https://vimeo.com/347132427 Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers and father figures and parents of every gender who are here today. And Happy Pride. There is a lot to celebrate today, even though we know we have our work cut out for us. Here at this church, where our mission is…

https://vimeo.com/341389690 Homily: Community and Commitment Halleluiah. Thanks and praise. “What a gathering—(points to congregation and then to flowers) the purple tongues of iris licking out at spikes of lupine, the orange crepe skirts of poppies lifting over buttercup and daisy. Who can be grim in the face of such abundance.”…

https://vimeo.com/340023130 Call to worship This week marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of poet Walt Whitman. Our call to worship this morning are his words:  “This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand…

https://vimeo.com/338940630 “It is not only in the rose, it is not only in the bird, Not only where the rainbow glows, Nor in the song of woman heard, But in the darkest, meanest things,There alway, alway something sings.” These words by Ralph Waldo Emerson, which were sung by our choir…

https://vimeo.com/338942131 May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts always be aligned with that greatest love from which we draw our strength, our freedom, and our very sense of being. Amen. I struggled for weeks with how to start this homily about lamentation. At first,…

https://vimeo.com/335913167 “I have walked the long road to freedom. … I have discovered the secret that After climbing a great hill, one only finds That there are many more hills to climb.” We celebrate Nelson Mandela for leading South Africa…for being one of the leaders that helped South Africa end…

https://vimeo.com/334475289 In response to the rise in white nationalist violence targeting places of worship across the country…from synagogues and mosques to Sikh temples, sacred Indigenous sites and Black churches…religious leaders and religious communities are raising our voices. From the hashtag #Many Voices One Prayer “Listen, America. Out of many voices,…

https://vimeo.com/329151421 And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops That make one circle, wide as daylight and starlight, And in the center grew one mighty flowering tree To shelter all the children And I saw that it was holy. One mighty flowering tree…

This month we have been exploring the theme of paradox.  To introduce this theme, Senior Minister, Bill Sinkford, offered this definition: The word comes to us from Greek and originally meant simply “contrary opinion,” a different point of view. But the concept has come to represent those truths that refuse…

https://vimeo.com/326403064 “Rouse us from tiredness, self-pity, whet us for use… Lure us to fresh schemes of life…” Those words of Clarke Wells, former minister of this church, point us toward the spiritual work of this season. Spring has sprung. The trees are blooming. The crocuses and daffodils are up. Last…

https://vimeo.com/325285479 “As the deer longs for the flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.” These words, which open Psalm 42, and which were sung beautifully by our choir just now, remind us that spiritual sustenance just as essential and refreshing to the soul as water is to…

https://vimeo.com/322871115 “questions that can make …a life, questions that have no right to go away.” Questions. We are a religious people that love them. We hold that revelation is not sealed, that the story of truth has not been completely told in any single scripture from the past…or in all…

Thank you choir. “You are in us and we are in you. … You are the tree…the seed…the cell… (each and all of those things) you are the limit and the limitless.” The text of the choir’s anthem is from the Indian poet Kabir, who lived in a religious world…

https://vimeo.com/320556892 Every week in my final semester of college, I walked a circuit around the campus, visiting the same 80 or so plants and documenting their growth, buds, leaves, and blossoms. It was a weekly assignment, called “Order of Bloom” for my spring Horticulture class. When we began in February,…

https://vimeo.com/318279621 I’ve noted that there seems to be a good deal of resonance for many of us with this month’s spiritual theme of resilience. This is one of the new themes for this year, and perhaps part of it is just how timely it feels for right now. It might…

https://vimeo.com/316602263 “Each person has a musical song [in] their bodies. …this is the hum from inside of you that can give you peace when you are really down. My grandmother had a hum, never a song. She would hum sitting in a rocking chair and I would listen. [That] was…

Due to Portland-area driving conditions this morning, the church office will open late, at 11 a.m. Be safe!

https://vimeo.com/315304214 O Sister…I’m weary…my work’s been long… Keep us steady through the storm. O Sister, hear my hurts…keep us steady through the storm. Resilience is our spiritual theme for February, another new one for us, and a central notion, a central…skill?…or is it a capacity? Resilience is certainly more than…

https://vimeo.com/313871262 As we work to dismantle the culture of white supremacy in all of its forms, some of our theological understandings may need inspection as well. Rev. Sinkford will join Rev. Sofia Betancourt, our speaker for Seminary for a Day, to explore needed shifts in our concepts as well as…

https://vimeo.com/312777843 This weekend we set aside time as a nation to honor the life and work of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Tomorrow there will be gatherings and speeches, marches and remembering Dr. King and his work for justice. Long before we had the word “intersectionality,” Dr. King…

https://vimeo.com/312776535 A couple weeks ago I heard the news that a grocery store in my neighborhood was closing. But it was not going to be until early February and so I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention. Plenty of time later to deal with it. Now maybe here I…

https://vimeo.com/309914972 “Change alone is unchanging.” That is wisdom from the ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus. Change alone is unchanging. In the words of our anthem by Ysaye Barnwell: Cain’t no one know at sunrise, how this day is gonna end.” We know that change is inevitable…always taking place within us…as our…

https://vimeo.com/309315543 We come to worship on holy land, and we honor the native people on whose traditional land we gather today. We recognize the Multnomah, Clackamas, Clowwewalla and Cascades bands of Chinookan peoples, and the Tualatin Band of Kalapuya. These indigenous peoples signed the Willamette Valley Treaty of 1855 and…

Services at 4 p.m., 8 p.m. & 10 p.m. "Holders of the Flame" We will celebrate our traditional Christmas Eve candlelight services, sing the carols of the season and, together, kindle hope to see us through the time of long darkness.

One Service Only!  - 11:15 a.m. Rev. Bill Sinkford and Rev. Mary Gear Be sure to join us for this wonderful and joyous service put on by the children of our congregation.  Originally presented in 1924 in honor of the first Christmas in our then-new church on the corner of…

Rev. Bill Sinkford and Intern Minister Mira Mickiewicz Winter Solstice is a time of darkness moving toward light. What can we learn from this time of rest, renewal, and looking forward? Join us for an interactive and embracing special service.