Portland churches in need of congregations

I was getting my hair cut this morning by Wendy the Artist. As usual, the conversation drifted toward bikes and/or religion, and she mentioned that she'd heard of a church down on SE Division that was down to five attendees, but then they got a new leader who brought in a whole new community of Buddhists, and the church was thriving again.

I'd been thinking that the Bike Temple might be able to simply adopt an older congregation -- get a bunch of new families in the organization, help out cleaning the gutters, painting the building, taking care of the elderly folks, and basically have the run of the place. Set up a bike shop in the basement, have lots of great events and parties. If the Boy Scout Troup has been going for 65 years, keep it going, etc.

Then I picked up today's Portland Tribune, and the cover headline is about how Portland has many churches that are simply fading away. The Eastminster Presbyterian Church was highlighted -- only 50 members left, average age 79. Thinking about closing up shop.

http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=126341686375739300

They sound like they're ripe for an infusion of bicyclists to come in, join the congregation, expand the program to include a hefty dose of bicycle healing and worship, and sail off into the sunset/dawn together.

This might not be attractive to the "Zoobomb/MMR" component of Temple followers, but it might work out darn well for the "My Bakfeit is my Family Car" component. A place to gather together as a community, have kids grow up together, have corn feeds in the summer, paint the building inside and out once every 10 years, get the elderly folks to help out serving cookies at bike rodeos, etc. And affirm a deep-seated belief in bicycles.

Thoughts?

Yours in The Faith,

Pasture Ted

(Also, the NE Portland Tool Library jas just moved into the basement of the Holy Redeemer Church -- see story at http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2009/12/vernon_northeast_tool_library.html --this is another example of how the Bike Temple could grow)