Please Join Our Holiday Live Stream
Christmas Eve ServicesThursday, December 24
Family Service at 4 p.m.
Candlelight Service at 8 p.m.
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Having trouble viewing our services through the website?
Find our Live Streams on Boxcast, Youtube or on Facebook.
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Candlelight Christmas Eve Services: “Love Is Born Again”
Thursday, December 24
Families, we invite you to bring a candle to light and hold or place next to you while we sing Silent Night together.
Join us for a Family Christmas Eve full of carols and stories. Sing along at home, light a candle with us, and lift your spirits with joy and possibility. Hear a traditional telling of the Biblical Christmas, then celebrate parenthood, friendship, and the power of love while meeting an unexpected guest at the nativity.Â
We will celebrate this holiday when we yearn to gather but must remain apart. We carry a sense of loss, of many losses, with us. But we also carry the seeds of new possibilities in our hearts. We will look to the meaning in the Christmas story for material to weave into our lives, so that we can make of our hearts a manger where love can be born again.Â
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Annual Christmas Pageant
Sunday, December 27
Family Service at 9:15 a.m.
Worship Service at 10:15 a.m.
Enjoy this rebroadcast of the 2019 Christmas Pageant, a wonderful and joyous tradition at First Unitarian Portland.
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Vesper Prayer Service
Every Friday at 5 p.m., including Christmas & New Year's Day
End your week with a brief quiet time of prayer, reflection, meditation and music offered by our Lay Ministers. Let this be a pause at the end of the week, to receive and to be held in love, without the need to converse. Registration is required to receive the Zoom link, but an ongoing commitment is not required.Â
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Help Those in Need this Holiday Season
Here are some ways to support people in need both within our church community and in our larger community this season. These are organizations in concert with our own church mission:
First Unitarian Emergency Fund for members
This fund helps members facing some kind of critical need like loss of housing, utility shutoff or some other unexpected, necessary expense. It is part of how we build Beloved Community in our congregation.
Outside In
Since 1968 when it was founded in the basement of our church, Outside In has transformed thousands of lives by helping break the cycles of chronic homelessness, poverty, and poor health among Portland’s LGBTQIA+ community, people of color, those experiencing homelessness, and the underserved.
Clay Street Table
Clay Street Table, which operates out of St. Stephen’s Parish, just up the street from the church, strives to “feed those who are hungry in body and in spirit.” In 2019 Clay Street provided over 140,000 meals of food and groceries to youth and adults in our downtown community.
Oregon Worker Relief FundÂ
The Oregon Worker Relief Fund provides financial support directly to Oregonians who have lost their jobs yet are ineligible for Unemployment Insurance and federal stimulus relief due to their immigration status, and now face hunger, homelessness, and economic hardship.Â
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| | Upcoming Events, Workshops & Classes
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Alliance Presents...Adventures in Service Learning
Wednesday, January 6, 2021 at 12:30 p.m.
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Practicing Peace: A Day of Mindfulness with Katie Radditz
Saturday, January 9
10–11 a.m. Virtual Zoom gathering
11 a.m.–3 p.m. Self-guided
3–4:30 p.m. Virtual Zoom gathering
Come replenish your spirit in our spiritual community in order to bring more harmony into our daily life. Rev. Bob Schaibly would often say, “What the world needs from us is our non-anxious presence.”  This is something we can develop, as a necessity for living a compassionate life and creating a better world, now and for the future. There will be poetry and nature, writing prompts and meditation along with deep relaxation for personal and global healing and restoration.
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Our Resilient Community
Lived Experiences of Racism & Resilience
January 13, 2021 at 5 p.m.
Cameron’s presentation, discussion & following Q&A will focus on their lived experiences of racism and resilience, Oregon’s white supremacist origins and current realities, and the power of social movements like the Black Resilience Fund create an ideal framework for healing from Oregon’s racist history.
Bio: At the age of eighteen, Cameron Whitten (all pronouns) worked themself out of youth homelessness in Portland and has spent the past decade giving back to the same community that was here when they needed it most. Cameron has been a leader in several movements for social change, served as the Executive Director of Q Center, and is currently the CEO of racial justice nonprofit Brown Hope and Co-Founder of the Black Resilience Fund. They serve on the boards of REACH CDCÂ and Pioneer Courthouse Square.
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Seminary for a Day
Mark Your Calendars!
Saturday, January 30, 2021
Are you yearning for greater depth in your spiritual life? Join us and delve deeper with Rev. Meg Riley, Co-moderator of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA).
All are welcome! More details to come soon.Â
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Program ResourcesAdult Programs, Social Justice, Learning Community, Music & Arts
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Loving Kindness Meditation
Every Monday, 8–8:30 p.m.
Loving-Kindness towards self and others is a basic foundational view of Buddhism and other religions. Intern Minister Stacey Mitchell will gently guide you through this spiritual practice which cultivates benevolence, kindness, and amity. An ongoing commitment is not required.Â
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Caring Circle for Parents
Mondays, December 28, Jan. 11, 25, February 8 and 22.Â
From 7–8 p.m.
In these challenging times for families, our lay ministers invite you to join a Caring Circle for parents. This small group will meet every other week to provide listening and support to one another. (An ongoing commitment is not required.)
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Reimagining Normal:
Contemplative Conversations
The world has changed. We are changing. Who am I now? How am I called to serve? What must I mourn and what do I invite into this changing reality?
This can be a time to reconsider, reimagine, move toward reform. Join us in weekly conversations designed to nurture and support us through a pandemic of possibility.
Note: This cohort has been filled. Click below to sign-up for our waitlist and we will contact you when additional cohorts are available.Â
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Send Us Your Photos & Be Part of Family WorshipÂ
We invite you to submit photos of your family member for inclusion in our weekly worship. Seeing each other in this way helps us stay connected. Send pictures of your family tuning in at home, of activities we do during worship, projects worked on from our monthly mailers, or any other photos you want to share. Thank you to those of you who have sent pictures! Please send photos to this email.Â
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Monthly Mailers & Zoom Gatherings
Registered families should have received their November mailer packets for the theme of Prayer. Watch your Learning Community news for details about a zoom session for our younger age groups as we round out the month.
Please share your feedback about the mailer packets and zoom sessions which will help us in planning future months.Â
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Art For Social Justice
The Speaking of Justice Editorial Team offers weekly art to deepen our connection to the work for social justice and building the Beloved Community.
We Will Not Go Back to Normal - Choral Read
Beautiful mess of a choral read from Sonya Renee Taylor. Recorded at National Equity Project Liberatory Design Mindsets for Challenging Times session, April 17, 2020.
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In the Community
Member Cheryl Macy is recovering from major surgery for pancreatic cancer on December 10. She has been discharged from the hospital and is recovering. Cheryl is not up to visits or calls right now but appreciates our good thoughts and cards.
Jane Cadwallader, who is about to join our church, asks for prayers for her brother, Jim Cadwallader, who is in a nursing home in Missoula, Montana where 25 of 48 patients have been diagnosed with COVID. We hold Jim and all the residents there in our prayers.
Members Paula Johnson and John Elizalde are pleased to announce the birth of their granddaughter, Penelope Ellen Manjerovics to John's daughter Claire in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Baby Popi as she is called was born early after a difficult pregnancy and she has been in the ICU since birth to allow her lungs to develop more fully. Hopes are great for her to be able to meet her two brothers, Lucian and Xavier very soon. We hold Popi and her whole family at this time.
It is with sadness and deep appreciation that we honor the life of Reverend T. Allen Bethel. He served as pastor of Maranatha Church in North East Portland for 26 years and was co-chair of the Albina Ministerial Alliance. Dr. Bethel poured his life into service, to civil rights and racial justice. He died on December 21, 2020. Our prayers and condolences are with Dr. Bethel's family and the Maranatha Church Community.
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Message from our Board Moderator
Though we are physically away from our church, our holiday traditions are carrying on. The Alliance Greens Sale was successful and our social action groups gathered donations to support several of our community partners.Â
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The Board is continuing its discernment around adopting the 8th Principle. A group of leaders of our social action groups participated in a workshop using Paula Cole Jones’ presentation in early December. Additional workshops for the congregation are planned for January.
We hope that you will participate in one of the workshops to learn about the Principle and what it would mean for our church to become a more actively antiracist congregation. The Board welcomes your thoughts and comments...continued.
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First Unitarian's Response to Covid-19
Here are a few important updates that affect our life together.
Sunday Worship
Staying Connected
Church Communications: Do you receive messages from the church including this weekly E-News and our Staying Connected emails? To receive church emails send a note to etafuri@firstunitarianportland.org.
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Naming First Unitarian Foundation in Your Will or Estate Plan
Help assure the long-term sustainability of this beloved congregation by including First Unitarian Portland in your will or estate plan.
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Have a Submission for E-News?If you have a church-related submission you would like published in our weekly Front Steps (E-News), please submit it here with subject line “For E-News.”
Submission deadline is noon on Tuesday.Â
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Holiday Live Stream & Social ScheduleJoin us LIVE from your computer or smart device by clicking on the links below.Â
Christmas Eve
Christmas Pageant
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Christmas Eve Shared Plate
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On Christmas Eve, half our plate will go to our church’s Emergency Fund for Members.
This fund helps members facing some kind of critical need like loss of housing, utility shutoff or some other unexpected, necessary expense. It is part of how we build Beloved Community in our congregation.
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Want to know what this church has to offer? Show up for events/classes/socials and  stay engaged!
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Trying to find connection with those in the congregation with similar interests?
Contact one of the many groups run by members of the church and connect.
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Moved recently? Changed your phone number or e-mail? Fill out this form.
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