If you love a good question but have felt like church wanted you to stop asking — this is for you. Here, curiosity is not a problem to manage. It is part of how we love God.

Reviewed by the Beaverton First UMC editorial team · Fact-checked June 2026

A lot of thoughtful people around here have quietly written off church — not because they stopped caring about the big questions, but because they got the sense that church did. If that is you, we would like to offer a different starting point: you can bring your questions in with you. All of them.

Doubt is not the opposite of faith

Somewhere along the way, a lot of us picked up the idea that real faith means having no doubts — that questions are a sign something has gone wrong. We do not believe that. Honest faith and honest doubt have always traveled together, and a person wrestling with hard questions is usually taking God more seriously, not less. You are welcome here with your questions fully intact.

You do not have to leave your brain at the door to belong here.

Loving God with your mind

When Jesus was asked to name the most important thing, he answered: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”¹ That last word matters to us. Loving God is not only a feeling or a duty — it is something you are invited to do with your intelligence, your curiosity, and your honest thinking. Methodists have long trusted that faith and reason belong together, part of the same Wesleyan way of following Jesus; we are not asked to choose between the two.

Yes, that includes science and the hard questions

Loving God with your mind means the difficult subjects are on the table, not off it. Faith and science are not at war here. Questions about suffering, about the parts of the Bible that unsettle us, about other religions and honest disagreement — these are not threats to be shut down but conversations worth having. We would rather sit with a good, unfinished question than hand you a tidy answer that does not hold.

What that looks like at Beaverton First

In practice, it looks like a community where you can think out loud. We are an openly affirming congregation with, as our tradition puts it, open minds — and if you are just testing the waters, our guide to finding a welcoming church in Beaverton is a gentle place to start.² You will not be handed a checklist of beliefs at the door. You will be met with grace, and with room to grow.

Questions people ask

Do I have to believe everything to come?

No. Wherever you are — certain, skeptical, or somewhere in between — you are welcome to show up as you are and figure things out alongside other honest people.

Is this a place for people who have left church, or never went?

Yes. Curious newcomers and people carefully coming back both have a home here.

Do you think faith and science conflict?

No. We hold that loving God with your mind includes taking the world, and good evidence, seriously.

If a thoughtful, grace-first community sounds like something you have been looking for, you would be welcome to visit us on a Sunday — questions and all.