rick amd Jeanne's living room into a chapel, then into a middle school, then into the historic Old Laurelhurst Church and finally into Franklin High School.
Since the beginning of Imago Dei, we launched several ministries that address various needs of our communities and our city. We launched new Home Communities and started innovative ministry training programs.
YEAR FIVE An average of 1400 people attended Imago Dei every Sunday by the time we celebrated our 6-year anniversary as a church. Many of those people are active in serving the city in one of our Missional Communities (externally focused ministries). Others participate in our Home Communities, our School of Theology and in various other internally focused ministries. We have seen the faithfulness and provision of God in numerous ways over these past 6 years. His transforming work in our hearts has made it all possible. We must continue to ask him to show us how to love our neighbors, and as he does that, we continue to respond in faith to the things to which he is calling us.
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