The Legacy of Metanoia Peace Community United Methodist Church: 1986 to 2024

It is widely acknowledged that churches as we have known them in America are dying, including an unusual number of United Methodist congregations. In our own Oregon-Idaho Conference dozens of congregations have closed their doors over the past 10 years, and others are poised to do so in the near future, mostly because of dwindling membership and the attendant inability to meet the rising costs of building maintenance and staff salaries.Metanoia Peace Community UMC in Portland will join the list of church closures at the Annual Conference Session in Tigard, Oregon in June, 2024, but not because we are dying or because of financial difficulties. We will close because our work as a congregation is finished and God has called, and is calling, our remaining members to other places and ways of service. The congregation will dissolve this but the Peace House, which is the current home for several of us, will continue to thrive and serve for several more years through the efforts of the 7 adul