Sean C. Morgan
Joe Medley has been pastor of Fir Lawn Lutheran Church for approximately five years. For nearly a year, he’s also pastored the Sweet Home United Methodist Church.
Medley, 62, succeeded April Hall-Cutting at the Methodist Church. Hall-Cutting had been pastoring three churches prior to leaving the Sweet Home congregation.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has a “called pulpit fellowship” with the United Methodist Church, Medley said. “So I got a call from the district superintendent, who knew I was half-time (at Fir Lawn).”
The two organizations do things a bit differently, he said. The Lutherans call a pastor locally, while the Methodist Church assigns a pastor, although a congregation does have the right to refuse a pastor. The assignment is renewed annually in the Methodist Church.
The Evangelical Lutherans are the largest of five major Lutheran organizations, numbering about 4 million members, Medley said. The more theologically conservative Missouri Synod is the second-largest, with about 2 million members. The United Methodist Church is the largest in the United States and has a large worldwide congregation that grew out of the Anglican Church.
Its founders, John and Charles Wesley, who lived in the 1700s, thought the Anglican church wasn’t into service as much as it should be, Medley said, and they formed the Methodist Church. The Lutheran Church is the oldest Protestant denomination.
Logistically, Medley has no problem being pastor at two churches. He doesn’t need to split himself in half. Services are at 9:30 a.m. at Fir Lawn and 11 a.m. at the United Methodist Church. Doctrinally, the churches present no real issues, he said.
The differences between the denominations aren’t a big deal, Medley said. Where it matters, they are in harmony, both denominations teaching “one baptism,” that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and that “we’re saved by grace.” One baptism is the teaching that once baptized in one denomination, it is not necessary to be baptized again.
The local churches are a little unique in context of their national organizations.
The United Methodist Church is theologically more conservative than the Evangelical Lutherans, Medley said. Here, “I would say Fir Lawn is more theologically conservative.”
“(Sweet Home United Methodist) is more concerned with where the rubber meets the road with service,” Medley said. “That’s an incredible congregation.”
Both congregations are in tune with the community, Medley said, but the United Methodists are about service and justice. Neither are dedicated to making more Lutherans or Methodists.
The Methodist Church hosts a youth community garden and the Manna program, which serves 1,000 meals a month, Medley said. Members from other churches, including Cornerstone (Foursquare), Elm Street Baptist, St. Helen’s Catholic and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon) participate there too.
Medley grew up in Oregon and graduated from David Douglas High School in Portland. He graduated from Portland State University with a degree in theater. He did not grow up in the church.
“I went to college to become an architect,” Medley said. “I became a Christian when I was 21.”
As a college student, he hitchhiked everywhere, he said. He was picked up by many Christians, who told him the Four Spiritual Laws, a popular evangelism technique at the time, and tried to lead him in the “Sinner’s Prayer.” He wasn’t interested. He was targeted by Campus Crusade for Christ, a campus evangelistic organization, but it didn’t reach him.
However, he said, he had a friend who was a new Christian. They would just talk.
“This girl didn’t think she had the skills to convert me,” he said. She just shared.
“This is the first time I ever talked to anybody (when) I believed Christ was there with us,” he said. “It was an eye-opener.”
Medley said he wrestled with his spiritual condition for the next four or five months.
“That’s when I basically decided to take this seriously,” he said.
He prayed for the first time.
In high school, he had had a Lutheran girlfriend, he said. “I went to their church. The pastor that was there was one of the best I’ve ever known.”
As the pastor preached, he taught his congregation how to think, Medley said. He showed his congregation what was in the Scriptures. As many new Christians do, Medley got a chance to work in a summer camp, and he believed he was called into the ministry. He graduated from Northwest Lutheran Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., and became a pastor.
He was burned out after about 10 years, he said, so he left the ministry and worked as a tile contractor. He went back into the ministry about 10 years ago.
While serving at a church in Washington and living in Aloha, he married Deborah. They moved to Salem where she owned a house, and the opportunity to serve at Fir Lawn came up.
“I love him,” said 15-year Fir Lawn member Woody Woods. “He’s great. One of his stories is he started out in college going to dramatic school. He’s carried that right on through. He really knows how to put it across and make you understand.”
Sharing Medley hasn’t been a problem, Woods said. “We go a half hour early, but that’s no big deal. More power to him. The bigger the congregation he’s got the better off we are.”
“A lot of people love him because he has a different perspective,” said Andrew Allen, a member of Sweet Home United Methodist for about a year and a half. “He has an excitable personality.”
He tends to discuss and analyze context, Allen said. “He keeps things in balance.”
He does a great job balancing the two congregations, Allen said. Fir Lawn was already involved in United Methodist activities, so they were already co-mingling.