Sermon Archive

We kick off our “We Are Stronger Together” Social Justice speaker series with Isa Peña the Director of Strategy at Innovation Law Lab and a look at the current state of immigration policy and advocacy work in Oregon. Innovation Law Lab is a nonprofit organization that leverages law, technology and organizing to fight for immigrant and refugee justice. It is one of many organizations on the frontlines supporting immigrants and refugees across our state. They will cover updates on what immigration enforcement looks like in Oregon now and what you can do to support our immigrant neighbors and friends. 

Isa Peña is the Director of Strategy at Innovation Law Lab. Isa has been a long-time organizer and leader in the immigrant justice movement. She is a daughter of immigrants from Jalisco, Mexico. In her work she leverages her strengths and skills in relationship building, fundraising and policy advocacy to help advance immigrant justice. Isa serves on the Executive teams of Oregon Worker Relief (OWR) and Oregon For All, two statewide coalitions who lead the charge in providing direct assistance and stewarding critical narrative change and statewide coordination to protect immigrant Oregonians.

Multi-Platform Worship (both in-person & online)

Sunday at 10:30 AM

Click here to join the virtual service on Zoom

Meeting ID:  275 194 110

Phone In:  (669) 900-6833

Watch the service recording

This week Day and Night will stand in perfect balance. As we close out summer and prepare for the darker months ahead, the Autumnal Equinox reminds us that life is a dance between light and dark, abundance and scarcity, celebration and introspection. What is our spiritual harvest this year, both individually and collectively? What do we wish to learn during the fallow winter? This Sunday we will explore these themes together through ritual, reflection, and conversation. 

Biography: Rev. Stephani Skalak is a hospital chaplain working for Providence Health System. She was the Intern Minister at the UUC at Willamette Falls in Oregon City for two years. Before that, she spent 15 years as a film-maker who taught media literacy and documentary film production to youth in first San Francisco and then Portland, OR. She is a co-founder of the Portland Women’s Film Festival (POW Film Fest). Stephani has experience in small group ministry within the UU tradition and was a board member of the European Unitarian Universalists. She has a Master of Divinity from Meadville Lombard Theological School and a BA in International Relations from The American University. She lives in Portland, with her love, Mark, and their two young-adult children, Ukiah and Seneca. 

Listen to the Service Recording

Multi-Platform Worship (both in-person & online)

Sunday at 10:30 AM

Click here to join the virtual service on Zoom

Meeting ID:  275 194 110

Phone In:  (669) 900-6833

In this recorded sermon, Rev. Tania Márquez of the UUA Congregational Life Staff, Pacific Western Region, explores the power of words to help bring the invisible to life. Tania highlights the adversities of poverty in a society that has taught us to fear this reality, and the power we have to change our fear once we are able to identify how it operates. She lives in the San Diego area and has lived in that region for most of her life, on both sides of the border, and her ministry is influenced by her fronteriza and immigrant experience. She believes in the healing power of words, rituals, and community.

Tania joined the UUA staff in 2024, with previous experience in parish ministry and hospital chaplaincy. She has a Master's Degree in Spanish Linguistics and Literature from San Diego State University, and a Masters of Divinity from Meadville Lombard Theological School. Tania was ordained into the Unitarian Universalist ministry in 2017. She is excited about all the different ways in which we express our humanity, and loves the company of friends, family, the natural world, poetry, music, and Spirit. 

Listen to the Service Recording

Multi-Platform Worship (both in-person & online)

Sunday at 10:30 AM

Click here to join the virtual service on Zoom

Meeting ID:  275 194 110

Phone In:  (669) 900-6833

As the seasons turn and September brings the spirit of new beginnings, we begin a new “church year” together. On this special Sunday, we join in our annual Water Communion and Ingathering—bringing a small amount of water from your summer travels or from where you are on your life’s journey. Together, we will pour our waters as symbols of our shared story, our shared hope, and our shared belonging. We will also welcome a new member into the covenant of this beloved community and our new Religious Educator into our staff team. Come, in person or on Zoom, as we refresh our commitments and joyfully begin again. Service led by Rev. Leslie Becknell Marx.

Special Congregational Meeting after the Service to affirm revised budget!

First-Sunday Monthly Potluck after Service!

Multi-Platform Worship (both in-person & online)

Sunday at 10:30 AM

Click here to join the virtual service on Zoom

Meeting ID:  275 194 110

Phone In:  (669) 900-6833

Each church year there are 4 or 5 months that have a 5th Sunday. For the last two years as part of our lay-led ministry, we have been using these Sundays to offer an alternative to traditional worship. In lieu of holding a service, either in-person or on Zoom, we have organized a variety of group service projects we can do together instead.

This final day of August in 2025 is not only a 5th Sunday, but is also the Sunday of Labor Day Weekend. Your worship team invites you to spend it in rest and restoration so that you may enter the new church year revived and ready. 

We will launch our new church year on Sunday, September 7th, with an In-Gathering and Water Communion Service followed by a special Congregational Meeting and Potluck.

There will be NO regular service (either in-person or online) this Sunday.

In this TED Talk by the poet/philosopher David Whyte, he encourages and inspires us to engage with life, rather than to miss out on all the wakening opportunities it presents. Whyte does this through his vibrant poetry, which he invites us to become grounded in, and illuminates with memorable stories. 

(from Wikipedia): Whyte's mother was from Waterford, Ireland, and his father was a Yorkshireman. He attributes his poetic interest to both the songs and poetry of his mother's Irish heritage and to the landscape of West Yorkshire (in England). He grew up in West Yorkshire and has commented that he had "a Wordsworthian childhood", in the fields and on the moors. Whyte has a degree in marine zoology from Bangor University (in Wales). 

During his twenties, Whyte worked as a naturalist and lived in the Galapagos Islands, where he experienced a near drowning on the southern shore of Hood Island. He led anthropological and natural history expeditions in the Andes, Amazon, and the Himalayas. Whyte moved to the United States in 1981 and began a career as a poet and speaker in 1986. From 1987, he began taking his poetry and philosophy to larger audiences, including consulting and lecturing on organisational leadership models in the US and UK exploring the role of creativity in business. (He currently resides on the Olympic Peninsula.)

Online (Zoom) Only Worship

Sunday at 10:30 AM

Click here to join the virtual service on Zoom

Meeting ID:  275 194 110

Phone In:  (669) 900-6833

Micah Young: "PYB is in the business of helping young people build exits into the walls of generational poverty. To build or find a way out, to break through barriers, whatever those might be, we humans need three things. We have to know that barriers have been broken before, that is to say, we have to believe that these walls are in fact, penetrable; secondly, we have to trust that we deserve more than these walls; and finally, we have to have the skills and the strength to get through."

Micah Young has been teaching English Language Arts for 8 years and just began her fourth year at Portland Youth Builders, where she has been Lead Teacher for two years. Micah describes herself as a lifelong learner and a passionate teacher, although her path to the front of the classroom was not direct. After receiving her Bachelor's Degree in philosophy, Micah went on to study theology in Berlin, Germany, where she subsequently worked as a Lutheran pastor for eight years. During this time, Micah discovered a love for teaching and a passion for anti-racist justice work. Upon moving back to the US in 2016, and with a deep belief that to teach literacy is to work for liberation, Micah went back to school in Los Angeles to get her teaching certificate. The question that lit her way was this: If, as Fredrick Douglass wrote, "education is emancipation", then who teaches the approximately 2.1 million youth in the US who have already fallen through the cracks of our "one-size-fits-all" education system? This was the question that led her into alternative education, working with gang-affected youth, youth experiencing homelessness, and trans youth in L.A.; then to get her Master's in Educational Leadership; and finally to Portland and Portland Youth Builders. 

Listen to the Service Recording

Special Collection

Multi-Platform Worship (both in-person & online)

Sunday at 10:30 AM

Click here to join the virtual service on Zoom

Meeting ID:  275 194 110

Phone In:  (669) 900-6833

Community is an act of creation. In this heartfelt sermon, Nat M. Esparza (he/they) explores what it means to build liberatory spaces that don’t ask us to disappear. Through personal story, sacred imagination, and a call to collective care, Nat reminds us: design is spiritual—and liberation is something we build together. 

Nat M. Esparza serves as a Southern Regional Administrator for the Unitarian Universalist Association, and is currently earning his Master of Arts in Religious Studies, on the path to becoming an interfaith chaplain. As a Wellstar Fellow, he is conducting research on what it means to age and die as a trans person— work that is equal parts academic and deeply personal. He also serves as an interim board member for the LGBTQ+ Institute at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, where he helps uplift and advocate for the sacred lives in our community.

Watch the Service Recording

Online (Zoom) Only Worship

Sunday at 10:30 AM

Click here to join the virtual service on Zoom

Meeting ID:  275 194 110

Phone In:  (669) 900-6833

To live joyfully, we must learn to be our own Joy Advocates: clear in our intentions, steady in our choices, and grounded in joy through every twist and turn life tosses our way. Shannon Diffenderffer shares testimonials and insights from her pickleball students—real-life examples of how joy can be discovered through play, connection, and intentional practice. With gentle encouragement and personal reflection, we are invited to stop waiting for joy to find us—and start creating it ourselves.

Shannon Diffenderffer, M.Ed., is the founder of Joy Crazy™, a joyful learning community built around pickleball, kindness, and connection. A certified IPTPA Pickleball Instructor with a Master’s in Adult Education from Michigan State University and a B.A. in Political Science from UC San Diego, Shannon began teaching pickleball after the COVID-19 pandemic and a medical condition changed her path from nursing to joy advocacy.

Born with microtia atresia—without a right ear and jaw development—Shannon has spent her life navigating the healthcare system. She’s undergone multiple surgeries, lived with undiagnosed ADHD for years, and experienced conditions like carpal tunnel syndrome and sciatica. These challenges have deepened her empathy for her students, many of whom are learning new skills while managing their own health concerns.

Why pickleball? Pickleball is a sport that is fun, easy to learn, and naturally social. It brings people together across generations, backgrounds, and abilities. Shannon sees pickleball not just as a game, but as a powerful antidote to the loneliness epidemic—helping people laugh, move, and feel seen. You can find Shannon teaching Pickleball classes at PCC Community Education or through her Joy Crazy™ company at Friendly House.

Shannon believes that joy takes effort—but it’s absolutely worth it. Through Joy Crazy™, she creates experiences that brighten days, build community, and lift people up. Whether she’s coaching on the court, hosting events, or growing her online community for casual players and enthusiasts, Shannon encourages others to become their own joy advocates—one game, one connection, and one smile at a time.

First-Sunday Monthly Potluck after Service

Watch the Service Recording

Multi-Platform Worship (both in-person & online)

Sunday at 10:30 AM

Click here to join the virtual service on Zoom

Meeting ID:  275 194 110

Phone In:  (669) 900-6833

The annual General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association took place at the end of June in Baltimore and culminated with a powerful and communal Sunday Worship. This Sunday we find inspiration and connection to our broader faith with a look at some of the highlights of this service led by Rev. Dr. Nicole C. Kirk.

Rev. Dr. Nicole C. Kirk (she/her) is the Rev. Dr. J. Frank and Alice Schulman Chair of Unitarian Universalist History at Meadville Lombard Theological School and a historian of American religious history. She has served UU congregations in Ohio and New Jersey and is currently the Program Minister (part-time) at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She joined the Meadville Lombard faculty in 2012 after serving eight years in the parish and earning her Ph.D. at Princeton Theological Seminary. Her research interests include religion, business, mobility, and material culture in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Dr. Kirk’s publications include Wanamaker’s Temple: The Business of Religion in an Iconic Department Store (New York University Press, 2018, 2023) and chapters in several edited volumes.

Dr. Kirk enjoys advising students and assisting them on their formational path(s). Over the years, she has met and worked with many of Meadville Lombard’s international partners in the Czech Republic, Japan, and Transylvania. In 2023, the Religious Society of Czech Unitarians gave Dr. Kirk the Award for Supporting Czech Unitarianism. A popular speaker, she gives lectures and sermons across the United States and internationally.

Online (Zoom) Only Worship

Sunday at 10:30 AM

Click here to join the virtual service on Zoom

Meeting ID:  275 194 110

Phone In:  (669) 900-6833