Shoreline Free Methodist Church is at 510 NE 175th Street in Shoreline, Washington. This inclusive, intergenerational congregation is known for a 9:45 a.m. Sunday worship service that blends traditional and nontraditional elements, involves people of every age in the service, and extends care into the surrounding community through mission work and the Fifth Avenue Garden.
Blended Worship with Every Generation in the Room
Worship at Shoreline Free Methodist Church is intergenerational, informal, meaningful, creative, and blended. The church seeks organic, authentic worship rather than a single prescribed pathway. Children are intentionally present, while children, youth, and adults of all ages and abilities may participate through music, Scripture reading, media and technology, visual arts, and performing arts. A range of music styles helps people take part.
Services combine traditional and liturgical features with nontraditional ones. Communion is open to everyone. The congregation uses art and decor symbolically, draws on multiple Bible translations, includes children's sermons, and often incorporates humor. The church's theater metaphor makes the reason for its informality clear: leaders are prompters, the congregation is made up of the performers, and God is the audience and focus.
People may attend at 510 NE 175th Street or watch the 9:45 a.m. service on Facebook or through the YouTube livestream.
Kids Korner for the Youngest Worshippers
Children's programming at this small church is informal but intentionally caring. Kids Korner is supervised play time for children ages 3 to 6 during the sermon at the 9:45 a.m. service. After the children's sermon, an adult leader accompanies them to a classroom down the hall. The broader children's ministry seeks care and education that is friendly, safe, meaningful, playful, creative, and fun. Learning incorporates music, movement, video, art, crafts, and indoor or outdoor play. Curiosity, questions, mutual respect, individuality, and the spiritual, mental, and emotional welfare of young people are central.
Children and youth are encouraged to explore an authentic faith journey and relationship with God in a setting where they feel safe. Their learning is interwoven with the wider intergenerational life of the church, where young and old can learn from and bless one another.
Apprentices of Jesus and a Lifelong Practice of Prayer
The adults ministry centers on becoming more like Jesus, a theme grounded in Romans 8:29 and Paul's exhortation in Philippians 2:12 to work out salvation. Dallas Willard's description of discipleship as becoming apprentices of Jesus helps frame the approach. The church stresses that formation happens in relationship with others, so intentional friendships, small groups, and classes are encouraged.
The spiritual disciplines include modes of prayer, personal and corporate worship, fasting, Scripture reading and study, silence, solitude, and service. A small, intentional prayer room in the building supports prayer and spiritual formation.
The church's mission gives these practices four directions: looking up to God in prayer and worship, individually and corporately; growing down through introspection and a listening heart; reaching in toward others through love, fellowship, shared care, prayer, and service; and going out to love and serve all people unconditionally. Different prayer and worship pathways are welcomed rather than reduced to a one-size-fits-all approach.
From a 1952 Planting to a Shoreline Church
In 1952, people from Free Methodist churches in Seattle, Ballard, and Green Lake came together to plant North City Free Methodist Church in Shoreline. Its first building stood on the southeast corner of 175th and Fifth, where Shoreline Seventh-Day Adventist Church now stands. In 1980, the two congregations exchanged properties. When the City of Shoreline incorporated in 1997, North City Free Methodist Church became Shoreline Free Methodist Church.
The congregation's Free Methodist identity reaches back to an 18th-century spiritual revival in England led by Anglican priest John Wesley. Early Methodists emphasized daily prayer, small accountability groups, Bible study, personal holiness, and service to the poor. A 19th-century group of American Methodists sought a church with free pews, opposition to slavery, freedom from formalism in worship, and a strong call to holy living and service. Led by Benjamin Titus Roberts, they began the Free Methodist Church on August 23, 1860, in Pekin, New York. Roberts became its first bishop.
Four freedoms mark the tradition: freedom from sin through the grace and power of Jesus Christ, freedom for all people through just laws, freedom in worship, and open pews. Free Methodist doctrine includes evangelical Arminian-Protestant beliefs, emphasizes John Wesley's teaching on sanctification, ordains women for ministry, and practices both infant and adult believer baptism.
Jeff Horton and Long-Tenured Leadership
Jeff Horton has served as senior pastor since 2001. Before Shoreline Free Methodist Church, he served 13 years as Minister of Christian Education and Music at Warm Beach FMC. He worked toward a Doctor of Ministry degree at Portland Seminary in spiritual formation and leadership, with a particular interest in the role community plays in lifelong spiritual formation.
Grace-Filled, Relational, and Intergenerational
The core values set out five qualities: grace-filled, organic, relational, intergenerational, and team-oriented. Grace-filled means people are unconditionally loved, valued, and accepted, with forgiveness and mercy extended and welcome offered regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or age. Organic ministry places more emphasis on creating the best conditions for spiritual growth and community than on specific results, favors authenticity over artificiality and effectiveness over efficiency, and expects the fruit of the Spirit as a natural consequence of walking with the Spirit.
Relational ministry puts people ahead of programs and things, gives priority to time spent together, and values slowing down. Intergenerational belonging includes people of all ages and abilities, encourages humility and self-sacrifice across generations, and seeks multiple generations of families active in church life. Team-oriented ministry brings people together for service, collaborative decisions, and planning under servant leadership.
Serving Locally and Globally
The church takes seriously Jesus' call to be salt and light. Its mission is to share the good news of God's kingdom in word and action, beginning in Shoreline and extending through Seattle, the Pacific Northwest, the country, and the world. Locally, it wants to be a safe, loving, accepting, and supportive community for people disappointed by former church experiences. Its wider concern is for those on the margins: the poor, homeless, broken, lonely, people who experience injustice or discrimination, widows, and orphans.
Local support goes to Northwest Family Life/Penny's Place, Operation Nightwatch, New Horizons Ministries, Camp United We Stand Homeless Encampment, and Community Gleaners. Global support includes Darin and Jill Land in Asia, Hany and Joanne and The Noor Center in the Middle East, Phyllis Sorter and Schools for Africa in Nigeria, Supt. Dosseh Takpale in Togo, Malawi Bible School in Malawi, SunErgos in Ukraine and Russia, and Kevin Austin and Set Free Movement. The church also supports a Special Missions Projects Fund.
Room for Worship, Meetings, and Community
The church's spacious two-story building includes multiple conference rooms and a small but unique prayer room. Shoreline Free Methodist Church makes the space available for weddings, funerals, conferences, day retreats, and rehearsal space. The prayer room also supports the church's emphasis on prayer and spiritual formation.
The church identifies Fifth Avenue Garden as its community garden. Fifth Avenue Garden provides information about the garden.
From its blended 9:45 a.m. worship to its prayer room, children's programs, community garden, and support for people at the margins, Shoreline Free Methodist Church expresses its identity through intergenerational welcome and active service. At 510 NE 175th Street in Shoreline, its shared life centers on looking up, growing down, reaching in, and going out.