Welcome to Fall at First Unitarian! Here are some of the things to anticipate in our community in the coming weeks:
We will be kicking off our annual spiritual theme, “Weaving Community,” this weekend in a worship for all ages and on a day filled with hospitality – the pancake breakfast, a festive coffee hour, a visitors meet & greet, and a book discussion on Authentic Selves: Celebrating Trans and Nonbinary People and Their Families. This could be an ideal day to invite a friend to come along with you.
At First Unitarian, we weave a community of belonging that is spiritually alive, inclusive, and justice centered. Here we practice belonging to a vision and a love that includes each one of us and also calls us to reach out in ever widening circles. Throughout the 2025-2026 program year, we will be exploring weaving community through the monthly topics below –
September: Weaving Community
October: Interdependence
November: Story
December: Prayer
January: Creation
February: Forgiveness
March: Wholeness
April: Transformation
May: Calling
June: Grace
July/August: Beauty and Belonging
One thing that will be new for our Learning Community and worship life together is that our children and youth will start in the sanctuary for the first fifteen minutes every week, before heading to their separate classes and youth group. This offers all of us a chance to be together as a fuller community and to build bridges across the generations. We will be experimenting with what works best for this time. Our plan for the beginning of the year is that the Together Time will be story-focused on the 1st & 3rd Sundays, care- & celebration-focused on the 2nd Sundays, and music-focused on the 4th Sundays. The entire service on this Homecoming Sunday kick-off will be multigenerational – no need for kids and youth to leave early.
Here are some upcoming events after Homecoming Sunday that you will not want to miss:
1.) September 14, 21, 28 – Learning Community Classes with a Community Building Focus
2.) September 14 – First U is participating in Portland Sunday Parkways Downtown. Come and check out our booth (we think it will be in Pioneer Square).
3.) September 14 – Parents Circles kick-off after worship & learning community
4.) October 1 – Evening Service for Yom Kippur (Jewish High Holiday)
5.) October 5 – Guest speaker, Heather Vickery from the UU Service Committee to help support our accompaniment efforts with our unhoused, trans and nonbinary, and immigrant beloveds.
6.) October 19 – Afternoon Animal Blessing on the Park Blocks including your furry family members. You can either bring your pet(s), or a representation (photo, stuffy, etc).
Our Learning Community is also expanding further across the lifespan this year, including more for adults. For example, you can sign up for Articulating Your Faith with Rev. Alison & Rev. Tom beginning this fall or Our Whole Lives for Adults with Rev. Leah, Jen Thomas, and Bill C. beginning mid-winter.
This is just a glimpse of what’s in store for the year ahead. For example, there is much more to come about our mission, vision, and strategic planning process, which will kick-off this fall with study and reflection about who we are, where we are (our fuller context), and how we got here (focusing on our history in the last three decades or so).
I can’t wait to see all of you on Sunday in person or online!
May it be a year of weaving community from the strands of our separate lives in ways that allow our collective tapestry to grow in wholeness, strength, and beauty.
In faith,
Rev. Alison