Brian Shimer
Online Worship on Zoom
Brian Shimer
Zoom Begins this Sunday
Brian Shimer
Join Us for Online Worship
Brian Shimer
Online Worship
Brian Shimer
Worship On Sundays

Worship this Sunday

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Don’t forget to bring items for the Dominican Republic mission trip to worship this Sunday. Here’s the list of supplies needed:

Toothpaste
Toothbrushes
Crayons
Razor blades (for art)
Colored construction paper
Pencils/pens
Notebooks
Shoes - childrens, size 9c toddler to size 7 women’s/size 6 men’s
Highlighters
Hand soap
Masks
Thermometer
3-4 first aid kits
Antibacterial gel

Due to the heat, Pastor Brett promises to keep his sermon under three hours (just kidding!) It shouldn’t be too warm under the commercial size tent, so please join us in person — or online — to worship together.

Sharing for June 20

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Share from your week; where have you seen God at work?:

Kari – My God Sighting is just looking at all the lovely people and kids here today! Also, I got to see a lot of my family yesterday so, that was really nice.

Bonnie – We had a great evening at the migrant camp. Pastor Leo and his son came, he’s Hispanic pastor friend of Randy Loayza. They stayed late and brought a soul to Christ.

Merry – I was able to get a few more people to see the dentist, for no charge, and we got hundreds of pounds of food donated yesterday.

They Need Your Vote!

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A message from the founders of Ground Up, our hometown heroes:

Hi everyone, Caro + Julie here! We have exciting news and a favor to ask -- Ground Up has been selected as a top 10 semifinalist for a UPS Small Biz Challenge in collaboration with Inc Magazine. We are competing to win $25,000 for Ground Up in addition to an Inc Magazine feature!

Ground Up would not be where we are today without each of YOU! Winning this prize would allow us to continue growing and employ more womxn overcoming adversity in Portland.

If you could take 2 minutes to click this link and vote for us now, that would be greatly appreciated! Voting ends 7/5, one vote per email. 

To vote: scroll to the bottom of the page and fill in the "Register to Vote" section, then you will scroll back up the page and click the unmarked box where you see "Julie Sullivan Loos".

Bring Supplies for Dominican Republic

Don’t forget to bring your donations this Sunday for our Dominican Republic schoolchildren:

Toothpaste
Toothbrushes 
Crayon 
Razor blades (for art)
Colored construction paper 
Pencils/pens
Notebooks 
Shoes - childrens, size 9c toddler to size 7 women’s/size 6 men’s
Highlighters 
Hand soap
Masks 
Thermometer
3-4  first aid kits 
Antibacterial gel

Take a look at the signup so you can see what’s needed most. If it’s more convenient, you may also donate cash and we’ll do the shopping.

Contact Wendy F or the church office at office@westsidejourney.org for more information on this year’s trip, or with any questions.

Worship Outside for Father's Day

Thank you for participating in our survey! Our results show that 88% of people 12 and older are fully vaccinated, and 77% of our whole congregation is fully vaccinated. That puts us in the range of 'herd immunity' as a community.

Our results also showed that the overwhelming majority of survey respondents (95% of Households) indicated they felt comfortable worshipping outside either with their masks on and others' masks off, or all being fully unmasked. As a result of this data, our re-opening team has decided that masks will not be required at our outdoor services, and yes, singing will be allowed!

We are recommending that children under 12, who haven't had the opportunity to receive a vaccine yet wear their masks around other children under 12, and if they are within six feet of adults not in their own household. If you are an adult, please bring a mask to wear in case you are within 6 feet of a child under 12.

I am anticipating we will have a nice mix of masked and unmasked people on Sunday, it will be a glorious morning to worship together on our front lawn. —Pastor Brett

Click here for Pastor Brett’s video message: https://youtu.be/JCq6srNz9WY

Sharing for June 13

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Share from your week; where have you seen God at work?:

Martha – I’m going to share because I have been really suffering for the last 5 days - I’ve been in Hawaii! And I’m still there – Aloha! If you want to see God’s beauty, I’ll tell you this is the place to come. Every morning I wake up and look out on the ocean and think – Oh my God, you can just feel that He is here. So, anyway I send you all my Aloha love. I know that it’s raining in Oregon, but they would love it to be raining here, actually. So, have a good week everybody.    

Pastor Brett – Thank you, Martha. No jealousy in this room at all. How about the rain this morning? We need it, don’t we? Praise God for the rain this morning. Pray over our fire season; hoping for mercy this year.

Kari – I have a couple. 1) Some of you will remember Funga; he is being ordained at the end of this month. He’s switching from a church in Gresham to a church in Troutdale. Joe called him and talked to him the other day so we’re excited for Funga. 2) Roberta’s toe surgery went really well on Monday. So, she was actually able to walk out in a boot which we were not expecting. So, that was a blessing. 3) Thirty years ago this month, I graduated from Dental Hygiene School and I’ve been a Dental Hygienist working with kids for 30 years now, so that’s pretty exciting.    

Brian Shimer – Good morning! Hello! It’s a real privilege to be here this morning. My God Sighting is - it was just so special to walk in here and see all of your faces, well as much of your faces as I can see, but I have a good imagination. Also, the music – tears sprang to my eyes for the second song. I have not heard that song since we sang it here, and it was so amazing to me to experience that. The problem with tears is they get inside your mask…how do you get around that? So, what a privilege and I love being here to celebrate with Tessa and Sawyer. It’s such a really cool gift. So, thank you, Pastor Brett.   

Gerry – I had a wonderful 6-mile walk this morning with my daughter in Leadville, Colorado along the streams and mountains here.  Along with her 2 dogs and we had a nice time.

Kat – It’s been a month since I’ve been able to worship with you guys. Related to work and a busy schedule. Yah! I’m back! So, beautiful for that! In the last month, I have been on a food journey trying to figure out some things for my health. That has gone really well and I’m happy & praise the Lord, to say that I had no reaction when I reintroduced butter! So, I don’t have a problem with butter! And that is a joy in itself.

Pastor Brett – Amen. Praise the Lord for butter. That’s awesome, Kat, it’s great to see you; I’m so glad you can be here this morning, as well. If you saw Brian Shimer here, I have invited him to be here this morning welcoming him back to Westside to celebrate high school graduations. So, Brian, it’s so good to have you with us this morning.  

Sally – I want to say one thing to Kat. Your new challenge now that you can eat butter again is to find all the things that can deliver butter to your mouth. I met someone once who said - that’s my goal, to find butter delivery systems.

Vaccinations at Beaverton First

Beaverton First UMC is hosting a vaccination site on Monday, June 14.. You can sign up to be vaccinated, or volunteer to help with set-up, check-in, traffic control, and more. There are still several volunteer slots to be filled.

First dose vaccinations are available for age 12+.  Vaccinations are free; no insurance or identification required.

For questions or additional information, please call: 503-646-7107 or click on this flyer

Volunteer sign-up link: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0C44AFA92DAAFEC07-covid19

Vaccination registration link: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0d45aeae29a7ffc61-beaverton

Supplies Needed for Dominican Republic

Our team is returning to the Dominican Republic in July of 2021!

June’s Random Act of Kindness is to collect supplies for the schoolchildren there. Here’s a list of things they are requesting:

Toothpaste
Toothbrushes 
Crayon 
Razor blades (for art)
Colored construction paper 
Pencils/pens
Notebooks 
Shoes - childrens, size 9c toddler to size 7 women’s/size 6 men’s
Highlighters 
Hand soap
Masks 
Thermometer
3-4  first aid kits 
Antibacterial gel

We’ve created a signup so you can see what’s needed most. You may bring items any Sunday in June during our outdoor worship. If it’s more convenient, you may also donate cash and we’ll do the shopping.

Contact Wendy F or the church office at office@westsidejourney.org for more information on this year’s trip, or with any questions.

If you’d like to relive our memories from previous years, take a look at the 2018 photos and 2019 photos.

Help Build Hope, June 25 and 26

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Registration is open for Help Build Hope!

Our annual event with Christ UMC builds all the walls for a Habitat for Humanity home. The lumber is measured, cut, and sorted on Friday and crews assemble different walls on Saturday. Then all the walls are loaded onto a truck for transport. It’s a remarkable, fun-filled, hopeful day for the participants!

This year, the dates are June 25 and 26. Volunteers are needed for Friday cutting, Saturday building, and for the check-in/safety crew on Saturday.

Register today at https://cedarmillchristumc.org/serve/help-build-hope

Worship Readiness Survey

Our Westside UMC campus reopening team is working hard to create a gradual return to church life this summer and fall.

The team is looking for an anonymous, yet accurate snapshot as to where our congregation stands in relation to current public health metrics such as vaccination rates. The team is also looking for how best to accommodate various comfort levels with masks, and your input on this survey will help inform the reopening team how to best proceed.

Please complete one survey per household: https://forms.clickup.com/f/86g01-112/TFR6NVK7D8W017RUG5

Thank you for your participation!

Graduation Celebration

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All are invited to attend Tessa’s graduation celebration on Saturday, June 12, from noon - 3:00 pm.

Tessa is graduating from Valley Catholic High School and plans to attend Oregon State University this fall.

Join us at the Walker’s home, 16680 SW Springwater Ct in Beaverton.

Congratulations, Tessa!

Sharing for June 6

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Share from your week; where have you seen God at work?:

Gavin – I’m not known for a Green Thumb; I have huge bare sections in my yard - completely gone, Fir Tree killed, bare patches of hard ground. I prepped it and I got some grass seed that you spray on. I got some top soil and put it down. I sprayed on this grass seed early yesterday morning, and watered per the instructions. This morning there are these little tiny green beard stubble sticking up; I couldn’t believe it! The instructions say it takes 7 – 14 days to grow grass, and probably it does. But, what a God Sighting to see the little tiny green grass, that’s really great! So, my thumb’s getting greener.      

I am grateful that it is June 6th. Reminds me of events of 6/6/1944, “D” Day during WWII. And thank you for your service!

Pastor Brett - Especially in light of Memorial Day which happened this past week.

Krista – My God Sighting this week is just all of my friends that I have in my village around me. It’s been a really tough week, and I have lots of friends checking in on me every single day; texting me and saying – What are you up to now? I reply – nothing; they say – Come over and drink some wine. Or, what are you doing? Let’s go get a calzone; just hang out and try to get my mind off of everything that’s going on.     

Pastor Brett – Amen. Praise God for community, we are not meant to live life alone.

Sally – I didn’t even think of these as God Sightings, but when you make me think of them, Brett, I come up with them. So, a friend of mine, some of you know Sally D. & her husband Brian who sometimes come to our church; she is in a wheelchair with MS. She always tells me – Sally, every day there are angels in your life. You don’t even know it, but there are angels. This last week (this is first world junk…) as many of you know my brother passed away a little over a year ago and we are dealing with his estate. And it’s just complicated. Through the magic of technology we had a conference video with an attorney in West Virginia, an accountant in Dave’s firm for me; they had a language that I don’t speak, like fiduciary and letter of this... I’m like, do your magic, and through their expertise we’re going to get this estate settled and I’m so grateful.  Then, we get this thing in the mail from Comcast that we need to install a new router, because your old one isn’t that good. Dave and I struggled for an hour and a half. I’m screaming, pounding tables, I’m so angry that Comcast is telling us it’s so easy to do. Finally, we fail enough times, that Comcast calls us and says – Looks like you’re having trouble, we’re going to send a technician. A technician comes and it takes him an hour and a half inside in different rooms in our house and outside at the box. And I say – Why did you think we could install this? So, thank heavens for Comcast.  And then the final one is little Siena, granddaughter of our friend from next door, knocks on my front door and says – Sally, I have strawberries for you! I got them and I want you to have them, Sally!  And I say – Okay, there are angels in life every day! So, the point is we need to look for the angels that just drop into our hemisphere that we may not even think of as people saving our sanity and giving us joy.              

Bonnie – Sally, I think there was an angel in Westside at some point, because I picked up bags of things last week to take out to migrant camp. And in them was a package of little boy’s Superman or whatever underwear. My friend Jen who works with the domestic violence houses took them over to a family this week and a little boy looked at them and he threw off his pull up and put a pair of those big boy underwear on and he was just as happy as could be. She texted me and just wanted me to know that the mom was so thankful for those little big boy panties. So, someone at Westside donated those and they were very much appreciated!               

Michele – This week my brother in law had a stroke. The God Sighting particularly in this whole situation was that the day before he had been out with the caregiver, who comes in every once in a while; she had taken him out to lunch. It was the next day that he was sitting on the front porch and again the caregiver was there, my sister was in back working in her flower garden. All of a sudden the mail man came over and said – Mrs. Petroff, you’re needed out front. She goes out there and finds that her husband is bent over, but here’s the caregiver, here’s the mail man there. Just the fact we are so blessed that these people were there. That it didn’t happen with the caregiver out at some restaurant. Because of this, he was able to get to the ER within the window of time to get the medication so the stroke effects are not as severe. He got there in plenty of time. There has definitely been effects, but it was such a blessing! There were your angels, Sally, they were right there! And there was God right there. He was at home, he had immediate help and so, thank you Jesus!                 

Wendy F. – My God Sighting this week as many of us are in throes of end of school and for some of us graduation. And it’s been very encouraging to watch the transition from parents taking care of kids to kids taking care of each other. For those of us who are a little nervous about our seniors going off to college seeing these moments and knowing that God is taking care of them and their working together. And it’s all going to be good. Their future is bright and it’s all going to be okay.