Rick McKinley lumbers onto the stage like a bear in blue jeans. The screen behind him shows an image of the Portland skyline under the canopy of Mount Hood. He prowls the platform with a bottle of water. But as McKinley begins the message, a call to “Love Portland,” it’s evident this bear is more Teddy than Grizzly.
His speaking style is reflective, biblical, and riddled with humor. His sermon feels like a conversation, despite the hundreds of mostly 20- and 30-somethings gathered in the old high school auditorium where Imago Dei meets.
Emphasizing the reality of sin in the world, McKinley deadpans, “After Genesis 3, the world turns into a Jerry Springer show.” The congregation laughs. “I can tell that joke every week and it still works,” he says. “That’s just pathetic.” They laugh again.
McKinley’s casual charm serves him well in Portland, Oregon, a city liberal even by West Coast standards. The importance of relationships and community is reflected in Portland’s ubiquitous coffee shops and pubs. Those values are evident during Imago Dei’s worship service.
After McKinley’s sermon, the band plays as worshippers fill the aisles. For 20 minutes people sing as they move toward communion tables in front. Around the bread and cup, heads bow, alone or in clusters—some blond, black, gray, even pink and green. Imago Dei is an image of Portland as well as an image of God.
When I got saved, I thought repentance was something you did once. Now I know it’s a gift God has given us to renew our lives daily.
But Sunday morning is only a partial glimpse. Unseen are the thousands in Portland impacted by Imago Dei who never attend a worship service. McKinley started the church seven years ago with a vision to take the whole gospel to the whole person. A daunting notion in a city like Portland.
Today Imago Dei is reaching the margins. Its people are serving the homeless, refugees, people with AIDS, struggling teens, single moms, and many others. Its ministry was highlighted in the influential book Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller.
It is a church on the margins, serving people on the margins, in a city on the margins.
How does Imago Dei inspire so many to reach out? “Our goal is not to create a community of volunteers,” McKinley says. “The goal is to glorify the King by doing what he’s called us to do. We’re in a story that’s been going on for thousands of years. The story of Jesus putting the world back together through the gospel.”
We sat with Rick at one of Portland’s bobo coffee shops to discuss Imago Dei’s journey.
What’s Portland like? A hard place be a church?
Portland is a very creative city, and it’s really fun. It’s a pub culture—the microbrew capital of the country. A bumper sticker here says “Keep Portland Weird.” That’s pretty accurate. Portland is a little weird. I walked out of church on Sunday and people were doing a demonstration on how to convert your diesel car to run on veggie oil.
I thought, What in the world? Then I got in my SUV and drove home. (Laughter.)
Does Imago Dei reflect that weirdness?
It has the same weird vibe. In every culture there are redemptive windows for the gospel, and we see those here. Environmental issues are important in Portland, so we can saddle up next to that for a different reason, as a biblical call to stewardship. It’s the same with the arts. Creativity is a great way for us to dialogue with the culture. And Portland is a city of need, and being a church that cares about the needs of the city helps us be a good neighbor.
How did your own journey to Christ shape what Imago Dei has become?
I didn’t grow up in the church. I came to Christ when I was 18, but I had trouble fitting in. I was able to fit in to pretty much any crowd–jocks, artists, punks, or stoners. Just drop me off at the party, and I’ll find my way in. But this Christian crowd was one I could not figure out. It made me feel flawed to the core. Just being me wasn’t acceptable enough. I had a great relationship with Christ, yet …
How were you made to feel unacceptable?
It wasn’t theological issues; I just didn’t understand the culture. I remember going to a party at the Bible college I attended, where we watched Cinderella. I stood there like, Are you serious? What planet am I on? Six months after I get saved, and I’m watching Disney cartoons with Christians. I didn’t want to get trashed or drunk, but dude, there’s got to be a happy medium here. That world just felt so insular and protected—miles away from reality.
Clearly, Imago Dei isn’t like that. What changed?
After I got married and had kids, I started working as a youth pastor in a little church. I finally realized that I don’t have to fit into the Christian subculture. That Bible college culture isn’t wrong, but it’s okay to like U2. It’s okay to enjoy provocative films and theater and other elements of the wider culture. I’ve always connected well with the unchurched, and I began to see that as an advantage missionally.
Is that when you decided to plant a church in Portland?
No, my plan was to start a business in California. I couldn’t do another church job. The entrepreneurial side of me was screaming. If you’re working in a church and you’re an entrepreneur, you feel like you’re trying to run a sprint behind a traffic jam.
So how did a plan to start a business in California become a church in Portland?
I was sitting at Starbucks reading the Gospel of John and Jesus turning five pots of water into wine. That’s like 180 gallons. That’s a lot of wine. I thought, Lots of Christians wouldn’t be comfortable around that Jesus. This same Jesus later tears up the temple with its religious BS.
I remembered how uncomfortable Christians were around me when I first got saved, yet Christ was pursuing me despite the fact that I didn’t fit in.
I had the gospel, I understood the culture, and I understood missiology. So, I felt God wanted me to go take the whole gospel to the whole person.
So did this church reach out to people on the margins from day one?
Not exactly. Early on we were just a small group, and when we started looking at the needs of the city, we had a very honest moment. We admitted that we didn’t really want to love broken, sinful people; we didn’t really want to love Portland.
We prefer safe and protected lives. Most of us don’t want to know about the abuse some homeless vet went through and how he mentally snapped. If I’m honest I have to admit I don’t want to know he exists. I’d rather not know.
But Jesus is ruthless. He’s not ignoring the lepers and the people pushed into places where I don’t have to see them. He goes right to them.
That was a major turning point for us. We met every Wednesday night and repented. I’d lay out all the needs I could see in Portland, and we prayed. We didn’t want to follow some methodology and get 300 people to start a church. We wanted it to be the real deal.
How long did this season of repentance last?
About six months.
That’s a long time to be repenting.
You can’t assume you’re going to have a big emotional night of crying and the next day everyone will love the world. We’re talking about transformation; you’ve got to stick with it.
When did you notice transformation beginning to happen?
I liken it to planting a garden; you throw seeds down and you water, but you have no idea what’s happening. During that season I couldn’t see anything happening. We were just trusting that God’s Spirit was growing something under the soil.
Eventually something started coming out of the ground. Someone emerged who really wanted to love homeless people, and someone else who wanted to share the gospel with her friend. Not everyone responded the same way. Some started engaging in justice issues, others engaging the arts community, and some had a passion for global issues. Their hearts changed, but it was gradual.
Is repentance still important to Imago Dei?
Yeah. We do communion every week, so there’s a natural rhythm of repentance. When I got saved, repentance was something you did once to come to Christ, and you repented again only if you were a bad person. Now I know it’s a gift God has given us to renew our lives daily. It’s a continual turning to the gospel and to the heart of God.
As peoples’ hearts were changing, did you begin organizing ministries around their passions?
No. As leaders popped up, they found their expression in different places.
Churches typically create a structure and then fight entropy. A church will start a youth ministry, for instance, and if the youth pastor bails, they try to fill that slot to keep the structure going. Imago Dei isn’t like that.
We are trying to create an environment and see what God births out of it. We’re trying to make sure that the environment is pure: there’s regular repentance, there’s love for one another, there’s Scripture. Out of that kind of environment come ideas for ministry that we’d never come up with.
So we never sat down and said we want to do this or that. We just fought hard to keep the environment weed-free. Out of that came one guy who decided to take his camp stove down to the street corner and feed homeless people. A group of girls felt called to adopt a low-income apartment complex. They went on a prayer walk and found a rehab center for single moms. They got plugged in there and started serving.
So ministries are not led by Imago staff people.
No. None of them.
Do people ever come to the staff and say, “You guys should start this kind of ministry”?
All the time, but we don’t operate that way. If people grew up in a church, that’s how they think it works. But what happens is the pastor starts a social justice ministry and then people think that’s what the pastor does, rather than it’s what we all should do. It should be normative for everyone to be engaged.
If your role is creating the environment, how do you cultivate a climate of service and mission?
First, lots of exposure. We do a missional moment every other week in worship. We expose people to the needs in the city and the things Imago people are doing to address those needs, and we invite people to join.
Second, experiences. We have two or three major events a year that are intended to get a lot of people rubbing elbows with people they normally wouldn’t meet. Some will stay involved afterwards and keep serving. It’s not that they don’t like marginalized people; they just don’t know them. When you do know them, everything changes.
The guy who leads our homeless ministry would tell you that the homeless are the greatest people he’s ever met. It becomes a reciprocal relationship. Typically we “need” poor people so we can feel better about ourselves, and they need us to supply what they lack. That’s very different from a relationship that acknowledges you’re homeless and I’m not, but we have a genuine friendship.
Third, an engagement plan. You can’t just scream, “You need to go love Portland!” You have to create pathways, some steppingstones for people to get to that homeless person, that single mom, that school. That’s the leader’s job—helping people get from here to there.
What happens when someone comes to you with a desire to begin a new ministry?
If someone wanted to start a boys and girls club, we would say: “That’s cool. Pray about it for a month, put your vision together, and then come back to us.” Everybody has great ideas on Sunday, but if they come back with something on paper, you know it’s something more. We then ask them to gather a team. Nobody starts without a team. If it’s just one person doing it, they’re going to get burned out and frustrated. If they can get two or three people to join them around this vision, then they’ve got a shot.
Does this system work well for you?
It isn’t easy. Imago draws a lot of entrepreneurial people. They aren’t necessarily asking permission to start things. A lot of churches pray that someone will step up and do something. At Imago we pray our people don’t blow something up while they’re serving. Our people are engaged, but it’s really messy.
We let people do what God’s calling them to do. We’re touching people others don’t want to touch. Sometimes that gets pretty gnarly.
What’s your role as the leader of Imago Dei? What part do you play in what God is doing here?
Preaching the Word. I am always explaining this environment. A lot of people can be serving for the wrong reasons. There’s an activist mindset among young people in Portland. That’s not a bad thing, but they need to remember why we are active. I’m always bringing them back to the “why” by unpacking Scripture.
With so many “activists” in Portland, are people receptive to deeper theological issues?
Portland is a fairly intellectual city. People have educated reasons why they’re not believers, so we can’t get away with napkin theology. We’re not just teaching people how to share their faith. In the urban core, it’s a different deal. They need to really learn their faith. And for seekers and skeptics, our ministry to “the least of these” validates the gospel that we preach.
As Imago people serve in the city, do you partner with other churches and programs?
Yes, there’s no way one church can do all that needs to be done. It’s ridiculous to even think that way. When you’re serious about community renewal and social justice, man, you have to get everybody onboard.
We’ve partnered with secular organizations on AIDS and tried to win a voice for Christians in that community. There’s so much already being done that creating a Christian version really isn’t necessary. Why reinvent the wheel? We definitely believe in “no logo, no ego.”
No logo, no ego?
Everything doesn’t have to be an Imago Dei ministry.
Do you promote outside organizations in the church, or do you focus on “Imago Dei” ministries?
They’re all considered the same. There might be a refugee ministry on our website that links over to Catholic Charities. There are people doing great kingdom work in the city for totally different reasons, which is a gospel opportunity in itself, but to come along and partner with them and talk about why we’re doing it—that creates great points for dialogue.
In every community across this country, there are organizations reaching out to “the least of these” who are dying for volunteers. At the same time, churches sit back and think one day we’ll create mission, but it never happens. Find those already doing something in the community, and lift them up as examples for the church. We tend to be so busy building our church programs that those people aren’t recognized.
What should a church expect if it begins to reach out to people on the margins?
Don’t expect it to grow your church numerically. It will grow your church, but it will grow it deep. The reality is some people aren’t going to get better. So the idea that they’re going to mainstream into the church, become members, and start a home group is just a pipe dream. Some people are never going to get off the street. We see people get off drugs and get their lives back together, and those are great stories. But there are Christ followers who are going to be homeless. You have to know what to expect.
How do you begin to clarify expectations?
Churches need to ask, “What part of the problem can we address? And did Christ call us to fix the problem?” Transformation is an internal spiritual thing, not necessarily a socio-economic thing. And I have to be comfortable with that. I’m not here to make them better Americans. We’re here to love them in tangible ways.
Do you expect people you serve to become followers of Christ?
Obviously that’s our desire. We feel the greatest transformation will take place when they put their faith in Jesus. However, we don’t assume that we can produce that. All we can do is create a context for that to happen where people see and hear the gospel.
What do you mean by “see the gospel”?
I guarantee there isn’t a homeless person in Portland who couldn’t tell you the gospel verbatim. They’ve had to listen to it three times a day to get a sandwich. They’ve heard about Christ, but they haven’t seen Christ. Who will sit next to them while they panhandle, who will enter their world? I’ve had friends doing that for 15 years. That is seeing the gospel.
Why do you think many churches are reluctant to reach out to people on the margins?
It seems like ministry today has been reduced to strategy and outcomes and production. And, frankly, that is what makes you famous—developing a new ministry strategy. If you can reproduce it and sell it, you can get a book deal.
Ministry to “the least of these” is about people, and it’s messy. But there are godly people all over this country who have been loving people in the name of Jesus, and I think that’s real ministry.
We hear some crazy stories. Like heroine addicts leading each other to Christ. God using heroine addicts! It blows all your stereotypes. The activity of the Spirit among the marginalized is amazing. Sometimes you have to ask yourself, is God at work inside the church? Sometimes I don’t know, but I do know he’s at work outside the church.
Sometimes we’re just reluctant to join him on the margins.
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