Welcome to Old First Church!

Sharing God's love, justice, and welcome on our corner, in our city, and in the world for 175 years.

Join us for Worship every Sunday at 11:00 AM

1751 Sacramento St, San Francisco | Free Parking | Kid Friendly |  Get Directions  

        Join us in worship        

Click here for online streaming worship

Click here for the worship bulletin

~~~~~Sabbatical Worship~~~~~

Our pastor is away on sabbatical for a few months of rest and renewal, and we are privileged to have a variety of excellent preachers and worship leaders with us each week during this time. To find out who's preaching each week, scroll down to the bottom of this page and check the events coming up.

Our Parish Associate pastor will preach roughly every other week. To help the church have its own time for sabbatical renewal, he is preaching a series of sermons doing some basic re-examination of common Christian language. On the intervening weeks, we will hear from church leaders in our area, former interns and members of the church, and others. It is great to hear such a variety of excellent preaching and new ideas from these folks.  See the "What's Happening at Old First" section below for the worship leaders of the next few weeks.

 


Click here to volunteer for the food pantry

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We Choose Welcome

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.

Old First Presbyterian Church is an Open and Affirming Church

Donate to Old First here 

Volunteer for Old First here

Worship & Music

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.  

Service

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.

Learn More

Education

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. 

We are on our way!  Our journey of a four-month period while our pastor is away on sabbatical has begun. We wish Maggi much-needed rest and reflection and renewal, but this is also a time of reflection and renewal for our congregation. During this period, I will be the worship leader roughly every other week. I hope to reflect on and explore broader meanings for some of our most familiar church words in these sermons.  And in addition the other Sundays, we will welcome an exciting group of excellent preachers who have relationship with us. They include leaders of faith groups and justice organizations with whom we work like the Interfaith Council and Faithful Fools and leaders of our Presbytery and Synod.  And we will get insights on our church and our faith from former interns and associates and members like Leslie Veen, Keenan Kelsey, and Jeannie Tate Choy.  I am really looking forward to this, and I hope to see you here. This summer is an excellent time to come to church in person and meet all these great people.  But if you cannot come, you’re always welcome on our online streaming.

~Shalom and Salaam, Erwin Barron, parish associate pastor

Click here for our website and online streaming

~~~~~~~~~~~~What's Happening at Old First~~~~~~~~~~~~

August 9

Sabbatical Worship this week

Trent Thornley is leading worship

Executive Director of San Francisco Night Ministry

Our guest preacher for Sunday, August 9 is the executive director of the San Francisco Night Ministry, an organization strongly supported by Old First Church. Trent will preach about Elijah and the disciples meeting God in a storm.  He will bring his Christian and Buddhist backgrounds to our worship.  This will continue our sabbatical re-examining of faith his different perspectives.  Join us in worship.

In addition to preaching he will stay with us afterwards to share stories and the impact of The San Francisco Night ministry.  Plan to stay and have a conversation with Trent. For six decades, San Francisco Night Ministry has been listening in the hardest places — on the streets, over the phone, and in sacred community spaces. We believe care and belonging are human rights, not luxuries.

Click here to learn more about SF Night Ministry

August 16

Sabbatical Worship next week

Saskia DeVries leads worship

Scientist and former Old First elder

On next Sunday, August 16, our worship leader will be Dr. Saskia DeVries. Saskie is a renowned neurobioligist working at the Allen Institute in Seattle. But more importantly for us, Saskia is a devoted Christian and former elder in Old First Church. She will be sharing with us some of her ideas about the intersection of science and faith. She says "I will talking about the in-between spaces of creation - twilight in between day and night, wetlands in between water and dry land, and people in between genders and all other binaries/definitions." 

Join us to hear this interesting new perspective on faith in our continuing sabbatical reflections.  She will be visiting her parents and invites all of us to join them for lunch in the neighborhood after worship.

August 29

Finally, we're ready to paint!

New Mural for our Neighborhood

Celebrating Old First's sharing food and love!

On August 29, after months of planning, several drafts, and preparation, we will finally paint our new mural on the wall of the garage behind our building on Sacramento Street. Input from the congreation and community members led renowned mural artist Deirdre Weinberg and our own artist Kurt Schwartzman to design this beautiful mural of food and love being distributed to the neighborhood on our corner outside the church. Scaffolding will go up in the last week of August, and on Saturday, August 29, Deidre and Kurt will begin work on the painting. But they need our help!  Plan to come by on Friday about 10:00am and the days following to assist the artists. You're not required to climb the scaffolding or even to paint, but there'll be lots to do.  And later you can point to the mural and say you helped. You can even brag about the few brush strokes that you contributed!

Mural painting begins:  Saturday, August 29, 10:00am, Bank of America parking lot behind the church.  

If you would like to help or just come watch, contact Erwin Barron to let us know and get the details. Click below:

Click here to let Erwin know you're interested