Upcoming Worship Services
All of our services are Multi-Platform and you have the option of attending either In-Person or on Zoom.
In person we meet for worship at the Community for Positive Aging, 1820 NE 40th Ave., Portland, OR.
Every worship service is streamed online on Zoom.
Click here to join our service on Zoom
Meeting ID: 275 194 110
Phone In: (669) 900-6833
Wy’east UU is a shared ministry. Our quarter-time minister, Rev. Leslie Becknell Marx, leads one service most months and also often contributes elements to one other service each month. Our lay-leadership collaborates to bring a variety of guest ministers, other speakers and special programs on the remaining Sundays. These include regular appearances by Guest Minister Rev. Stephani Skalak with her focus on Personal Spiritual Practice, as well as a series of speakers and special collections related to our Social Justice focus for the year “We are Stronger Together.”
In months when there are 5 Sundays, which happens 4 or 5 times each year, we will typically gather for a service project rather than a worship service.
"The Medicine of Grief and Gratitude” Alyssa Rose Ackerman, a Grief Tender & Death Doula
We were never meant to carry sorrow alone. Grief and gratitude are not opposites—they are companions on the path of love. When we gather to honor what has been lost, we also remember what still connects us: our shared humanity, our breath, our belonging to the living Earth.
In this service, Grief Tender and Death Doula Alyssa Rose Ackerman invites us into an ancient remembering—that grief, when held in community, becomes medicine. Together we will explore how welcoming both sorrow and gratitude can restore intimacy with ourselves, with one another, and with life itself. For it is only by honoring what we have lost that we discover what cannot be taken from us.
Meet Alyssa Rose Ackerman (she/her)
Alyssa Rose walks with those navigating life’s most profound transitions. As a Grief Tender and Death Doula in Portland, Oregon, she bridges ancient ritual practices with modern somatic therapies to create sacred spaces for those facing loss, death, and deep change.
Drawing from her work with hundreds of families and communities, Alyssa’s approach to grief care honors the somatic, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of the grieving process. She is devoted to restoring a grief-literate culture—one resilient and compassionate enough to hold us through life’s challenges and uncertainties.
Through her work, Alyssa reminds us that grief is not a problem to solve, but a practice of love—and that in community, what breaks us open can also connect us more deeply to life.
5th-Sunday Day of Service! Winter Clothing Drive + Lunch Gathering
In months where there are five Sundays, we gather together in community and take some kind of social justice action in the world. The fifth Sunday in November 2025 falls on Thanksgiving Weekend. Our action project has two parts:
Winter Clothing Drive – 11:30 - 12:00
Bring your donations for Blanchet House & Rose Haven to the Parking Lot behind the Center for Positive Aging. Anne Wagner will collect and deliver all that we gather. Click here for details on donation needs.
AND
Lunch at Laughing Planet Hollywood – 12:00 - 1:00ish
Let us gather in community in support of a local business – Laughing Planet – who has been offering free “SNAP” meals in these times of SNAP uncertainty. We can share some joyful fellowship and show solidarity with a neighborhood business living our shared values.
5th Sunday Day of Service, 10:30 AM - 12:00 Noon
There will be NO regular service (either in-person or online) this Sunday.
"The Courage to Be Curious” Rev. Leslie Becknell Marx
Intentional curiosity is a brave way to meet another. This service invites us into practices of open-hearted questioning, empathetic presence, and compassionate truth-telling to deepen connection even in the midst of conflict.
How do we expand our circle of care to include those we disagree with—or even fear? Through mindful compassion and heart-centered listening, we’ll explore practical tools for seeing the humanity in everyone we meet.
First-Sunday Monthly Potluck after Service!
"Celebration of Light” Rev. Leslie Becknell Marx, Anders Liljeholm & Heather Donovan
Our Annual Celebration of Light returns in its traditional form again this year! All children and youth are invited to participate in our Winter Pageant, which features them in creative costumes acting out the solstice stories of varied religious traditions. This Wy’east creation celebrates finding meaning in the darkness of winter, no matter which stories are told and which holidays we observe. This pageant is being coordinated by our new Director of Religious Education and Anders Liljeholm.
We will have a single rehearsal for this event during the Potluck at the first Sunday service in December. If you can’t make the rehearsal there will still be an opportunity for any children and youth to participate.
Special Collection: Hand Up Project (Q Center Food Bank)
"Christmas Eve” Wy’east Members
For the first time since 2019, we will gather for a "traditional" Unitarian Universalist Christmas Eve Service at 5pm. This will be a sweet, intimate, and intergenerational service filled with stories and singing and candlelight. We will not offer any childcare or religious education and there will not be a formal social hour. This service will also only be offered in-person and will not be on Zoom. Service led by Wy'east Members.
Special Collection: Minister's Discretionary Fund
This service will be In-Person Only, at 5:00pm