Sermon Archive

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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Life is full of changes of all kinds. But each change includes some form of loss. This includes changes we face as congregations as well as individuals. 

Before she joined the ministry, Sarah was one of the founding members of this congregation. She now serves on the Pacific Western Regional team of the UUA and serves as primary contact for all congregations in the states of Washington, Montana, and Wyoming. In addition to her primary contact work, Sarah is the PWR specialist for small congregation concerns.

The Rev. Sarah Movius Schurr was ordained in 2008, but she began her work as a faith leader many years before ordination by serving as a district board member, new congregation organizer, and congregational consultant. Sarah had a 20-year Social Work career before the call to ministry. She has extensive experience in organizational development and systems theory. After ordination, Sarah worked for the Pacific Northwest District as their first Developmental Outreach Minister, bringing professional ministry to small congregations in Alaska and Oregon. 

This service was recorded for use by any small UU Congregation in the Pacific Western or Mid-America Region of the UUA.

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 first Flower Ceremony was held in Prague, in June 1923, led by Rev. Norbert Čapek. For decades, this beloved tradition and its powerful history has welcomed Spring and provided meaning to hundreds of UU congregations. In this centennial year of the Flower Celebration we will look back at it's origins and what it has to teach us. You are invited to bring a a flower of some kind whether real or representational. Service led by Wy'east members and Friends, and will feature supporting elements provided by the Rev. Erica Hewitt, Minister of Worship Arts at the UUA.

Wy’east UU Annual Meeting, May 21st (quorum required), directly after worship ~12:00 Noon

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John Blake, a senior writer and producer with CNN, will talk about how growing up as the son of a Black father, and a White mother whose family rejected him at birth, shaped his faith. He'll share specifically how the relationship with his mother, who he did not meet for the first time until he turned 17, became an unexpected source of inspiration. She convinced him that no cause for social change is truly hopeless.

John Blake is a native of Baltimore, Maryland. He is a graduate of Howard University, and he is a senior writer and producer with CNN who writes about race, religion and politics. He has been honored by the American Academy of Religion, the Society of Professional Journalists and the Associated Press. His memoir, "More Than I Imagined: What a Black Man Discovered About the White Mother He Never Knew," is being published by Penguin Random House on May 2, 2023.

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The fundamental reality of life’s interdependent unfolding continues every day despite our world seeming ever more complex, uncertain, and oppressive. We’ve been conditioned to believe that we are separate from Nature compelled to control and direct life toward our own ends. As Unitarian Universalists, we affirm the interdependent web of life of which we are all a part. How do we at Wy’east act to align with Life and provide a counter-example to scarcity and separation?

Wy’east UU Annual Informational Budget Meeting, May 7th, directly after worship ~12:00 Noon

And simultaneously, our First-Sunday Monthly Potluck! (bring a dish to share)!

Multi-Platform Worship Sunday at 10:30 AM

This service will be offered as BOTH a virtual and an in-person service.

Click here to join the virtual service on Zoom

Meeting ID:  275 194 110

Phone In:  (669) 900-6833