Seattle First Baptist Church - Downtown Seattle on First Hill

Phone: 206.325.6051

Fax: 206.324.4326

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Lead Pastor
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Office Coordinator
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Mission Statement
We are a community of faith united in exploring what it means to follow the way of Jesus Christ, to be a people of God and to love and care for our neighbors. As a Church we will know no circles of exclusion, no boundaries we will not cross and no loyalties above those which we owe to God.

About us
Founded in 1869, the founders of our church, the Hanford and Holgate families, were among the very first pioneer settlers to Puget Sound. Our church is one of the oldest in Seattle. We are an American Baptist Church USA, a member of the Evergreen Baptist Association of the Northwest and a Welcoming and Affirming congregation.

Our Distinctiveness
We stress Baptist Liberties which prize soul liberty, freedom of conscience, autonomy of the local church, religious liberty, and priestly liberty. Our members enjoy being among all faith seekers. Not only is the spiritual journey encouraged, it is supported with retreats and spiritual direction, and is of strength to all in our congregation.

As an American Baptist church, we are a healing bridge for those whose experience with fundamentalism has been painful.

We are a welcoming and affirming congregation: sexual and gender minorities are naturally integrated into our congregation.

We affirm the role of women and men as mutual partners; we act on gender issues.

We are an historic Peace Church where pastors and congregation have stood for peace and against war throughout the twentieth century and to the present.

Justice and compassion are trademarks. Throughout our history, pastors and members have taken courageous and often controversial stands on behalf of those marginalized by our society.

We strive for excellence in worship, and insightful and progressive interpretation of scripture. We offer opportunities for volunteers to sing in a large choir and play a wide range of instruments, centered on the historic Æolian-Skinner Organ Opus 1216 crafted by G. Donald Harrison, installed here the summer of 2007.

About our website
We invite you to explore our website. It was designed to be a virtural church with these doors open 24-hours a day, 7-days a week so that you can watch, listen or read each weeks sermon, listen to worship hour anthems and special music by our Sanctuary Choir, read various types of published materials from our pastors and mission groups, view many galleries of photos, check out our new member information section, plus provide a complete events calendar so that you know when exciting things are happening at the church.

After you have explored our website, we do want you to join us for worship in our real home on the corner of Harvard and Seneca in downtown Seattle.

You are always welcome here at Seattle First Baptist and we look forward to meeting you and hope you will decided to become a member of our church family!

Worship with us.

The Feast of Penticost

Contemplative Worship
Sunday morning at 8:45 a.m.
May 11, 2008

Early Lay-Led Prayer and Sharing with Communion in the Hintz Chapel.

Worship Hour
Sunday morning at 11:00 a.m.
May 11, 2008

Reflections by: The Rev. Dr. Rodney R. Romney,
Rabbi Ted Falcon, Ph.D. and Jamal Rahman

  Listen Soon    Live Streaming Audio begins at:  10:55 a.m. PST
  Watch Soon   Live Streaming Video begins at:  10:55 a.m. PST
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Frederick Swann Organ Recital

Detailed Event and Ticket Information

Be sure to mark the date of Friday, May 16, 7:30 p.m. for the next concert in our Organ Recital Series. This performance by Frederick Swann, internationally renowned artist, is sponsored jointly by SFBC and the Seattle chapter of the American Build of Organists.

Mr. Swann currently holds the office of National President of the American Guild of Organists. He is Organist Emeritus of the Crystal Cathedral and of the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles, and Organ Artist-in-residence at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Palm Desert, California. Mr. Swann is also University Organist and Artist Teacher of Organ at the University of Redlands in California, and Organist for the Mark Thallander Foundation choral festivals held in various parts of the country each season.

One commentator noted that Mr. Swann has probably presided over more ranks of pipes and stopknobs than any other organist in history. This is perhaps true given the size and prominence of the instruments with which his career has been notably associated The Riverside Church in New York City (1957-1982), The Crystal Cathedral (1982-1998) and First Congregational Church of Los Angeles (1998-2001). During his tenure at the Crystal Cathedral Mr. Swann was widely regarded as the most visible organist in the world, as millions in every major city in more than 165 countries worldwide saw and heard him on the weekly televised services from the Cathedral.

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The Learning Community

Adult Education Series
No Learning Community Events are scheduled for this week.

Children and Youth Education
Sunday mornings beginning at 9:30 a.m.

Childcare for infants, toddlers and preschoolers is available during the Sunday Worship Service, in our new Young Children's Center and Nursery.

Special Announcements
Check the Events - Church Calendar for complete details of these Special Announcements.

Saturday May 10, 2008
07:00 PM Second Saturday Film Series - Thirst

Sunday May 11, 2008
12:30 PM   No Partners in Peacemaking - Meeting

06:00 PM   Walk the Labyrinth

07:00 PM   All-Church Volleyball

Tuesday May 13, 2008
07:15 PM Bell Choir Rehearsal

Wednesday May 14, 2008
06:00 PM Church Dinner -

Friday May 16, 2008
07:30 PM   Aeolian-Skinner Organ, Opus 1216 - Recital Concert Series - Featuring Frederick Swann

  Listen Soon    Live Streaming Audio begins at:  7:25 p.m. PST
  Watch Soon   Live Streaming Video begins at:  7:25 p.m. PST

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This Week's Message

Rev. Catherine Fransson
"Tangled in the Vines"

Text: John 15:1-8

"... Who’d have thought I’d have so much trouble trying to talk about the well-loved passage about the vine and the branches?! The first tangle: the scripture I said I would use was not the one I meant. I sat down last Saturday to start a draft, read the 14th chapter of John, and felt sick. It was supposed to be the 15th chapter. It wasn’t so bad I had the text wrong; it was that I had meditated on chapter 15 much of the week. I wasn’t about to switch.

Ever make a mistake? Ever admit it? I pulled out of a parking spot at the gym a few weeks ago barely creasing the fender of the next car. But creased, it was. I went back inside to get note paper and tape, wrote my phone number down and stuck it on the window, hoping the driver wouldn’t notice the crease, or the note would blow away in the wind. After a day or so of hoping, my phone rang. It was the other driver. She insisted she could see no crease on her fender! Fabulous! But, because it was her son’s car, she would take it to a garage. Knowing how young men value automobiles, I knew I was in for it.

Sure enough, she came back with two estimates. One was for $700 and the other over $900. “Which should I take?” she asked me. “Oh, you choose,” I said, generously, vigorously concentrating on seven. A few days later she sent me a copy of the estimate, and I dutifully sent her a check for the total amount, trying to smile through clenched teeth.
We are all tangled in life’s ironies. It’s Murphy’s Law. If anything can go wrong, it will. It will go wrong at the worst possible moment, in the worst possible way. If two disasters are going to occur, then the worst of the two will occur. Living with disappointment led me to fall in love with Anne Lamott years ago. Her stories of her first year as a mother perfectly captured my own frustrations. Her honest prayers still give me courage.

She calls the people closest to her, her pit crew: they fix her blown-out tires and swab her off between laps. When faith was completely new to her, she wrestled with an unplanned pregnancy. In abject candor Lamott said she wrote down all her fears on a scrap of paper, folded it up, and offered it to God, saying, “Look, I am trying to keep my sticky fingers off the controls here; I am willing to have the baby if that is your will, if that is the right thing for us, and I am willing to have an abortion, if that would be best for the baby and me; so I am putting this in your in-box, and I’m just going to wait for my next operating instructions.” [p. 39] Operating Instructions is one of the best blow-by-blow depictions of the Christian life written in the nineties, full of the anger, fear, and frustration of normal, daily dilemmas, along with her budding efforts to bring God into the equation.

It is so difficult to do the things we know are right, that rather than being the branches of the vine Jesus describes here in John, we seem to more resemble burls, knots, and tangles: brush, brambles and weeds. ..."

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