We hope you find some helpful information about our church and the ways we feel called to serve Seattle in the name of Christ. Maybe you’ll find something new, interesting or challenging here, too! We’re glad you stopped by and hope you feel welcome to contact us or visit again.

Thanks for your interest in First Church!  There’s a lot going on right now, so we hope you’ll find something that sparks your interest, including:

• Quarterly  community groups to help you meet new people, explore and deepen your faith and experience loving community.
• Our Blaine Center where we serve 60 homeless men or Shared Breakfast where we serve 300 hungry and homeless every 2nd and 4th Sunday morning [moving to weekly in September].
• Volunteering to be a tangible presence of God’s love in the 2012 Pride Parade [it's great fun!]
• Discipleship 101 – A chance to learn more about membership at First Church and get an overview of who we are as a congregation. Contact Sophia for more information.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
May 8, 2012

Contact:
Sophia Agtarap
Director of Communication & Outreach, First Church Seattle
(206) 288-3511 | Sophia@firstchurchseattle.org

Seattle pastor decries official Methodist stand on homosexuality as “wrong, stupid and evil”

(Seattle, Wash.) – At the United Methodist General Conference gathering in Tampa, Fla. last week, the United Methodist’s gathering of the global church’s top legislative body, the decision was made to uphold their anti-gay stance.

Rev. Dr. Sanford Brown, pastor of First United Methodist Church of Seattle sees it as a clear re-reaffirmation of its 40-year old condemnation of homosexuality and “a throw-back to the very bad old days.” Brown is referring to ¶ 161 of the Book of Discipline, the denomination’s governing book, that states that the practice of homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching.”

First United Methodist Church, or First Church as it is commonly known, has adopted an open and affirming culture since the early 1990s, choosing to be “an open and affirming community where all people are welcome regardless of race, class, economic background, or sexual orientation” as their website states. Even back in the 1970s, when Brown was a member of the congregation, he remembers the Rev. David Aasen preaching about acceptance of gays and lesbians.

The church has a tradition of strong leadership from its LGBT members and a significant percentage of newcomers to the church have remarked that they seek a place where they can be themselves—where their partners and friends are welcome. That’s why Brown remarks that this decision from the denomination’s representatives feels like the church has been “splashed with stagnant water of the past,” resetting the hard work that First Church and other progressive churches have done to share the gracious and inclusive gospel that is at the heart of the Christian faith.

This decision of the United Methodist Church to uphold its anti-gay stance will not deter Brown or his congregation. He wrote on the church’s blog: “I want to be clear that I will do everything in my power to ignore, circumvent and undermine the General Conference’s will in this. I will not apologize for this decision. I will not rationalize it. I will not submit to it. I will present it as the institutional evil that it is, and I will work to exorcise its demonic influence from my congregation and its loving and faithful people. And if I know my congregation, its members will support me each step of the way.”

At the local level, First Church is not deterred by this decision, and will continue to do God’s work of acceptance, love and understanding. As a progressive mainline congregation in downtown Seattle, they will celebrate Pride month with a week full of activities as they hold a concert and conversation with gay Christian artist, Jennifer Knapp, in partnership with Queen Anne UMC, movie screenings and discussions and a day-long celebration featuring live music at Seattle’s Pride Parade.

For more information on First United Methodist Church, please contact Sophia Agtarap, Director of Communication & Outreach.

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 First Church is an open and affirming community where all people are welcome regardless of race, class, economic background, or sexual orientation. Our mission is “Love, Grow, Serve,” because we believe that — by loving God and our neighbors, by growing deeper in faith, and through direct service to address the needs of the world — both we and the world are transformed.

Established in 1853, First United Methodist Church is Seattle’s oldest congregation. Our historic connection to Seattle has called us to carry out a unique and powerful ministry to people who are homeless and hungry in our city. This work includes housing a 60-bed shelter for homeless men and our semi-monthly Shared Breakfast, feeding over 250 hungry and homeless people.

Sunday, 6:30 a.m. A line of mostly men quietly forms along the sidewalk outside First Church in the wet, predawn gloom that hangs over Denny Way.

“I’ll have my eggs over easy,” says a man almost hidden inside a large parka. Chuckles follow, prompting another in the line to add, “Make the steak medium rare.”

Shared Breakfast, a First Church tradition since 1999, is drawing an early crowd this Sunday. Soon the doors will open and a meal of scrambled eggs, sausage, gravy, biscuits and cereal (no steak) will be served by volunteers at tables in Fellowship Hall.  More than 300 guests can be expected this morning and Stan Harrison, who keeps count at the door, will consult with cook John Loacker at 8:30 on whether there is enough food to serve seconds.

Familiar faces. More new ones. Some arrive in wheelchairs, some supported by a cane. Still others carry life’s belongings in a large backpack. This is a spectrum of society that simply can’t make the ends meet. There are the unemployed and the homeless, those with physical or mental disabilities, the addicted and the estranged. Poverty today has many faces, but too often the public sees only one: Them.

The Urban Outreach ministry of First Church tries to avoid the stereotypes, treating people coming to the breakfast each second and fourth Sunday of the month, and a monthly dinner, too, as companions of equal standing. For that reason, the slogan of the community dinner with residents of our Blaine Center men’s shelter has become “A Family of One.” We are all children of God, deserving of love and respect. And a little humor.

The success Shared Breakfast has enjoyed over the years is due not only to regular volunteers (corralled by Jean Ferguson), and faithful Gloria Fund donors, but to not taking ourselves terribly seriously. And our guests seem comfortable with that. A good laugh can be a wonderful bonding agent.

Breakfast guests include residents of the church’s Blaine Center, a shelter for homeless men at the bottom of the First Church parking garage. Like the breakfast, this facility with bunk beds for 60 men is overseen by the Urban Outreach Committee and operated by the staff of Compass Housing Alliance. This partnership has worked very well.

The church’s commitment to housing homeless men began in the mid-1990s in the basement of the old First Church on Fifth Avenue. As plans for the new church developed, Urban Outreach began designing an accompanying shelter offering a pleasant living space (plus kitchen and tv/library) and a room for counseling residents.

One resident is a man named Carlos, who lost all his belongings in an apartment fire. Without renter’s insurance and no family to help, he came to Seattle recently in search of a job and housing. He’s still looking, but has a temporary home at the Blaine Center. Eventually, men like Carlos are placed in transitional or permanent housing by the center staff, as happened to more than 90 Blaine residents in 2011.

But the term “homeless” covers myriad circumstances, some requiring longer stays. Many who had qualified for state government assistance are finding such help has been pared back. Kim Sather, who manages Compass Housing shelters, speaks of the gaps that swallow up many with physical and mental health problems, including drug addiction and alcoholism. Unable to work and without sustainable assistance, the alternatives come down to the street, or a place like the Blaine Center.

George Foster, a member of First Church’s Urban Outreach Committee, is a volunteer at the Blaine Center and Shared Breakfast.

I’m delighted our Seeds to Branches mortgage campaign includes the Salud y Paz mission component. A few years ago our leadership did an inventory of how our church is involved in mission work and we discovered that, outside of local missions, we really hadn’t done much mission work overseas for many, many years.

I feel an important part of being a balanced church is living out the life of the worldwide church. It’s easy to think of ourselves as the typical embodiment of God’s work in the world, but when we see churches in other countries we begin to realize the diversity and scale of the international church and also the critical role it plays in meeting human need.

Salud y Paz is a great case in point. When our study team visited Guatemala to check out this Methodist health program we were amazed at the connections this group had within the local community. The indigenous Mayan people who are served by the mission have vast needs — basic food, health, education, and much more. We visited the mission’s health clinics, its pre-school, its dental clinics and its mission housing, and we watched as a crew mobilized by the local pastor-leader of the program built a house for an impoverished mother and her children.

One reason for us to be involved in mission is purely economic: Our dollars stretch very far in a developing country. We can feed more hungry people, help more sick people, and educate more young people with a few dollars there than we can here. While a few hundred thousands of dollars are required to build a home in Seattle, just a couple thousand dollars will permanently house an entire family in Guatemala.

The other big reason is that an experience of international mission will change us. On my first mission project, years ago to Chihuahua, Mexico, I helped build homes on a site that had recently been a garbage landfill. We dug through mounds of trash to lay the foundations of the houses, homes which the new owners were happy to receive.

I know that’s the kind of experience we’ll have as we work with the indigenous Mayan people of Guatemala in the years ahead. I hope you will be generous in your Seeds to Branches contribution, not just because it will help us pay our church’s mortgage, but because our tithe to Salud y Paz will make a great difference in people’s lives, including our own.

Blessings and peace ~

Rev. Sanford “Sandy” Brown

Easter Sunrise Service: Sunday, April 8 | 6am | Location: Myrtle Edwards Park [see below for a map of the park]

Continue our Journey to Hope as we gather by the shores of Elliott Bay and brave the Seattle sunrise and sing alleluia!

We’ll be gathering just past a little area that looks like a section of beach front but is really part of the Olympic Sculpture Park. The easiest way is to come down Broad Street, then walk along the Elliott Bay Trail [paved bike/walk way] and you can’t miss us. Here’s a visual map from Google Maps.

Easter celebration worship: Sunday, April 8 | 9:30am and 11am | Location: Sanctuary

Join the Easter morning egg hunt at 10:30am. We will meet beside the door leading to the 3^rd floor. Look for balloons! Parents are encouraged to bring 1-2 dozen filled eggs to Shannon [Shannon@firstchurchseattle.org] any time before 10:15am.

View Larger Map

Community groups meet in member’s homes all over the greater Seattle area. Sign-ups are available now! There’s something for everyone, from knitting to sermon studies to groups that foster art and creativity. Consider joining a community group this winter and experience community as you love, grow and serve together.

Interested in signing up for a community group? Check out this Winter’s offerings and sign up here.

Or perhaps you’d like to consider leading a group? Submit a group proposal here.

Leading for the first time? We’d love to learn more about you and your interests and gifts in leading. Email Sophia, our Director of Outreach for more information about leading a community group. If you’re ready to apply to lead a group, you may fill out the form here.

The phrase “Behind the Scenes” conjures visions in my mind of stage hands running around with props, make-up artists painting actors’ faces, make-up artists painting actors’ faces, costumers busily dressing actresses, and a flurry of activity in the semi-dark while onstage a completely different, usually more peaceful story is being told.

The image pretty well fits with what’s been happening “behind the scenes” at church over the last months. Church leaders have busily been planning a major capital fund drive to pay down our mortgage in preparation for our our debt retirement payments to be included in our General Fund in 2015.

Back in 2009 in two congregational meetings we agreed to borrow up to $2 million to complete our building project. Ultimately we borrowed a little less than that and, using our savings, we’ve now reduced our principal to $1.27 million. We’ve been paying the mortgage out of receipts from our last building campaign, but since those are soon to be depleted it’s time to come to the congregation with this need and, as we always do at First Church, rally around the cause to overcome a challenge.

But in addition, our church leadership has agreed that this campaign gives us a chance to look beyond ourselves and experience the joy of mission work to benefit someone else. So the Capital Campaign Committee researched international mission projects and selected the Salud y Paz program in the highlands of Guatemala to receive 10% of our campaign’s proceeds. In January I toured Salud y Paz with Dave Williams and Jackie Putt and we came back convinced that helping these beautiful, but impoverished Mayan people would be a rewarding experience for our congregation.

So, our goal is to raise as much money as we can over the next 3 years to pay down our mortgage while tithing the proceeds to overseas mission work. I just know this campaign will strengthen our church in important ways and I look forward to watching generosity and faith grow seeds into branches for God’s work.

As our leaders bring the campaign out into the spotlights this week I ask for your prayers, your open-mindedness, your vision, and your heart for caring for people. Together we will do very great things.

Journey together through Holy Week. Join us at the following worship services and activities…

Palm Sunday | Sunday, April 1,  9:30am and 11am | Location: Sanctuary

The congregation is invited to a self-guided, meditative Walk Into Holy Week from 9:20 – 10:00am on Palm Sunday. First Church kids and teachers are preparing several 3^rd-floor rooms for you to experience Holy Week in a special way. Come see where Jesus cleared the Temple, walk through the Garden of Gethsemane, sit in the upper room with the disciples, imagine Jesus standing before Pilate, make a cross at Golgatha, and sit quietly in the tomb.

All children are invited to participate in the Palm Sunday processional. Meet outside the sanctuary doors at 10:55am!

Journey to Hope Art Exhibit | Wednesday, April 4-Friday, April 6 | Location: Church lobby

Maundy Thursday | Thursday, April 5,  7pm | Location: Fellowship Hall [Ground floor entrance on Denny Way]

Good Friday | Friday, April 6,  7pm | Location: Sanctuary

Special music provided by  a select ensemble of 20 singers from the Kirkland Choral Society, conducted by Dr. Glenn Gregg. The choir will present J.S. Bach’s masterful cantata “Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit” “God’s time is the very best” BWV 106. The performance will include period instruments: recorders, violas da gamba, organ and continuo. The texts and theme of this cantata are particularly appropriate for the service on Good Friday. Don’t miss this deeply moving musical presentation.

Easter Sunrise Service: Sunday, April 8 | 6am | Location: Myrtle Edwards Park

Easter celebration worship: Sunday, April 8 | 9:30am and 11am | Location: Sanctuary

Join the Easter morning egg hunt at 10:30am. We will meet beside the door leading to the 3^rd floor. Look for balloons! Parents are encouraged to bring 1-2 dozen filled eggs to Shannon [Shannon@firstchurchseattle.org] any time before 10:15am.

Jesus says: “It is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the garden; it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.” (Luke 13:19)

First United Methodist Church was a seed planted in Seattle 158 years ago. Its roots are solid and its branches still growing. First Church continues to make God’s love real in the city of Seattle.

Your giving makes a huge difference in our ministry and outreach, now and for future generations.

It is through the generous gifts of congregants throughout its history that First Church has grown into something greater than itself.

The SEEDS TO BRANCHES Capital Campaign will continue that work. View the Seeds to Branches campaign page for more details.

The following documents have been made available for download so you might familiarize yourselves with the Seeds to Branches mortgage reduction campaign.

> Case Statement

> Frequently Asked Questions