It seems like that would take you to some unpopular places. Portland is often touted as “post-Christian,” antithetical to the Christian life.
Sure. But for me, not being raised in the church, Portland’s a great place to pastor. In the world I grew up in, there was no Christian facade. And there’s sure not one here. In some sense, the very progressive, anti-religion, anti-church, anti-Jesus accompanies curiosity. Our neighbors are more interested than they let on. So in that sense, Portland is very similar to most of the New Testament cities that the Epistles were written to.
Yes, there are huge challenges to Christianity here. But it creates a very clear, honest conversation. It doesn’t mean it’s not tiring at times though!
So what are some great things about pastoring here?
I’ll just pick one. The established culture of Portland is a disciple-making culture. Portlanders are not traditional, but there are very strong values here. Very high levels of commitment. If you’re willing to wear a beanie in August and ride a triple-decker bike with no brakes, you have to be committed. Usually somebody had to talk you into that, show you how. As Christians then, one of our biggest challenges is to ask what it means to be God’s people in a place like Portland that is often very obviously not our “home.” Are we following Jesus or are we following Portland—just toting around a little cool Jesus with us and saying we’re following him? That’s true in any culture of course, whether our local sin is wealth or Bible-Belt religiosity or whatever.
I had somebody visit up here from Southern California years ago. “Man, this city’s so dark,” he said. “Every time I come here, it’s so dark.” He went on and on. “Yeah,” I said, “but you live in a culture where women have to get breast implants and inject chemicals into their faces to feel OK about themselves. There are people in your church doing that. That’s not dark? No matter where you go, there’s darkness. It just rains here more.”
Portland, in the 16 years since you’ve planted, has changed dramatically. Many young planters have moved here with big dreams about church and reaching the city—and I can’t count how many I’ve personally seen give up after a short time. I think that’s true in urban centers across America. Gives us a vision as a 16-year veteran to others who may be starting out.
I feel that God had me plant Imago for my own transformation. One thing I had to let go of early was my idealism. Imago still has a fair amount of that—we’re a church of artists and activists—but some of the early dreams I had as a planter are long gone. Like, that everyone will always be happy or think “my” church is great. Those things go pretty quickly.
A lot of the stuff you learn early on, especially if you have some amount of success and God’s favor, can be counterproductive to the inner life. I’m sure I was super arrogant in those early days. But there are some things that have remained true—only heightening in their importance as the years pass.
First, character is everything. So many people come to Imago because they’re passionate about justice or environment or so forth. But they may not love Jesus the way we do.
We made a lot of mistakes early on, not making character one of the key requirements in order to lead. In my opinion, it’s similar in principle to what we’ve done on a national level with celebrity pastors. We all know that starting a church or ministry and making it big and successful can be done without character underneath. We also know how enormous the fallout can be from that.
Part of that is not submitting to authority. The church planter, when you’re 30 like I was, thinks, I don’t need to be under authority. I’m old enough now. I’m planning my own work. I can put together my own team. I’m ready to be in charge. For me, I was set up for that by 10 years of frustration, working at churches that were high-centered or in decline.
But watching churches around me with charismatic leaders, who assembled boards of yes-men or all people who work for you—basically no one that can fire you—that is so dangerous. Young guys detest that, because none of us wants to be told no, right when we feel we’re coming into our own. They want to chase a dream. But what makes the character piece continue to develop and not blow up, I think, is submission. Someone has to be able to tell you that you’re out of hand or arrogant or whatever.
I try to be honest and vulnerable with my own life—not working my stuff out with the congregation, but being honest enough to communicate with them. For example, the past year has probably been the hardest in our lives for my wife and me. And our congregation knows that. They also know that I’m a man under authority—I am accountable. We have a lay group of elders—which is a challenge—but important. I try to share vulnerably with my staff and elders, to take them through what God is teaching me. We focus a lot on spiritual formation of the leader—of all our leaders—because I think they’re gifted, called and doing great work, but need to make sure that all our hearts are continually being transformed and growing. That starts with me. But it can’t stay there.
When you don’t have that, you either see people blow up or you see growth stop. A church will tap out at, say, 250, and simply begin turning over hundreds of people like it has revolving doors, but not grow, because it’s not rooted in character. They aren’t going to grow past those flaws. Just think about how few people finish well. Most people don’t continue to grow. You don’t move from ministry maturity to life maturity, you just keep pounding the same nail. All of that has to do with who you submit to. No leader is so amazing that they shouldn’t have true authority over them. So when you hear people who don’t have authority over them claim that “I’m just here to serve Jesus,” but they’re driving the car off a cliff because of their own flaws, I don’t buy that.
We can see that from here in Portland. We’re just outside of the Christian mainstream enough to have some perspective. I shouldn’t say this, because I’m still writing books and no one will buy them now [laughs], but ministry culture can feed all the wrong things in a leader. I worry about us, and the pastors coming behind me.
It’s pretty easy to get a book deal now. To get on stages. But we can sell out our soul and sell out our mission for popularity elsewhere, while our mission is local. Are you here, Pastor? Present with your people and place? God’s planted you somewhere to grow a church and transform a city through the gospel. That’s hard to do if you’re speaking at the next great conference all over the world.
Is that the story behind 16 years? Many other “successful” pastors move on long before that.
There have been seasons where I’ve wondered, Really? Am I going to be stuck in rainy Portland forever? But the benefit of being at Imago for 16 years, the benefit of longevity, happens in the city. We’re seeing incredible things, that we started early on, flourishing. School partnerships, for example. We partnered with a school for eight years before it really started to gain traction. But it has become an incredible blessing to both Portland’s kids and us. Or look at foster care—in 18 months a ministry that our region desperately needed went from three couples at Imago to 72 churches in our area. It was our longevity here that cultivated the soil and built unity among churches. Now, the impact on the city can happen at a large scale, and happen fast. I don’t think you get that kind of impact if a leader is just bouncing every few years to the next cool thing. But to stay, you’re going to have to go through the deserts.
You’re going to have to clean up messes. Church may stop being exciting for a season. You’ll have dry times in your soul. But looking back over 16 years, I can see God’s hand in all of it. Wow. There is so much grace and fruit that we don’t anticipate.
Longevity. Honestly, it’s my greatest joy as a pastor right now. Sixteen years isn’t that long, but I am getting to the point where I can look around and see families that had little kids when we started gathering—those kids are getting married here now. People have traveled this journey with you. Then, the city. Being able to actually say that we live the gospel story. The gospel is enough! What Jesus said actually works! We don’t have to sell out to some gimmick or hide in a self-protective group, shivering at the culture around us. We can risk and proclaim and engage our place, and it works. People meet Jesus. The city gets changed. We get to live the kinds of stories that many folks only read about. The gospel is big and alive and real and powerful. We get to live its mystery every day.
It’s hard as hell. But it’s good. And it bears incredible fruit.
Yes—even here in Portland.
As we say goodbye, I’m grateful for that wisdom, and reminded that even here on the frontier, what might seem cutting-edge may be the very oldest heritage of our shepherding faith—a bridge, between the 2,000 years of pastoral wisdom our tradition bears, and whatever the future holds for America.
Somehow, that makes sense here.
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Paul J. Pastor is an Outreach contributing writer and author of The Face of the Deep: Exploring the Mysterious Person of the Holy Spirit.