About Us

Jesus declared His mission in Luke 4 when He said He came to preach the Gospel to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. Our vision is to carry on His mission. The result? Life transformation. When John the Baptist sent to Jesus asking if He was the Expected One Jesus answered by telling them to report back to John the evidence. He said, well, go tell Him what you see: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor are hearing the Gospel. When people encounter Christ, lives are forever changed. That is what we are all about, seeing God work in people's hearts and lives.

We aim to see Portland transformed through discipleship, compassion, and unity. (Matthew 28:19, John 17:20-23, Luke 7:20-22)

Discipleship is where true transformation happens. We cannot be transformed in Christ if we do not get to know Him.
Compassion is what the transformed life looks like. Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love God and to love our neighbor.
Unity is something Jesus prayed for. He knew a united body is a strong and effective body. As we grow in our Christ-likeness we strive to grow stronger as a unified body of believers.

As members of the Church Universal, we join with all true believers in proclaiming the Lordship of Jesus Christ and in affirming the historic Trinitarian creeds and beliefs of the Christian faith. We value our Wesleyan-Holiness heritage and believe it to be a way of understanding the faith that is true to Scripture, reason, tradition, and experience.

We are united with all believers in proclaiming the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We believe that in divine love God offers to all people forgiveness of sins and restored relationship. In being reconciled to God, we believe that we are also to be reconciled to one another, loving each other as we have been loved by God and forgiving each other as we have been forgiven by God. We believe that our life together is to exemplify the character of Christ. We look to Scripture as the primary source of spiritual truth confirmed by reason, tradition, and experience.

Jesus Christ is the Lord of the Church, which, as the Nicene Creed tells us, is one, holy, universal, and apostolic. In Jesus Christ and through the Holy Spirit, God the Father offers forgiveness of sin and reconciliation to all the world. Those who respond to God’s offer in faith become the people of God. Having been forgiven and reconciled in Christ, we forgive and are reconciled to one another. In this way, we are Christ’s Church and Body and reveal the unity of that Body. As the one Body of Christ, we have “one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” We affirm the unity of Christ’s Church and strive in all things to preserve it. (Ephesians 4:5, 3).

God, who is holy, calls us to a life of holiness. We believe that the Holy Spirit seeks to do in us a second work of grace, called by various terms including “entire sanctification” and “baptism with the Holy Spirit”-cleansing us from all sin, renewing us in the image of God, empowering us to love God with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbors as ourselves, and producing in us the character of Christ. Holiness in the life of believers is most clearly understood as Christlikeness.

Because we are called by Scripture and drawn by grace to worship God and to love Him with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbors as ourselves, we commit ourselves fully and completely to God, believing that we can be “sanctified wholly,” as a second crisis experience. We believe that the Holy Spirit convicts, cleanses, fills, and empowers us as the grace of God transforms us day by day into a people of love, spiritual discipline, ethical and moral purity, compassion, and justice. It is the work of the Holy Spirit that restores us in the image of God and produces in us the character of Christ.

We believe in God the Father, the Creator, who calls into being what does not exist. We once were not, but God called us into being, made us for himself, and fashioned us in His own image. We have been commissioned to bear the image of God: “I am the LORD . . . your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy”

We are a sent people, responding to the call of Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit to go into all the world, witnessing to the Lordship of Christ and participating with God in the building of the Church and the extension of His kingdom (Matthew 28:19-20; 2 Corinthians 6:1).

Our mission begins in worship, ministers to the world in evangelism and compassion, encourages believers toward Christian maturity through discipleship, and prepares women and men for Christian service through Christian higher education.

Who we are

About Portland Central Church

Portland Central Church of the Nazarene Statement of Mission

Portland Central Church Leadership Team

Statement of Beliefs

Core Values

A Christian People

A Holiness People

A Missional People

Portland Central Church History

Together, we are finding and leading others to the hope we can have in Jesus Christ!