If you are excited by what you find here, or have questions about our community life and practices,  we invite you to participate in this online version of the Metanoia Peace Community.  Register as a site user to participate with us in a deeper discussion and dialogue.  If you're in Portland, we invite you to participate in our Sunday gatherings including supper, or our daily morning prayers.  Or contact our pastor, John Schwiebert, (503 281-3697, john@metanoiaumc.org) and schedule a personal visit.

Who we are and aspire to be in Metanoia is derived primarily from the understanding of church (ekklesia) which is described in the New Testament. We see ourselves as a community of Jesus’ disciples, a particular and unique expression of the Body of Christ, members of the household of God, God’s light for the world, the communion of saints, a priesthood of all believers.

Though officially we are a congregation of the United Methodist Church, we embrace and include persons from many faith traditions. Moreover, our life together is less like that of a typical parish congregation, in that we are committed to sharing our daily life together.

Frodo has a very broad spiritual background that embraces many traditions and centers on female divine imagery and women's experience.  Frodo visited us on Valentine's day this year and brought a valentine message of divine love through the experience of trees and water.   Many of us checked in as to what messages we gained from meditating on a tree within our visual distance.  How lovely to hear each person find a message in the tree that was about something especially relevant to that person.  What a refreshing focus to consider the metaphor in the bible of water as the Divine in contrast with a strict father image heavily relied on in Christian traditions.I will find the verses she used and post them here later.If you wish to learn more about Frodo-you can visit her organization SIster Spirit home.teleport.com/~sistersp/

Most folks, when asked to define “the kingdom of heaven” would probably answer, “Heaven is the realm where good people go to spend eternity after they die.”  But in the Bible, when Jesus speaks of the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God (the terms are synonymous and interchangeable), he is clearly referring to something much more immediate and accessible--a realm that is already among us (Luke 17: 20) and that can also be experienced, and maybe more importantly so, this side of the grave.

The U.S. economy is in a shambles. Each new day brings fresh revelations about the devastating effects of the collapse of the financial institutions upon which millions of Americans had come to depend.

God only knows how much worse things will get if we the people, and those who control our economic system, cannot bring about some much needed change. But, in truth God IS the only one who really knows how to make things better. Maybe it’s time we listened to God for a change.