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| Have you voted in our Mid-county MEMO Community Awards? No? Pick up a MEMO today (ballot on page 16) and vote! | ||||||||
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| Vol. 20, No. 11 • Mailed monthly to over 13,000 homes in the Gateway & Parkrose Communities Free • MARCH 2005 | ||||||||
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FEATURE ARTICLES | |
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By Rich Riegel
The Mid-county Memo
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| Rev. Yoon Cho, left, and Rev. Bill Taylor are co-pastors at what for the past 50 years has been Eastminster Presbyterian Church at 12505 N.E. Halsey St. in Portland. For the time being, the church will be called New Life-Eastminster Presbyterian Church. Church services are now offered in both Korean and English languages. |
| MEMO PHOTO: TIM CURRAN |
It’s a combination made by necessity, for both churches, and the acknowledgement of the many different cultures and nationalities that make up Mid-Multnomah County.
Rev. Bill Taylor became pastor at Eastminster Presbyterian Church on July 1975. The Presbytery of the Cascades chartered Eastminster Presbyterian Church on Oct. 31, 1954.
For the present, Taylor said, the name of the church is the New Life-Eastminster Presbyterian Church.
“We may make a change to the name,” said Taylor, “when we officially merge. We’re still two separate congregations. We just merged our names for convenience sake. And to get people used to it.”
Taylor outlined the series of events that became the impetus for the new church.
“The first Friday in June,” Taylor explained, “I received a phone call from one of our Presbyterian associate executives, asking me if our congregation might be interested in talking about a merger with the New Life Korean Presbyterian Church.
“I said,” he continued, “I thought maybe so, but I’d have to check with the officers and see what their response was. So I did a quick phone survey, and by Saturday had a unanimous decision from our officers that we should proceed with discussions.”
The Korean congregation was notified on Sunday that Eastminster was interested in the merger.
“So it was announced to both congregations that we were entering these kinds of discussions,” Taylor said. “We set up a committee made up of six people: two lay people from each congregation and the two pastors.”
Taylor said discussions proceeded along until, in September, the two congregations voted to officially explore the merger and to allow the New Life congregation to move into the Eastminster Presbyterian Church facility. It was also decided that beginning this year the two congregations would begin sharing programs and budgets.
“We celebrated worship together,” Taylor said, with pride in his voice, “the first Sunday in October 2004 and on Christmas Eve 2004. Then they moved in and we celebrated worship together on the first Sunday in January 2005.”
>>continued
Cleary’s celebrates 11 years in Menlo Park
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| MEMO PHOTO: TIM CURRAN |
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