A Short History of Our Church

The geographical area in the hills of SW Portland that is now the Hillsdale, Multnomah, Raleigh Hills and Burlingame neighborhoods was settled by German-Swiss immigrants in the 1880s, who established dairy farms. Old-timers say that every morning the hills rang with yodeling and the sound of wagons bringing fresh milk into the city. In 1904, one of these immigrants, Henry Raz, started a German-speaking Sunday School in a vacant house behind the family barn. The Rev. Hafner from the “Mother Church” (the First Reformed Church in Portland) traveled to Hillsdale to conduct worship services. In 1918, the Reformed Church of Hillsdale was officially organized.

Two years later, in 1920, the First Church purchased land along Capitol Highway on the highest knoll between Hillsdale and Multnomah Village. The First Church transferred this to the Hillsdale congregation, and the original church building was constructed. This property, 6948 SW Capitol Hwy, is home to our current building.

Over a Century of Service

Over the decades our church community grew and evolved with the wider community, and was closely interconnected with the surrounding neighborhoods. In 1934 we became the Hillsdale Evangelical and Reformed Church as a result of a denominational merger. In the 1950s this denomination merged with the Congregational Christian Church, and formed the United Church of Christ. Our church membership increased and our outreach expanded. It was during this time that we changed our name to Hillsdale Community Church, United Church of Christ. The 1960s and 70s were marked by continued growth, with many blessings and opportunities. By the 1980s and 90s, we were a mature, established congregation, actively engaged not only with our local area, but with many events and organizations in the Portland metro area.

This time period also saw the development of the leadership structure we still use today: At the June 1985 Annual Meeting, Restated and Amended By-Laws were adopted by the congregation. This eliminated the designations of Elders and Deacons in favor of a seven-member Consistory and permanent committees. This change in how we distributed leadership responsibilities allowed the members of our congregation to more fully bring their talents and abilities in service of our work.

This change in our structure meant a busy outreach committee and increasing facility usage. One of our favorite activities was the church’s Dragon Boat Team, the “River Angels.” The team participated in the Rose Festival’s Dragon Boat Races. In fact, the church hosted a service in Tom McCall Water Front Park on the Sunday morning of the race weekend. 

In 2011, we started the Back to Eden project, which replaces grass and non-native plants with natives. Our goal was to bring back more native insects and birds, and create a healthy, well-tended environment on our property. In 2016, Crossroads Community Garden was established - a project developed through a partnership led by the Friends of Portland Community Gardens with Hillsdale Community Church, Stephens Creek Crossing and many community funders and volunteers.

Where We Are Now: A Church Repurposed

Most churches have seen a decline in membership during the past two decades. Members of our congregation were and still are actively involved in the life of the church, but we have not escaped this trend. At its largest, Hillsdale Community Church had 560 members. In 2003, we had 234 members. In 2006, we had 131 members. Now in 2022 our membership is less than 100.

Why is this?

Since our current building was built in the 1960’s, Hillsdale Community Church has been like many other Protestant churches. Sunday mornings have been a time to spiritually recharge and to see our more-or-less like-minded friends. Christian education, community outreach and charity have been secondary activities that flowed from the primary focus on worship. This has resulted in the congregation getting increasingly smaller and older as the attitude of people in the neighborhood towards all this has slowly changed over the last 50 years. 

What differentiates us is that we have an unusual denominational history, and a progressive focus and movement toward justice, peace and compassion.

We’ve always had a heart for service to the community. We’ve reached out to support our neighbor, Hillsdale Crossing, in several ways. We’ve replanted our landscaping with native and sustainable plants. We’ve also committed an underused section of our land to community gardens. We housed Loaves and Fishes in the Fellowship Hall before it moved to Multnomah Village and later became Meals on Wheels People. We were also involved in starting the Willamette West Habitat for Humanity affiliate. And these are only the more recent ministries.

By the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, our declining numbers presented a quandary to us. Around this time, we began to think about how to build on our rich history, and refocus ourselves toward the 21st century.

This is a time of great change in the world, and we believed – and still believe - in God’s call to evolve into a new way of “being” and “doing” church.

To sharper our focus, we assembled a Repurposing Team was assembled to make new plans for the real estate and other assets of the church, initially to fill empty space in the building and site we have inherited. As the team met, deliberated and communicated with the community, larger possibilities evolved around inviting other non-profits into a life with us - sharing space, resources, vision and work with each other.

We have noticed that, in our understanding, the Holy Spirit is actively at work in many other non-profit organizations around Portland. We feel called to offer substantial support for that work. We believe that a campus filled with compatible non-profit organizations can more effectively serve our community than any of us can do alone.

You can learn more about this and follow along on our blog.

To quote from a paper celebrating our 50th Anniversary, “Our Heritage—Our Future”:

“… Our heritage is rich. All of us are debtors. There is very little room for pride when we understand how much we have been given and how much we owe to God and our forefathers. This understanding does not act as a depressor on the human spirit but as an inspiration. From it springs a new confidence and a new assurance. For when a man begins to catch a faint glimmer of how great God is, his own life is clothed with a humility that makes him strong. It is a strange paradox that the proud grow increasingly uncertain and fearful, while the humble find their confidence enlarging with every passing experience.”

We are grateful for and humbled to be the inheritors of this church, and we look forward to growing into our new vision of service. If you’re interested in engaging in this work with us, please contact us. We would love to hear from you.

Thank you to the members of Hillsdale UCC, past and present, who compiled the information on our history that this article draws on. Thank you, in particular, to Nayan Fleenor for her assistance and feedback. For more information on our history please contact the church office.