First United Methodist Church PDX

10/30/2026

A Word with the Pastor: And I Mean to Be One Too
by Rev. Karyn Richards-Kuan

If you were in Collins Hall for Fall Festival last Sunday, you’ll know that I took my creativity in a very niche direction and dressed up as a version of my husband Paul. Specifically, a marathon runner. The smaller children were quite confused when I jogged up to them offering “nutrition for their long run,” but most were enthusiastic to receive packets of Sour Patch Kids nonetheless.

Paul, on the other hand, donned his most stately expression and walked around the Christ Church Boo Bash as theologian, philosopher, and bishop: Saint Augustine of Hippo (complete with a tiny bishop’s miter for our cat).

We Protestants are comparably light on our treatment of saints. Many, like Saint Augustine, Saint Theresa, or Saint Paul have made their way into our United Methodist lexicon, but the saints that we are most interested in tend not to be these larger than life examples who accomplished great feats of faith (inspiring and relevant as their lives may be).

There is certainly something to be said for looking to these giants of devotion to know that we are not the first to tread life’s winsome and woolly path, but deep meaning is also found in that which Saint Paul speaks: the communion of saints. The whole people of God.

Continue reading: https://www.fumcpdx.org/about/news/all-saints

10/25/2026

It’s Stewardship Sunday! Submit your giving estimate for 2027 at www.fumcpdx.org/stewardship, or bring your paper card to church today when we will collect & bless them.

The livestream will begin at 10:20 a.m. on YouTube. Worship begins at 10:30 a.m. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsqZOIFIalE

Download the bulletin at www.fumcpdx.org/bulletin

🎃 FALL FESTIVAL TODAY AFTER WORSHIP 🎃

There will be lots of wonderful food, prizes galore, and fun activities including carnival style games, a spider (cake) walk, costume parade, pumpkin decorating, and so much more. Stick around to the end for our prizes for costumes and pumpkins.

All of the fun will officially kick off at 11:45am and will go until 1pm. Wear your Halloween costumes and join us for a spooktacular time!

If you’re bringing treats for the cake walk, they can be dropped off in the kitchen before worship.

This Sunday, our Stewardship Sunday, we conclude our worship series...

10/23/2026

A Word with the Pastor: For Good

Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
I do believe I have been changed for the better
And because I knew you I have been changed
For good
(“For Good”, from the musical Wicked)

If you stuck around for Youth Karaoke last week or passed through the 100 building after the Fireside Chat, you might have heard our youth and choir (gracefully) belting every showtune and karaoke classic imaginable. From Journey to The Greatest Showman, I have never heard the chapel roaring with such delight!

One evergreen source of karaoke classics is the musical Wicked- particularly the songs “Defying Gravity” and “For Good.” The latter brings poignant closure to a life changing relationship, invoking forgiveness and gratitude. The takeaway: our relationships with one another, as complex and messy as they may be, change us for good.

This coming weekend is our Stewardship Sunday, having pondered how to steward our community For Good: telling the truth, practicing goodness, and giving for good. We’re also celebrating with our Fall Festival, so there are bonus points to anyone who brings their Giving Estimate while dressed up as Glinda, Elphaba, or any of their other favorite Wicked characters!

While our stewardship theme is not actually based on the Broadway hit of the same name, the promise that each of our presence has a remarkable impact on one another is consistent across the two.

Continue Reading: https://www.fumcpdx.org/about/news/for-good

10/21/2026

This past weekend, many of the women of First Church gathered at the Collins Center for our annual Women’s Retreat. We had a great time in worship, fellowship, and even yoga! 🧘‍♀️

Interested in joining us next year? Save the date for the next women’s retreat: October 15-17, 2027.

10/18/2026

This morning, we continue our worship series, “For Good.” This week’s theme is “Good is Something We Do."

God shares with us so that we might share goodness with the world.

Our stewardship of God’s shared goodness is the work of the soul. It shapes our trust, loosens our fear, and aligns our treasure with our deepest values. This series invites us to see ourselves not simply as donors to a church, but as stewards of a shared mission that supports neighbors, creates belonging, seeks justice, and invests in generations to come. We are stewards of a community that is here For Good!

To steward God’s gifts For Good,
We Tell the Truth
We Practice Goodness
We Give for Good

The livestream will begin at 10:20 a.m. on YouTube. Worship begins at 10:30 a.m. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94VDNyEG4Vs

View this morning's bulletin at www.fumcpdx.org/bulletin

We're also now offering Zoom fellowship! Visit www.fumcpdx.org/zoom for more information about how to access this exciting new opportunity.

This Sunday, we continue our worship series, “For Good.” This week’...

10/16/2026

A Word with the Pastor: Tender

I met Sister Helen Prejean when I was an impressionable college freshman. The books she had written at the time, Dead Man Walking and The Death of Innocents, had sparked national attention to the morality of the death penalty.

“Where is the dignity in the death of a human being that we render completely defenseless and then deliberately kill?”

Until we heard her speak in front of us, I imagined her to be a fiery, bold, no-nonsense nun. She had, at that point, been a staunch death penalty abolitionist for 25 years. I thought that in order to walk that road – to be spiritual companion to those on death row, to fight a grueling moral fight against the carceral system – one would have developed a needed rough exterior that pulled no punches. I thought that in order to be such a committed a justice mover, one’s voice had to be loud, words cutting, and disposition uncompromising.

To my great amazement, Sister Helen was tender. She was joyful. In the most bold and powerful way, the softness of her presence made her advocacy against the death penalty even more formidable. She was as compelling as I had imagined her to be, but she didn’t need a bullhorn to be so.

I realized, as many of us know now, that the either/or I had imagined (bold or gentle, fierce or soft) was a false dichotomy. I learned that it was not only POSSIBLE to be tender while standing up against the pressing moral ills of our day; it is NECESSARY. So today, in tenderness, we stand.

Continue reading: https://www.fumcpdx.org/about/news/tender

10/03/2026

Your leaders are back in Portland after 3 crazy days at the Leadership Institute. (You might even say we’re not in Kansas anymore…)

We’ve learned a lot and were inspired by , , , , , and many more spreaders and can’t wait to keep this momentum going as we hit the ground running back at church with you all.

10/02/2026

A Word with the Pastor: Resurrection
by Rev. Karyn Richards-Kuan, Senior Pastor

Navigating the first-flights-of-the-day security lines at PDX (the only time of day that TSA pre-check takes more than two minutes), seven sleepy but excited First Church program staff and lay leaders - plus a chaperone! - boarded a direct flight to Kansas City. Unprepared for the humidity, we prepared instead to ask questions like:

Where are we curious? Where do we, as the American Church, draw the line for what is moral? Where are we in our organizational lifecycle? How do we leave behind the tyranny of either/or and step into the genius of the both/and? What is the future of United Methodism? How do we find practical clarity for leading change? How do we create a culture of belonging in an age of isolation?

These questions and so many more have been tackled at Leadership Institute, hosted by Resurrection Church in Kansas City. A church aptly named, we have indeed experienced resurrection here!

Continue reading at www.fumcpdx.org/about/news/resurrection

10/01/2026

That’s a wrap on our leadership team’s first full day at the Leadership Institute! We learned a ton that we can’t wait to implement when we get back to Portland, and ended the day with an inspiring message from

09/30/2026

First Church staff & lay leadership have arrived in Kansas & are ready for a week of formation at Leadership Institute!