About Our Church
Our Mission
Empowered by love, we transform ourselves and serve our world.
These are the words to our Statement of Purpose (Mission). It denotes that all meaningful change must have at its foundation, the heart of each human being. There is the dwelling place of God. From there, gratitude, compassion, and love overflow to transform the life of the individual who is yet interconnected with all. And a transformed person can’t help but to transform their environment. Humans are not benign. We either sustain, make worse, or make better.
Who are Unitarian Universalists?
The Unitarians and the Universalists were once two separate progressive (anti-Calvinist) Christian groups from mostly in the Northeast regions of the United States. Over the centuries, they opened their hearts and minds to expand wisdom from many different spiritual perspectives. In 1961, they united to form our present-day Unitarian Universalist Association (of congregations).
Our movement has been vocal and active in social justice causes for centuries. We carry forward this legacy on the international (UUSC.org), national (UUA.Social Justice), and the local levels (UUCE Social Justice).
We are a small organization, bound by covenant, rather than any creed or unified doctrine. Each congregation, fellowship, church or society runs itself. However, we are connected by our care to other UU bodies both near and far.
Find out more about the UU’s at the UUA Website.
At our congregation you will find...
A community that aspires to practice and extend welcome and hospitality. Come as you are- and expect to be transformed!
That we are a community freely bound to one another by principles that honor the inherent worth and dignity of persons; the responsible search for truth and meaning; a commitment to living out our faith in the service of compassion and justice; and an understanding that we are intricately connected with the web of all life.
Creative, meaningful, diverse worship; opportunities to deepen one’s spiritual and religious life through small group and class offerings; activities that allow you to connect to your most authentic self and to others.
Persons who have various mediation practices, study Gi Gong and Tai Chi, find their spirituality in the natural world, study Buddhism, are Wiccan or Pagan, are Theists, are Atheists, are Agnostic, come from Christian and Jewish backgrounds, come from no religious backgrounds at all, are seekers, are Mystics, are Humanists, and more.
The inclusion of all ages from cradle to sage in our shared community life.
A commitment to developing a lens of intersectionality: “the complex, cumulative manner in which the effects of different forms of discrimination combine, overlap, or intersect.”
A building that is wheelchair accessible and has a loop system in the sanctuary for the hearing impaired.
UUCE's Congregational Covenant
Approved by the Board of Trustees, April 2023
As a beloved community empowered by love:
- We covenant to embrace the next person who is always arriving, open to the change they will bring.
- We covenant to trust others in their identity and truth and work to be trustworthy.
- We covenant to speak our truth bravely and gently as we commune in love and peace.
- We covenant to make efforts to understand the views of others, and make amends when intentions and impact collide.
- We covenant to expand our connections with the larger community, with humility and empathy.
- We covenant to remember that how we are with each other is the foundation upon which we build the beloved community.
Land Acknowledgement
Our Land Acknowledgement is an: Act of remembering, Act of repair, Act of Accountability, Act of Acknowledgement and Atonement
Let us take a moment to reflect upon this place where we gather. Let us recall that this is the stolen ancestral land of the Chelamela and Chifin bands of the Kalapuya people whose descendants still live among us.
For time out of mind, indigenous people lived here along the Whilamut River, maintaining the diverse oak savanna ecosystem through careful land management based on their deep understanding and sense of kinship with the world around them. White American settlers and colonizers decimated entire villages with disease, forcibly laid claim to the land, and brutally removed the Kalapuya people along with over 30 other tribes to what are now the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde and the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians.
The attempts to destroy Native culture continued through the banishment of languages, broken treaties, and the separation of children from their families sent to boarding schools where children were abused and traumatized.
Today there are several ongoing efforts in our region to revitalize languages, restore land and water rights, cultivate indigenous arts and sciences, and re-establish the sovereignty of Native Tribes.
Let those of us who occupy this land resolve together to dismantle the ongoing legacies of settler colonialism. May we do our part to steward this land, and may we continue to strengthen our relationships with our indigenous neighbors.
