Rev. Cynthia O’Brien came to our church in December 2017. She holds a Master of Divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary and degrees in Choral Music and Journalism from the University of Southern California. She has taught seminars on preaching and music and has developed more than one nonprofit youth music program. Ordained as a minister in 1993, she has served churches in San Diego, Los Angeles, and the greater Portland area. She plays guitar, piano and harp, and provides music for alternative worship services, festivals and retirement communities. Mostly she enjoys spending Sundays and some weekdays with this congregation that she describes as “unconditionally loving” and “hilarious.”
As a volunteer moderator with Braver Angels, a national organization working to reunite America, she leads “Talking Across the Political Divide” workshops and “Red Blue” workshops which bring together conservatives and liberals/progressives for structured conversations. She is married to Michael and they have two daughters.
Debra Huddleston is our Music Director. She studied at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, finishing her degree in organ at the Hartt School of Music in Hartford, CT. She later returned to receive a Masters degree in Piano accompanying. Debra has accompanied choirs on European tours, performances in the White House, and in choir festivals. She has worked with many notable conductors, including Richard Proulx (Chicago Cathedral), Leo Nestor (Shrine in Washington, D.C.), Don Neuen (Chrystal Cathedral), Dale Warland (Warland Singers), and James Litton (American Boy Choir).
Currently she is adjunct faculty at Linfield College. Debra also directs the Silvertones, a mixed community choir, and the Salem Madrigal Singers, and is accompanist (piano, harpsichord and organ) for the Willamette Master Chorus. With flutist, Sandy Duffy Norman, she has recorded a CD “Whisper in the Moonlight”; her solo piano Christmas CD is “Vienna Spice, Christmas on a Boesendorfer”. With Halcyon Trio Oregon (Joan Paddock, trumpets, Jackie Van Paepeghem, soprano) she toured Norway in the summer of 2007, performing several concerts throughout the country, including in Troldhaugen (Edvard Grieg’s home), and for the Norwegian Emmigration Center in Sletta. They have also performed in many locations throughout the West Coast. Debra is a Bösendorfer Educational Artist.
Rev. Peter Blank served as pastor from 2014 to 2016.
Rev. David Morelli served as pastor from 2007 to 2014.