On a leafy stretch of Oakwood Drive in east Medford, Westminster Presbyterian Church gathers a multigenerational community around two very different Sunday morning services and one shared mission: helping people grow in a lifelong relationship with Jesus Christ. Since planting roots in 1958, Westminster has been part of two denominational mergers and one transfer, and in 2013 became a congregation of the Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians, known as ECO. Today the church holds a traditional service at 9:00 AM and a contemporary service at 10:45 AM, runs a cooperative preschool, supports ministries for every age, and partners with organizations from the Rogue Valley to Nairobi.
Two Sunday Services, Two Styles
Westminster keeps both of its Sunday services in the same Sanctuary, so worshipers can pick the style that fits them without leaving the building. The 9:00 AM traditional service walks through the Reformed order of service each week, opening with praise, hearing God's Word, offering confession, praying for God's world and being sent out in mission. Classic congregational hymns, meaningful prayer and expository preaching anchor the hour, and each service closes with "The Bond of Love" as a reminder that the body of Christ gathers around a shared table.
The 10:45 AM contemporary service fills the Sanctuary with a full band, passionate music and the same biblical preaching brought into everyday language. From June through October the second service moves outdoors to an amphitheater on the church property, taking advantage of Medford's warm summer mornings. Children are welcome in any service, and the WestKids team offers age-appropriate classes for kids from nursery through sixth grade during the 10:45 hour, when older students in grades six through nine are also dismissed to a class called Empower.
From a Farm in East Medford to a Multigenerational Congregation
Westminster began in 1958, when Rev. Kirkland West of First Presbyterian Church in Medford had a vision to plant a new church on the east side of the valley. Associate Pastor John Reynolds accepted the call to become the organizing pastor, gathered a number of families from the mother church, and the new congregation purchased a farm on what would become Oakwood Drive. While a building was constructed, services were held at Hoover Elementary School. A few of those founding families still attend Westminster.
Through the decades the church has been shaped by only five lead pastors: John Reynolds (1958 to 1970), George Aberle (1971 to 1979), Alan Jackson, who served for thirty years (1979 to 2009), Barnabas Sprinkle (2011 to 2019), and Chris Ward, who has served as lead pastor since 2021. Westminster has navigated two denominational mergers and one transfer along the way, with the most recent step in 2013 when the congregation joined ECO. The leadership writes that the most important history of Westminster is not found in those events, but in faith decisions, baptisms, mission trips and the daily growth that makes up "the history of eternity."
What to Expect on Your First Sunday
Dress at Westminster ranges from suits to jeans, and the welcome team encourages visitors to come as they are. Volunteer greeters stand at the doors, ushers are ready to help in the worship areas, and an Information Center in the Gathering Place sits between the two worship spaces to answer questions and point the way. Child care is available during both the worship and education hours, and the WestKids team has invested in background-checked leaders and a clean environment so families feel safe leaving their children.
Communion is observed together on the first Sunday of the month, when youth and other small groups set aside their regular breakouts to gather with the whole congregation for the Lord's Supper. Coffee, conversation and the Family Co-Op Lunch, a free meal that runs from 12:15 to 12:45 PM in the Youth Center, give visitors an easy way to meet others between or after the morning services.
WestKids, Youth and Young Adults
Westminster's family ministries meet children where they are. WestKids runs three age groups on Sunday mornings: Seedlings for birth through age two, with a well-equipped nursery and toddler room open to nursing mothers and accompanying adults; Sprouts for three-year-olds through kindergarten, which meets in the blue-door room off the south parking lot and sends home a parent cue and verse card each week to continue the conversation at home; and Surge for first through sixth graders, who join the 10:45 worship service for singing and announcements before being dismissed to their own classroom in the extended youth building affectionately called "the Barn." The Gospel Project curriculum ties the children's teaching to a weekly take-home journal page that helps families keep the conversation going.
The Youth Center is the hub for grades six through twelve. Wednesday nights from 6:30 to 8:30 PM gather middle and high school students for an hour of community-building games and relationships, followed by worship, discussion and breakout small groups. The fourth Wednesday of each month is held open so families have time to disciple at home and volunteer leaders can tend to their own spiritual lives. On Sundays, sixth through ninth graders are dismissed from the 10:45 contemporary service to Empower, an interactive, developmentally targeted class. After the second hour, sixth through twelfth graders are invited to Family Co-Op Lunch for food, fellowship and games while parents connect with one another.
Young Adults, roughly eighteen to twenty-eight, finds its center in the contemporary 10:45 service, a monthly community event and a small group built around big life questions, spiritual formation and service. New faces are invited to grab coffee with the Young Adult Pastor before getting plugged in.
A Cooperative Preschool Serving the Rogue Valley Since 1972
Medford's most established preschool in the Rogue Valley has been operating as an outreach of Westminster since 1972. Westminster Cooperative Preschool welcomes children from all cultures and religious backgrounds and runs a developmentally appropriate curriculum in large, open, well-furnished classrooms with an outdoor playground on site. Parents join in the cooperative model by helping in the classroom roughly once every four to five weeks, and the program is staffed by a director with a Master's degree in Marriage, Family and Child Counseling and a team of teachers with backgrounds in early childhood education, doula support and public school teaching.
Helping One Another Through Hard Seasons
Westminster takes seriously the gaps that keep people from experiencing the abundant life Jesus offers. The Wholeness Ministries staff of Warren Guthrie runs Stephen Ministry, a one-to-one lay caring ministry in which trained Stephen Ministers meet with a hurting person once a week for about an hour, listening, praying and walking through life's challenges together. GriefShare, a thirteen-week, video-based support group for those who have lost a loved one, is offered twice a year, and people of any faith background are welcome to attend. Pastoral counseling and marriage support are available through the Pastor of Congregational Life, and a 24-Hour Prayer chain carried through Flocknote lifts up confidential requests from the congregation.
Men's and Women's Ministry
Women's ministry at Westminster includes prayer groups, Bible studies, Women of Faith and Circle groups that have built a deep network across the Rogue Valley. Men's ministry is deliberately grass-roots and intergenerational. Dads bring their young kids together to play while the fathers encourage one another in their walk with Jesus, the Men's Breakfast gathers a couple of times a year around a shared table, a Bible study welcomes honest seekers, a discipleship track offers personal coaching and mentoring, a service group plans Habitat for Humanity and Joy Community projects, and the Wood Lot chops and delivers firewood to families in need each winter.
Local and Global Mission
Westminster keeps a long list of partner organizations close at hand. Locally, the church sends funds, food and volunteers to Medford Gospel Mission, which feeds and counsels people experiencing homelessness in the valley, and supports Hearts with a Mission, a seventeen-bed home that provides emergency shelter for homeless youth ages ten to seventeen. The Pregnancy Center, Wilderness Trails, the Family Nurturing Center and Crisis Relief Nursery, and a Good News Club at Hoover Elementary run in partnership with Child Evangelism Fellowship all receive Westminster's prayer, financial support and volunteer time.
Globally, Westminster walks alongside The Gideons International, International Justice Mission, and Wycliffe Bible Translators, including a particular Wycliffe missionary in West Asia. In the Mathari Valley slum of Nairobi, the church has partnered with Hope's Promise to open two homes for orphaned children and continues to support Pastor and Mrs. Karau as they run food ministries, Bible studies, support groups, a health clinic and outreach into the wider community. In Andhra Pradesh, India, the church supports Zion Ministries as Pastors Prem Kumar and Jayan Peddoju serve people of every caste through food programs, health clinics, education and the good news of Christ's love.
Becoming a Covenant Partner
Joining the church family at Westminster is shaped around the idea of covenant partnership. People who want to make Westminster their church home walk through five short videos and four weeks of small-group conversation, reflecting on Jesus as Savior and Lord, the Holy Spirit's continued transformation, partnering with God's mission, and sharing their gifts, time and talents with this community of believers. Covenant Partner classes are planned quarterly in the winter, spring, summer and fall, and elders walk alongside participants before publicly welcoming new partners into the church during a Sunday service.
What Westminster Believes
Westminster teaches from a Reformed theological perspective, grounded in Scripture and centered on the essentials of the Christian faith. The congregation confesses one God who created all things and made people in his likeness, then taught by Scripture that sin has broken the relationship between people and their Creator. In love, God sent Jesus Christ, his only Son, to die on the cross and rise again, paying in full the debt that human brokenness could not. Through the Holy Spirit, those who accept Jesus' rule are freed and being transformed from the inside out, formed into a community of worship, prayer, generosity and service as the Spirit continues to make all things new.
Life Together in Medford
From the sanctuary that fills twice on Sunday to the preschool that has shaped generations of Rogue Valley families to the prayer chain that runs all day, every day, Westminster Presbyterian Church is woven into the rhythms of east Medford. Visitors are welcome at 2000 Oakwood Drive, the office is open Monday through Thursday from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM, and the pastors and staff are glad to answer questions, pray with anyone who asks, and walk alongside those who want to take a next step of faith.