A church and university share what collective discernment has brought to their community in Parkland, Wash.
Driving South on Park Ave. in Parkland, Wash., folks are greeted by Trinity Lutheran church’s welcome sign on the left, and by Pacific Lutheran University’s on the right.
Located just 200 feet from each other, these communities share a long history of relationship and partnership in the neighborhood. For folks in Parkland, joint discernment between these two partners rooted in a sense of place has brought new life and community to the neighborhood in the last few years.
Even before the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, members of Trinity, PLU, and the broader Parkland community had felt the impact of economic challenges and increasing isolation. A close-knit, working-class city just South of Tacoma, Parkland has still retained a strong sense of identity even among these changes.
Pastor Jen Rude who joined PLU in 2016, and Rev. Jonette Blakney, a PLU graduate who has pastored Trinity since 2019, desired for their communities to use their presence to help re-establish a sense of connectedness between folks in the community. Trinity and PLU have a history of relationship, but a few years ago they began to ask “are there ways that we could partner more together?” said Rude.
One of the main questions, Rude noted, was “how do we tap into good work [in Parkland] and amplify it and add to it, rather than staying isolated?”.
Supported by the ELCA’s Congregations Lead Initiative, the partners underwent a process of interviewing and listening to students, congregants, and other folks in the neighborhood. Through this process, Trinity and PLU Campus Ministry decided to pilot a yarn group open to PLU, Trinity, and all Parkland neighbors in October of 2022 as a way to build intergenerational community. After the one-month pilot the community’s desire for the group continued, and folks have been gathering to knit and crochet regularly ever since.
The two communities have also begun serving monthly community meals to continue to build relationships between PLU, Trinity, and Parkland. The meals are hosted in the church’s kitchen and staffed by volunteers from Trinity and the university community (students, faculty, and staff).
These initiatives, grounded in an understanding of place, have brought new life to the neighborhood and have allowed Trinity and PLU to continue their long history of relationship with the Parkland community.
“We have been energized and excited by what we’ve seen in partnership, working together” says Blakney. “It has been in an experiment phase, and what we would say is “wow, that was exciting and worked”.