Sermon Archive

It's not easy to be a Unitarian Universalist. We are the ones who move away from the well-trodden path to make our own way. Rev. Leslie will share about our roots as UUs and her own roots as a Unitarian Universalist and minister . Please come and reflect on your own path as a UU -- what holds you close and what sets you free?

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Each church year there are 4 months that have a 5th Sunday. As part of our lay ministry and to offer respite to our Worship Committee, we are using these Sundays to offer an alternative to traditional worship, our "5th-Sunday Day of Service". In lieu of holding a service, either in-person or on Zoom, we will be organizing a group service project we can do together instead.

This month we will be supporting the Center for Positive Aging with some sprucing up and cleaning of the space we share with them. We will be meeting on the back side of the Senior Center at 10:30AM and will be doing general cleaning tasks that will be finalized early next week. Work stops at Noon. Complete details of the tasks to be performed will be posted as soon as possible. For any questions, please connect with Ron Thurston.

There will be NO Service, but please join us joyfully at the Center for Positive Aging for a morning of fellowship and service.

Ava Collopy grew up in Oregon and often attended Wy'east with her father as long as fifteen years ago. She then moved to Ireland, where her family originates from, and she currently resides in Arkansas, near other relatives. Ava has taught in Europe, and is still doing that in the southern US. Given that she is a friend of our Wy'east family who has both stayed in touch and visited, we invited her to speak on what it's like for her to live and teach where she is now, in Another America. 

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This Sunday is the annual Portland Pride Parade. As Unitarian Universalists we are called to show up in love to support the movement fighting for rights and liberation for LGBQT+ folks. How will you "Side With Love" on this Sunday? 

Some of us will be called to join or attend the Pride Parade*. Our Multi-Platform Worship will offer another way to Side With Love by learning more about the work of UPLIFT Action, a social justice focus of the UUA's Side With Love public advocacy arm.

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The pandemic has wrought change and created uncertainty for institutions, like our Unitarian Universalist congregations, and our wider world. Who and what are we becoming, individually and collectively? This is the sermon from the Sunday service from the UUA General Assembly at the end of June and it explores these themes as we gather in community to celebrate the best of who we UUs are.

Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Rev. Manish Mishra-Marzetti serves as Senior Minister of the First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is a co-editor of "Conversations with the Sacred: A Collection of Prayers" (2020) and the 2018-2019 UUA common read, "Justice on Earth: People of Faith Working at the Intersections of Race, Class, and the Environment." He has served extensively in Unitarian Universalist leadership, including as a member of the UUSC Board of Trustees; the UUA Board of Trustees; President of DRUUMM (our UU people of color organization, Diverse and Revolutionary Unitarian Universalist Multicultural Ministries); Commissioner on the UUA Commission on Appraisal; Secretary of the Board of Starr King School for the Ministry; and as an author and advocate of the 2007 General Assembly resolution confronting gender identity-related discrimination. He brings to the ministry his multicultural experience serving as a U.S. diplomat during the Clinton administration. Rev. Manish loves desert hiking and his amazing kids and husband.

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View the entire service here:

https://www.youtube.com/live/AuEogqMTICI?feature=share

Announcing our Annual Summer Celebration! Our annual tradition of gathering in a park the first Sunday in July (near July 4th) continues with our July 2nd Summer Celebration & Interdependence Day Picnic. This joyful in-person gathering is in lieu of our usual Sunday Worship Service. There will not be a worship service on Zoom or at the Center for Positive Aging. We'll socialize, play games, and catch up on what's been going on in our lives.

When: Sunday July 2, 2023 from 10:30-2:00. 
Gathering, socializing and game playing will last till around 11:30 when serving will begin. After eating participants can continue socializing and game playing. Our reserved time ends at 2:00 PM. Matt will be leading us in well known songs from about 11:00-11:30.

Where: Creston Park near SE 43rd & Powell, Group Site "D" 
The group sites are on the West side of the park.

So this will be a potluck with each member or family contributing a food item of their choice to be shared. We encourage you to bring the drinks of your choice, lawn chairs, blankets, crayons for the children to draw on the table coverings and favorite games(bad mitten, hula hoops, crochet). Board games are also welcomed.

Membership Committee will provide brown paper table coverings, paper plates, cups and napkins. Additionally we will have hand sanitizer, tea, water, and large trash bags. Everyone is welcome to bring their own utensils and plates.

We encourage you to come, relax, enjoy your Wy'east community and the warm mid Summer days.

Direct your questions to: 
Ron Thurston, Membership Chair
318-300-9509 (phone or text)

Every year on the last Sunday in June, our faith joins together for the largest annual gathering of UU's in Worship. This service will be live streamed at 11am Eastern Time (8am Pacific) and we aim to share some of the highlights at our usual worship time. 

However, that recording is not expected to be available in time, so we will hear instead from the Rev. Byron “Tyler” Coles, from the Congregational Life Staff of the Southern Region of the UUA, with a sermon recorded for the use of small congregations like ours. We will share the GA Sunday Service by the Rev. Manish Mishra-Marzetti of the First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ann Arbor, Michigan at our next worship together on July 9th. 

Join us on Sunday instead for: “The Church: To Be and To Do” by Rev. Byron “Tyler” Coles

In the wake of such great change internally and externally, we must ask ourselves, 'What is the Church to be and do in this time?' Come, let us gather in community as we reflect on this question, speak honestly of our journey, and faithfully imagine a future to come.

Byron "Tyler" Coles

Tyler Coles (they/he) is native of Roanoke, VA, and the only child of Monica and Terry. Inspired by the good news of Unitarian Universalism, Tyler believes the best of our collective ministry strives towards conjuring "the Beloved Kin-dom on earth as it is in heaven." They engage this mandate through the work of multi-religious organizing, supporting young adults, and movement chaplaincy. 

Tyler has served the greater faith as the Young Adult Community Leader of SPARK, Intern Minister of Mount Vernon Unitarian Church, and respectively as a steering committee member of Diverse & Revolutionary Unitarian Universalist Multicultural Ministries (DRUUMM) and the Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism's (BLUU) Steering Committee for youth ministry. They currently serve on the Congregational Life Staff for the Southern Region of the Unitarian Universalist Association.

Family Worship 9:30 AM

Join Our Virtual Service Sunday at 10:30 AM

This service will be offered ONLY as a virtual service.

Click here to join the virtual service on Zoom

Meeting ID:  275 194 110

Phone In:  (669) 900-6833

The Artist Mentorship Program (AMP) is a Portland based non-profit that provides a creative space for homeless youth to build healthy relationship-centered communities through music and art activities. AMP believes that youth experiencing homelessness are resilient, creative and deserving of a dynamic support system that will nurture an environment where they can heal from trauma. Over the last 28 years AMP has provided thousands of youth with music and art resources to ensure that a generation of young people have access to these vital tools. William Kendall, Executive Director of the Artist Mentorship Program, will join us to share more about this work. Learn more about AMP at www.amppdx.org.

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On this Sunday ahead of Father's Day, Wy'east Members, Bruce Macpherson, Kathy Scanlan and Larry Burt, will share three perspectives on fatherhood -- both fathering and being fathered.

Family Worship 9:30 AM

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BIRTH JUSTICE is more than a slogan. It’s the motivation and passion for our service to the Black and African birth parents in the Metro Portland area.

Linda Bryant-Daaka has worked in maternal and child health and early childhood and parent education for the past 20 years. She is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC), labor and postpartum doula, and childbirth educator. She currently serves as Senior Doula and Lactation Program Consultant for Black Parent Initiative’s Sacred Roots Doula program here in Portland. She has been featured on radio and print publications discussing doula and lactation support as well as maternal and infant issues through a racial and cultural lens. She has served on the board of the Northwest Mothers Milk Bank and currently facilitates the African American Breastfeeding Coalition of Oregon.

Linda is passionate about every mother/birth parent having loving support, education, and advocacy during the most vulnerable time of pregnancy, birth and postpartum. This includes parenting from conception to knowing your options for making the healthiest informed decisions that impact every aspect of mom’s and baby’s future. For example, Breastfeeding can positively impact baby’s and mom’s health and positively influence the disparate health issues faced by Black communities. “I truly believe this will bring our community back to our traditional Sacred Roots. I believe that we have to learn from the past to solve today’s challenges and create a thriving and equitable tomorrow.”

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