Lincoln Street UMC

Our church is a small, warm-hearted, and open-minded congregation. We come to this family of faith because, unlike many churches, we know that here our questions will be respected, our diversity will be embraced, and our own unique search for God will be encouraged. We welcome people of all races, ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations, spiritual traditions, income brackets, abilities, and family structures. Furthermore, since we believe that all language about the divine is allegorical, we use images for God that come from the richness and breadth of creation.

Words from Our Members

Back when I lived in downtown Washington DC, I helped coach a basketball team of 10 - 12 year old boys at the local rec center for about two and a half years. These were kids from the neighborhood or kids of parents who'd grown up in the area and the head coach was a fixture at the rec center, someone who, underneath his gruff no-nonsense approach, loved each of these boys as his own.

There was one kid, Makai, who was a good player but would fall apart if the head coach would get on his case about anything. No matter how well he was playing at a given point, any time the coach would point out a mistake in his decidedly tough-love manner, Makai would burst into frustrated tears as he was sent to the bench where i would try to engage him, usually with little success.

The biggest tournament we ever participated in was a national invitational at ESPN’s massive complex down in Orlando, Florida. For being a neighborhood team we punched way above our weight and we progressed to the quarterfinal round of the knock-out stage. There, we found ourselves down by 13 points with two minutes left in the half. Then Makai went on a tear - 3-pointer from the right side, 3-pointer from the left side, another 3 plus the foul from the right again. We went into halftime with all of the momentum and ended up winning the game running away.

As we were packing up after the game, I sat down next to Makai and congratulated him again on his heroics. All of a sudden, Makai burst into tears just like I’d seen many times before. I was confused and asked what was wrong; and he said, “I don’t know, the game is over”.

I didn’t understand it at the time but it’s plain to me now how those tears were simply a spontaneous release of tension, perhaps echoing through layers built up over time, perhaps through one of the few ways that that particular 12 year old boy knew how. I wish I could’ve seen him more fully back then.

6 years later, Becca and I have settled into Portland and I carry Arlo through Lincoln Street’s doors drawn in by the sound of saxophones. Up to that point, my religious background consisted of attending an Episcopalian high school and the Catholic middle school my parents moved me into in 5th grade, the sort of school that would hold Catholic mass in the gym each month - where every month I would get in line and shuffle up to the priest and, feeling quite out of myself, I would cross my arms tightly across my chest like this to indicate that I would prefer a blessing rather than join in the eucharist.

But In the times that I’ve returned here to Lincoln Street, the thing I am most consistently surprised by is the release I find in this community. Surprised because this release happens before I even understand the underlying tensions they are unravelling.

Which is to say, when I walk through these doors, I often feel like crying. I get choked up when I see Arlo freely offering his ideas during children’s chat. I feel a pang when I notice someone has put a hymnal next to the toy basket in the transept. I get a knot in my chest when, a few weeks ago, spurred by a summertime conversation I had with a friend, I decide to get in line and receive the eucharist.

How else could I have released the self-defeating tension of physically closing myself off to receive a blessing?

So Larry invited me to talk to encourage us to support our church through giving and so this is the part where I say “release the tension on your checkbooks” or something like that. But instead I’ll offer this: the same way that it can get in the way of receiving a blessing, the tensions we knowingly and unknowingly carry with us can hold us black from blessing each other. When you think about giving and you feel some sort of tension, don’t shy away from it. Instead, bring it here. See what happens. The giving will take care of itself.

-Lenny