Why Portland?
Anytime I start talking about church planting and where God is calling us, the first question I always get is, “Why Portland?” The simple answer…God!
Had you told me 5 years ago that I would be moving to Portland, OR to plant a church, I wouldn’t have called you crazy, but I would have been very skeptical. Being in the belt buckle of the Bible belt, most people can’t fathom why I would want to move to one of the most progressive cities in the country. To tell you how we got here, I need to back up and tell you where our church planting journey began.
I have always had a heart to take the gospel where it isn’t. For a long time I thought that was going to be overseas, specifically Honduras. I was rearing to go but one thing after another began to happen and I didn’t have a peace about it and God eventually shut that door. In 2016 God blessed me with a great pastor who began to reshape my mind on taking the gospel where it isn’t. He helped me to see that there are people in the U.S. who have never heard the name of Jesus and that church planting state side may be what God had in store for me. After partnering with Trailhead Church, a church plant in Wellington, CO, God began to affirm that stat side church planting is what He was calling me to do.
A lot of prayer, discernment, learning, and correcting took place as I began to wrestle with God on where He wanted us to plant. I thought for a while that we were going to plant in Colorado, but God never gave me a real peace about that. In the search for where God was going to have me/us plant one day I made a list of 50 cities in America that I could see God sending me. After A LOT of prayer, I narrowed that list down to 10 based on criteria NAMB set for establishing send cities. I started contacting the NAMB send city missionaries over those cities and within less than 24 hours, the send city missionary over Portland and Seattle at the time, reached out to me and wanted to talk over the phone. A couple days went by, and we talked for over 3 hours. As a side note, I had not told Holly that I had done any of these specific things. She knew I was praying about where we would plant but didn’t know any of the specifics. One night we were lying in bed, and she asked me if I had thought any more about where God would have us plant one day. I told her I had, and she preceded to ask me if I had thought about the Portland/Seattle area. I then told her about what I had been doing the last few weeks and the conversations I had had with Clay and we both decided that this was a direction worth pursuing.
In 2019 we had decided to lean a little more into Portland/Seattle and take a trip as neither of us had been to that region of the country before. In the fall of 2019, we planned a trip for the fall of 2020. In February of 2019 the whole world shut down and we didn’t know if we were going to actually be able to make the trip. Trying to discern what all of this meant we committed to pray and if this was something God wanted us to continue pursuing, He would make a way for us to get out there. One thing after another, God began to open the door for us to get out there. We made our first trip in October of 2020 and came back completely in love with both Portland and Seattle. We then began trying to discern which of those two cities God would have us plant. Pastor Troy aided in this process as he pointed out that we talked about Portland and Seattle a lot but that we talked more about the people we met in Portland. So, we began to pursue what church planting in Portland would look like. I stayed in touch with several of the guys out there over the next couple of years and as we began to sense that the timing was working out for us to go, God began to foster a relationship with a guy that we met on our very first trip by the name of Patrick Grant. We will be partnering with Patrick and his church, Woodstock Community Church for the first couple of years after we move before launching our own church plant in a different part of SE Portland.
Portland has earned a bad reputation, especially in recent years, for violence, protests, and rioting. It is recognized by the Public Religion Research Institute’s American Values Atlas as the least religious city in America. While many would consider Portland a lost cause, we see a people group that is searching for answers. While they search in their jobs, recreational activities, and adventurous lifestyles, we know that the true answers they search for can only be found in Jesus. But how will they find that answer unless someone tells them? In Matthew 9:37, Jesus tells us “The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.” Portland is no exception.
Known for being “different” and proud of it, Portland’s culture is specifically known for being vegan, free-range, free-thinking, coffee-drinking, and sustainable-living. Below are some statistics and facts about Portland.
- Portland is the 28th largest city in the United States but the 10th fastest growing metropolitan area.
- Of the 5 quadrants, Southeast Portland (where we will be) has the highest population with over 150,000 residents.
- Southeast Portland takes up about 21 square miles, which calculates out to over 7,000 residents per square mile.
- There are 17 micro-communities within Southeast Portland alone.
- The average cost to rent a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom house is $3500/month.
- The median household income in 2021 was $78,476.
- Portland has approximately 1 Southern Baptist Church for every 27,000 people.
- In Southeast Portland, there are 8 listed Southern Baptist Churches but only 1 active church plant!