Rev. Gabrielle Chavez

The Rev. Gabrielle Chavez has a renaissance women’s wide range of interests and accomplishments.

Gabrielle, who began her second tenure as MPC’s interim pastor and head of staff in March of 2006, is:

• A graduate of Yale with degrees in religion and combined sciences, and a lifelong interest in healing. 
• A trained professional interim pastor with a divinity degree from Andover Newton Theological School, who has served many Western Oregon congregations in several denominations.
• A practitioner of Reiki, a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that promotes healing by touch.
• A published author of the "Raw Food Gourmet; Going Raw for Total Well Being," which touts the advantages of a diet made up totally of raw foods.
• A co-founder, with her husband, Thomas, of the Christ the Healer United Church of Christ congregation, which has a strong emphasis on spirituality and peacemaking.

Gabrielle says Christ the Healer "is willing to take this experiment of being part of the body of Christ to the edge. Much of what I have learned there I have been able to bring back to more established churches. You are getting the benefits of that, and I think they are rich." 

Gabrielle is a good fit at MPC, a socially progressive congregation that welcomes all to worship and participate in the life of the church regardless of age, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation.

She served MPC as interim pastor in the period leading up to the Rev. Woodley White’s hire in 1993, steering the congregation through a turbulent time after the sudden resignation of the previous pastor. Her success then made her a popular choice to return when MPC again faced the challenge of replacing a pastor.

In Presbyterian churches, interim pastors are expected to lead the congregation through a period of self study and reflection for one to two years, a process culminates in a search for the right candidate and the call of a permanent pastor. In this case, Gabrielle says, she believes MPC’s decision could be pivotal to the future of the congregation.

"We’re really at a choice point," she says. "Society, culture and the immediate environs are going to change out from under us, no matter what we do.

"We can act like nothing has changed, maintain a facility, staff, program and self-understanding that were designed to work in the 50s, 60s and 70s, only to discover as time moves on in the new pastorate that it’s unsustainable. Or, we can begin to look at what has changed in us, what has changed around us." 

Gabrielle, who has been long active in the Portland anti-war effort, She believes many values that underpin progressive Christianity are at odds with much of what is happening in the American consumer culture.

"We have to own that," she says. "We have to say we’re offering an alternative here, an oasis."