I've been a Zion Lutheran Church member since 2006: it's a wonderful church…read more Zion is a liturgical church with excellent pastors and leaders over the years. It's a welcoming church to all; please refer to Our Mission, Our Vision, and Our Values at http://www.zion-portland.org/mission-statement. Zion Lutheran Church is a world-famous building designed by master architect Pietro Belluschi and dedicated on May 14,1950 with seven thousand attending an open house that day. The church is a Portland Historic Landmark and in the National Register of Historic Places. The acoustics are great, as are the organ (Martin Ott Opus 104) and organist; listening to worship service prelude and postludes are weekly concerts, not to mention choir, cantor, and hymns.

From the owner: Sunday Worship: 11 am (10 am during the summer months)…read more Bible Class & Sunday School: 9:30 am Our mission is to live justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with Jesus. We aspire to cultivate and spread joy by ensuring our worship, our giving, and our outreach is aligned with the people and needs of our community and that we are inspired to do God's work inside and outside the walls of Zion Lutheran Church. Come as you are. We all are in need of grace. We all have sinned and fallen short. Zion is not a place of judgment, but a place where the grace of Christ is extended to all.

I visited St. Mary's Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception while visiting Portland, Oregon for…read moreconfession and Saturday Vigil Mass. The priest was inviting and inspirational. The vocal and pipe organ music was lyrical with the natural acoustics of the church. The stained glass was beautiful and the alter depictions were reverent. The fresco laden baptismal font was large and impressive Mass was well attended and the confession line exceeded time for the priest to hear all confessions before Mass began. He graciously agreed to hear all additional confessions after Mass. I would love to attend Mass again on a return visit to Portland, Oregon.

Came to Mass here and enjoyed it very much. The church is airy and there are a ton of beautiful…read moreimages to look at. I found everyone to be friendly and will be coming back. The choir was awesome! It was great to see how a different church does a service and to hear a choir sing some of the songs was very moving. Check it out if you can! Side note : I wrote Raquel offering to get her medals blessed at my church since I have the "in" being Catholic. I could say a freakin ton but I will make a note that to us all this stuff is for a real reason and it isn't kitsch. You will find jerks in every place including my home (crap I am the only one there) but it should not be a factor in your faith. Because even if you don't believe in anything you will come across good people. It is sort of a numbers game.

Imagine you're sitting in the congregation with your 4 year old son. Its his first service and you…read morewant him to learn to appreciate church. Lately he's been cursing, using the F word and such and you're trying to get him to stop. "It's not right to use those words" you keep telling him. Imagine then the priest gets up to the podium for his sermon. All of the sudden he starts dropping bombs. You're shocked, you start feeling uncomfortable next to your son, but you stay because you think maybe he'll stop and maybe there is a point. But they don't stop. They just keep coming. You look down at your son feeling helpless. Obviously you don't want him getting the message that men who are supposed to be spiritual leaders speak this way. But there's more when the sermon ends the congregation applauds, even whoops. I've never been in any church service where people applauded ANYTHING, and there's a spiritual reason for that. Well that's what happened to me when I attended a service here. Awful. As people applauded I got up with my son and left feeling very disappointed that that was his first introduction to church. A priest who shows no respect for the tender ones who may be in his audience. A priest who speaks with crude language and is more interested in showing off and writing a nice piece than in passing along anything spiritual. Sadly we will never be back again. This happened many months ago, but I have been meaning to write a review since then because it has stuck so sharply in my mind.

I found Trinity Cathedral over 7 years ago and have enjoyed my experience throughout this time…read morebecause it is a warm welcoming congregation and I love the services which help me with my connection to God and provide me an avenue for worship and prayer. The choir is stellar and the whole music program is superb! The Rosales organ is so beautiful and such an amazing instrument. The Dean and all the clergy are truly welcoming and make themselves very available to all congregants. Sunday sermons are always thought provoking and interesting. They have been a great help throughout the pandemic in helping people to carry on. The outreach ministries are a very important part of who the Cathedral is in the community. Food Pantry and other food provisions made available to the less fortunate are wonderful examples of "faith and love" working to help our neighbours. I first went to Trinity because it was the closest Episcopal church to me when I first moved to Portland and I am delighted it has become my church home. I couldn't have found a better fit for me. Please come to see this welcoming open hospitality community! All are welcome no matter who you are, what you believe or not, what sexual orientation or where you are in your life journey.

This is truly a "come as you are" kind of place--everyone is welcome, no matter what you believe or…read morewhat you've been through. It feels more like a hospital for the hurting and a place to find your way back to Jesus. The worship was led by the PAW band, and they opened the service beautifully. Pastor Tyler Staton delivered a heartfelt, impactful message, and the service ended with an invitation for anyone who needed prayer or felt led by the Holy Spirit. It was sincere and spirit-filled. They've thought about every detail for comfort and community. There's a cozy mother's/nursing lounge, free coffee, and even a small bookstore. The people are friendly and genuinely welcoming. I also loved that they bless the children before they head to the Sunday School--it's a meaningful touch. You can really sense the Holy Spirit here. Their mission is clear: to be with Jesus, become like Jesus, and do what He did. I would absolutely recommend this church to anyone looking for a loving, Jesus-centered community in Portland.

As much of a fan as I am of megachurches, my experience at Bridgetown was incredibly subpar. It…read morereeks of non-denominational Christian evangelical niceties with a focus on community so long as you pay your tithes, join a small group immediately, buy their books, follow their non-denominational self-serving rules, and attend all of their classes about how they will only respect pronouns until you become a member and then they will fix you. As much as their branding is inclusive, if you are any amount of queer sympathetic (believing they are God loved) this community will try to convince you those are quiet inside thoughts & sinful ones at that. If you are queer & progressive this is NOT the church for you.

A wonderful, open, loving church. The best I ever experienced. The church provides English as a…read moreSecond Language (which I taught), general classes on the Presbyterian faith, Bible study and a warm atmosphere. The ministers are excellent. The church itself is a true work of art. The faith itself is very open to women, including pastors. They have a sister organization which provides tutoring separate and clothes for interviewing. I moved and still think of it fondly. Services are available on computer.

I asked a female security guard to help me with an issue, she had not yet been trained. I will no…read morelonger recommend this Church to Christians.

I like it - it's not perfect, but it's good and getting better, in my opinion. I can't compare it…read moreto many other churches because there's not a lot of churches out there for atheist pagans for obvious reasons. But that does mean I can say, from personal experience, that they really are sincere about welcoming people of any faith. While it welcomes Christians as much as any other and Unitarian Universalism did spring from Protestant Christianity originally, it's very much its own thing. Congregation-wise, yes, it is absolutely an aging white boomer church; I am probably thirty years younger than the average and I am not young. However, one thing I will say is that within the year I've been (admittedly somewhat irregularly) attending, which happened to coincide with the investiture of a new minister who I greatly respect, I have seen noticeable improvements about working to attract new people and retain them, and I feel like I'm starting to see the results of that in a few more younger people and maybe a few more people of color? They are definitely conscious of it and they are working to not just be that, but also yes, they are still that. It is sincere in its progressiveness and does a lot of real work in that regard. Entirely LGBTQ friendly, probably not as good at being POC-friendly just because I'm pretty sure there's a lot fewer people who aren't white in the congregation than there are people who aren't straight and in the end there's only so much well-meaning people can do without the affected population there to give them feedback, but certainly intends well. Services, eh. I think they give very, very good sermons. Regardless of which minister, I have never not liked their sermon. The music program does seem like it would be very rewarding to be a member of - they have multiple thriving choirs they are very proud of, and there are clearly many people there who absolutely love the music there - but frankly I'd be happier if they cut it short. But this is very much a personal taste thing, and it just is not particularly my taste. Community-wise, you're simply not going to make long term relationships with people just by showing up to service every week; it's too big a church. They have a huge number of programs running for people to join, and they're what you have to join to make community within the church. There is a weekly newsletter, and you pretty much have to keep an eye on that for the things that you want to be involved in. I know they're working on redesigning the website to be more user-friendly, so hopefully eventually it will be a little less extremely dependent on you getting a giant email once a week and carefully reading it for the sub-groups relevant to you, but right now if you want to get involved in this church I would strongly recommend that you do precisely that. Like most things, what you get out of it is dependent on what you put into it. But it is a good place to put the effort into it.

Soon after my son moved to the Rose City from the East Bay, I asked him what he liked about…read morePortland. His first and immediate answer was "No Blacks!" That unexpected answer was entirely inappropriate and I immediate told him so. His mother was glad that I corrected him, but added that she frankly echoed his sentiment. That conversation came to mind as Gayle and I attended a service last Sunday at the First Unitarian Church of Portland. My son's mother mentioned that this Congregation is perhaps the biggest Unitarian one in the World, and I don't doubt it. The Church grounds take up almost an entire city block and their Elliot Chapel is perhaps larger than most main sanctuaries that I've previously visited. And there's lots of people, progressive programs, and at least 3 Ministers to match. But you would think that a Church with so much going for it in terms of diversity and social action wouldn't be so overwhelmingly (~98%?) Caucasian. Perhaps their new Senior Minister (Rev. Bill Sinkford), the African-American and former President of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) will help solve this riddle. My ex-wife (a member of this Church) is certainly excited about it, specifically mentioning his Obama-like charisma (with or without any perception of any tokenism UUs themselves abhor). I have been attending Unitarian services since my Grandparents took me to the Nora Church in Hanska MN when I was a child. This Congregation has many of the familiar Church trappings, but of course without any religious symbols outside of the Chalice. Unitarian Churches are also known for their music and I was not disappointed as the Chorus last Sunday was fabulous. The service itself flowed well, and the sermon by the Intern Minister about her adventures in the Transylvanian Mother Church countryside was fun to listen to and insightful. I still have issues with the depth of UU theology and some occasional pedantic psychobabble flareups. However, the atmosphere here at the First Unitarian Church of Portland is comfortable, accepting, and non-proselytizing. This Congregation is also ready to welcome any religious seekers or renegades who care to walk through the door. And as my son follows both his mother's and his father's early UU footsteps, I'm sure I'll drop by when I'm in town to see how he's doing.

Hello, thank you for your kind and nice food pantry. I went to Friday Food Pantry for the first…read moretime 6-5-26. I made sure not to take too much food, to allow more for others. I thanked about 15 people for their volunteer work. After putting my groceries into my car, and getting in my car, a man followed me to my car, and threatened me, I did not get out of my car, I kept my windows up for safety. He pretended that I had done something wrong. Even though there were 100 empty parking spots, I still went out of my way to make sure I parked in the right spot for new guests. I asked a woman near the door if I may use the bathroom, and I was told someone was using it, and that I may wait to use it. I was not trying to get more food. I have attached a photo of this dangerous man, he is white, about 45, a green and white shirt, earbuds, a black and grey hat. He was clearly not there to communicate something to me, if he needed to tell me something, he would have come to the drivers side, and ask me to roll my window down, but he clearly wanted this to be a hostile situation, and I drove away for safety. Please look into this situation, and see how many other people have been harassed, to ensure your nice Food Pantry can continue safely, thank you. Have a great day!

From the owner: This is a place of hope, meaning, and purpose. Visit and become a part of something bigger- a…read moreWesleyan based movement that is changing lives. We meet every Sunday for progressively minded and inclusive worship at 8:30am, and 10:30am.