Who We Are

…inspired by Christ
…to love and serve with all people
…in restoring all of creation
…to God’s loving embrace.

We are two congregations - Trinity Lutheran Church (ELCA) and McMinnville United Methodist Church - with deep roots in service to our community. We began to explore our common convictions and our overlapping mission to the community and discovered that we could better serve our community by working together. God has blessed our cooperation with a new sense of inspiration and power, and so we have covenanted to share together in all aspects of Christian community and mission while valuing and retaining the particular strengths of our Methodist and Lutheran roots. Since 2005 we have worked in covenant as the McMinnville Cooperative Ministries, one people of two valued traditions.

Yeah, but what do we DO about it?

Our mission to our community includes support through volunteers and funding of: Habitat for Humanity, Cook Elementary School, Trinity Learning Center preschool and daycare, annual Mexico Mission Trip, 12 Step Programs including AA, NA and Al Anon, St. Barnabas Soup Kitchen, Yes! Logos Youth Program, the Community Compassion fund, local food banks… and more.

What do we teach and believe?

Are we charismatic or dogmatic? Liberal or Conservative? Evangelical or Fundamentalist? Traditional or Contemporary?

If you are searching for a church, you might be asking questions like these. Some of them have easy answers but others are less clear. McMinnville Cooperative Ministries doesn’t fit some of the categories that people sometimes put churches in. That is not because we don’t have a clear mission, vision and values. Rather it is because many of the categories represent old arguments and issues that don’t seem very important to us anymore, which raises a whole new set of questions and issues!

Here are some things that will help you begin to understand McMinnville Cooperative Ministries.

We are two congregations, McMinnville United Methodist and Trinity Lutheran, in cooperative ministry;
which means we share worship, mission, community, and outreach with each other. We believe Christianity is all about community, unity, and relationships - and this is one of the ways we live that belief.
We are all about practical spirituality.
We believe Jesus is the best news and the greatest hope in the world. We see the Christian faith as a way of life more than a set of abstract doctrines or intellectual beliefs. We try to learn together how to live, to pray, to think, to worship, to work, and to serve like Jesus – but in our place and time.
We are a dynamic church.
We value spiritual vibrancy, creativity, innovation and authenticity rather than rigidity, control, sameness and conformity. We seek not only to understand the faith, but to experience a vital relationship with the living God. We don’t believe we have all the answers; that we have “got it right” or have arrived. Instead we believe we are learning, growing, and progressing together on an adventure of spiritual growth – an imperfect people being constantly perfected by God.
We are inspired by Christ, loving toward and with all people, and serving the whole creation in Jesus’ name.
We are open and accepting of all people who want to learn to follow Jesus and to serve the world. Our mission is to help each person know the love of God in Jesus Christ for him or herself, to open each person to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in her or his own gifts and calling, and to work together to serve our community and all creation in the way that Jesus did.
McMinnville Cooperative Ministries is an interdenominational community rooted in the historic Methodist and Lutheran denominations.
We belong to a world-wide connection of Christian people who seek to remain rooted in the deep wisdom of Christian scripture and tradition while learning to express that spirituality in relevant words and ways.

A ministry of McMinnville United Methodist Church and
Trinity Lutheran Church.