Mukilteo Lutheran church gets new life

Published 12:51 pm Thursday, August 19, 2010

MUKILTEO — When the pastors of Trinity Lutheran Church were contacted a year ago by another Lutheran congregation that needed their help, they listened.

The congregation at Harbour Pointe Evangelical Lutheran Church on Harbour Pointe Boulevard totaled less than 20 people and the church was renting out the space to other churches and groups in order to survive.

“They approached us with options to explore and a potential partnership,” Pastor Eileen Hanson said. “The only viable option we saw was the closure of the congregation.”

One church closed. On Sept. 13, another opened at the same place.

Pointe of Grace, a worship and ministry site of Trinity Lutheran Church in Lynnwood, is off to a strong start, Pastor Paul Sundberg said.

“We opened with a lot of support from the community,” he said. “About 140 people were here both from the congregation and the community. It was spectacular.”

Pastors Hanson, Sundberg and Mark Reitan are a team at Pointe of Grace. They take turns leading worship services at Trinity Lutheran Church and started a similar rotation at the new site.

A pastoral team is unique, Hanson said. But she believes the rotation benefits the community.

“It’s different,” she said. “We all have different styles of preaching and what we have heard from the community is that diversity creates a richness.”

Reitan’s father also was a Lutheran pastor, and so he grew up being part of a church, he said. Earlier this month he marked his 14th year as a pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church.

Hanson said she wasn’t raised in a church. She was ordained in 2003 after working for a Japanese business for 15 years and has been a pastor at Trinity Lutheran since 2006.

Sundberg became a pastor after a career as a banker in 1991. He has been a pastor at Trinity Lutheran for the past nine years.

Their differences don’t overshadow the trust they have in each other, Sundberg said, but they do make them a better team.

“The variety of pastors allows a depth of conversation to take place,” he said. “I tend to think of the big picture first, Eileen works a lot with smaller groups and Mark is very much ‘I want to sit down with a person.’ We all do all of those things but there’s a tendency for us to gravitate to particular areas. It’s very remarkable to get to do those things we most care about as pastors.”

Trinity Lutheran Church has a history of hosting community events and programs to help those in need. Sundberg said he assumes a similar congregation will grow at Pointe of Grace.

The location will influence how the congregation uses the space, Hanson added. A program for the homeless is more appropriate at Trinity Lutheran Church, while a community garden is a good idea at Pointe of Grace, she said.

“Lynnwood is more urban, where an assistance program makes sense, but in a suburban-affluent setting, it doesn’t necessarily agree,” she said.

Ultimately, it will be up to the congregation and the community to decide how the ministry moves forward and the building is used, Pointe of Grace pastors agree.

“We’re not trying to grow an institution,” Sundberg said. “We’re trying to grow a garden, where everybody learns from everybody.”

Amy Daybert: 425-339-3491, adaybert@heraldnet.com.

Pointe of Grace

Worship services are 9:30 a.m. Sundays at Pointe of Grace, 5425 Harbour Pointe Blvd., Mukilteo. 425-263-8730. Volunteers can help prepare a community garden there from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Oct. 17.