On our Corner, in Our City, and in the World
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Click here for our Lent devotional booklet
Click here to sign up for food bank
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Old First Presbyterian Church enthuiastically invites all people into our community!
This church was the first Protestant congregation established on the west coast of the U.S. during the gold rush. And we are proud now to continue sharing Christ's love, justice, and welcome to modern seekers who arrive in San Francisco now 175 years later. We have taken a leadership role both locally and nationally welcoming LGBTQIA+ Christians into full participation in the life and leadership of the Presbyterian Church. We strive to bring hope, joy and justice reaching out to people of all ethnicities, incomes, races, and life situations, and like Jesus, we always try to offer a smile and welcome the outcasts.
We hope you will come visit and consider becoming part of our community. We want to know you and share your own particular gifts, experience, and insights with us on our corner, in our city, and in our world.
We worship every Sunday at 11:00 am both in person in our beautiful sanctuary and on line via YouTube livestream. We celebrate communion on the third Sunday of the month. Worship is our joyful praise and thanks to God - our celebration of God's Love.
We have a wonderful choir singing a mixture of classical and modern music and singers are always welcome. Our organ is one of the most renowned in the city. We founded and support an amazing variety of new artists each week in our Old First Concerts programs.
Bringing God's love, welcome, justice, in our neighborhood, city and world and working to make the world a better place for all are important to us. We are a founding member of the weekly interfaith food pantry every Saturday and host a free community meal on the 4th Saturday of each month. We work with many local, national, and international groups to promote racial justice, LGBTQ+ equality, and other human rights, to end gun violence, and to help immigrants.
We feed the hungry, comfort the afflicted, and work for justice. We always need volunteers to help with all of these projects.
We believe that learning and growth are important for all ages. We offer regular book studies, Bible studies, theological discussions, and topical classes for adults on issues important in our culture. Small groups meet on Zoom and in members' homes for study and support. We make time and space for children in worship and offer regular, broadly graded children's church school every 1st and 3nd Sundy. We also have excellent childrens' and adults' libraries.
We love to read and support the Little Free Library on Sacramento Street. Bring you books to share with the community.
I have been blessed to be in the presence of some amazing giving people. In NC I volunteered often at a ministry that served dinner to homeless folks. One volunteer cook would come in and prepare the comfort food people grew up on, what their mother or grandmothers would have plated at the family table. She came in 8 hours before the meal and cooked fresh greens and homemade biscuits from scratch. Guests would take a bite, and it was like they were eating the finest prime rib! It felt like home, it tasted like love.
In S.F I learned from a now deceased member named Betsy. She would sit in the back of the church especially to welcome homeless folks who came to church. They often were not dressed so well, in need of a shower, weren’t familiar with the service and she greeted them and made them feel included, welcomed, not simply tolerated. She was the kind of “church lady” that warmed the heart of God.
click here to see our letter to the mayor
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March 29-April 5
The week from Palm Sunday to Easter commemorates Jesus' last week on earth. Sunday is the day when Jesus made his entry into Jerusalem riding on a donkey, while people waved palms and yelled "Hosanna," which means "God save us!" On Monday, he entered the temple, turned over the tables of the cheating money changers there and drove them from this holy place. On Maundy Thursday, he shared his last supper with the disciples and gave them bread and wine, the first eucharist. Later he was arrested in the Garden of Gethsamene. On Friday, he was crucified and died on the cross and was buried. On Easter Sunday at dawn, women discovered his tomb was empty, and they met the risen Lord. We remember, and we worship together during this challenging week.
Sunday, March 29 – Palm Sunday
10:45 prelude with Copper Hills High School Choir
11:00 worship with palm waving processional
Good Friday, April 3
7:00 pm Tenebrae worship remembering the crucifixion
Easter Sunday, April 5
10:30 – prelude with our church musicians and choir
11:00 – joy-filled worship, flowers, and the Hallelujah Chorus
Noon – festive Easter potluck
March 15-21
In our scripture for this week (Matthew 18:1-5), Jesus rebukes his disciples who are turning away the children so that only adults can have access to Jesus and his teachings. But Jesus instead welcomes the children with open arms because the reign of God belongs to them and to everyone who, like children, is not granted society's respect and acceptance. The children literally are welcomed, but they are also a metaphor for all who lack societal status, who so-called "decent" folk find distateful and undersirable - the migrant worker, the immigrant, the alien, the unhoused, the undocumented. Jesus commands his disciples and us today that his church is to exist in this world as a refuge of radical welcome!
In this season of Lent, the good news is that God, through Jesus's life, death, and resurrection extends the same radical welcome to the children, to the outcast, and TO US! We are all sinners, and we are all unworthy of acceptance into God's reign. And yet God accepts us as if heaven is our home.
That is truly good news!
March 22-28
Our devotional lessons this week focus on mercy, and our Bible story is of the woman brought to Jesus who had been "caught in the very act of adultery." We know very little about her except the religious authorites insist she must be stoned to death for her sin. Jesus, though, offers her mercy. And he manages to remind the crowd carrying sharp stones that they, also, need mercy. Each slinks away dropping their stones realizing their own sins. We too, are offered God's mercy and expected to show mercy to others. But that is never easy.
The writer reminds us that mercy is, by definition, "unmerited, inadvisably offered, and brimming with foolish hope." Mercy is difficult and "brutal" at times, and yet, she reminds us that mercy is "the making of a Christ follower." Jesus talks endlessly about mercy and offers it over and over, asking that we do the same. "Mercy makes no sense. It is not logical or equally beneficial. Mercy does not make us money or make us look good. But mercy is what makes us God's own." She insists that "the extending and receiving of mercy in the most awful and improbable of places shows us that God is still at work in the world." May we be reminded of that again this Lent in all of our awful and improbable places.
What's Happening at Old First