- Restaurants |
- Nightlife |
- Shopping |
- Movies |
- All
Imago Dei Community
Category: Religious Organizations [Edit]
Neighborhoods: Lower Burnside, Northeast Portland, Central Eastside811 E Burnside Street
Suite 223
Portland, OR 97214
(503) 231-5096
2 reviews for Imago Dei Community
I feel weird rating a church because I philosophically don't believe one should join/attend a church based on its merit. I believe community and calling should be paramount over logisticals. That being said, I feel like logisticals are high: worship and sermon were great (although the sound is not good in the high school auditorium). Community also seems very healthy, as we had a group of 14 go out to lunch with us afterward then to a park for Frisbee and croquet.
The thing I find most provocative about the church is that it's a self-professed "Post Modern" Church. Post Modernism is a philosophy that I always abhorred after I became a Christian. In my opinion, it's a philosophy of convenience, a justification for immorality. But as I've matured, I've found that morals are only secondary in the faith and that very few things are absolute, only such things as God and Love are absolute. But even more so than how my personal perspective has changed, I site Paul in his first letter to the church in Corinth, verses 9:19-23, and I paraphrase.
I have made myself a slave to all so that I may win more (for Christ). To the Jews I became a Jew, to the Gentiles I became a Gentile, to the weak I became weak, I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a fellow partaker of it.
By this definition, becoming post modern for a culture and generation steeped in the philosophy is our calling, and an interesting and perhaps seemingly contradictory one at that. So, (to compensate for my non-commital rating), I say that I love what this church is doing. As aging churches are spiraling into irrelevance and closing daily, Imago Dei (meaning the image of God) is fighting for the Gospel and I fully endorse it.
We rushed in to Imago Dei late, tired, and overwhelmed. It wasn't our fault, really. We arrived at the campus of Franklin High School on SE Woodward nearly fifteen minutes before the church's 10:30 AM service. It took us twelve minutes to walk the seven(!) blocks from where we parked (the closest place we could find) to the auditorium.
People in the neighborhood sat out on their from porches to watch the parade of Christians snake its way through the residential streets. I think there may have been some protest from the locals, though, because every block displayed a sign reminding the hip, young, Imago Dei-ers to be on their best behavior. They were.
Childcare is in the gym, where they've got a maze of waist-high plastic fences to keep the kids in and bouncers to keep strange adults out. The friendly staff made us feel good about leaving our kids.
Gwyneth Paltrow's little sister (I don't think she has one, but if she did) prevented us from entering the auditorium. ("Sorry, no seats left down here. You could try the balcony...") So we headed up to the cheap seats, where we were surrounded by 23-yr. olds who might have been protesting H&M's boycott of the city by wearing Arafat scarves and skinny jeans from the Gap. The lead singer of All-American Rejects (again, probably not the real one) wearing an official Imago Dei t-shirt kind of patrolled our section and offered help to people (like us) who looked out of place.
Worship a fun, low-energy, guitars-and-an-African-drum affair. Pastor Rick McKinley preached a humble sermon admonishing the church for the condescending attitude some may have displayed toward more traditional churches. Rick seems like the kind of guy who didn't really want to be the pastor, but there was nobody else and it beats working in a warehouse. He's really laid-back (intentionally so), but seemed to know his Bible and how to use it.
We looked for author Donald Miller (rumored Imago attendee), but I don't think we found him. It's hard to say, because we saw an awful lot of guys who looked like the photo of him on the back cover of Blue Like Jazz.
Imago Dei is the kind of church you get lost in. It's so big that it creates it's own culture and sort of sucks you in. That culture can come across as cool-for-cool's-sake. If you use a Mac and love to hate Starbucks (and go to Peet's instead), you'd probably fit in. It seems like it would be hard to get to know someone just by going on Sunday mornings. It think that's why they have a lot of other little things going on- service around the city, art lessons and workshops, and the like.
Imago Dei has earned a great reputation around the city for their community involvement. They are trend-setters in the evangelical community for their creative arts ministry and social action. Like a blogger who constantly checks his Statcounter hits, the church is keenly aware of their place on the cutting edge of emerging Christianity. If you're looking for a church that won't hurt your street cred with the hipsters, put your Bible in your oversized messenger bag and ride your fixie to Imago Dei.
Worship times: Sundays 9:00 AM, 10:30 AM, 12:00 PM
For more information, visit Imago Dei's website: http://www.imagodeicom...
