Second Hour

Sunday Learning Opportunities

Second Hour Sundays bring important topics for learning and discussion following the Sunday service.

Recent discussions have included:
  • Conversation on Spiritually Rooted Leadership for a Time of Change with Pacific School of Religion president Rev. Dr. David Vasquez-Levy
  • Conversation with Pastor Álvaro Duran, Anglican theologian, pastor, and LGBTIQ+ Human Rights defender, the first and only openly LGBTIQ+ religious leader in El Salvador
  • Discussion group on the book Caste by Isabelle Wilkerson
  • Asian American History in the Bay Area with Grace Yoo 
  • Historian, theologian and author Martyn Whittock on Trump and the Puritans: exploring the deep historical roots of the support for Donald Trump among US evangelicals 
  • Penny Nixon on Religion and Politics: Finding Our Way 
  • Author Robby Jones on White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity 
  • Rev. Jim Antal on God’s Call – Our Vocation – In A Time of Climate Chaos
  • Activist Suzanne Verge on gun violence
  • Author Rev. Molly Baskette on Bless This Mess: A Modern Guide to Faith and Parenting in a Chaotic World
  • Climate Church, Climate World: A Discussion
  • Schools & Communities First with Dr. Jennifer Martinez, Chief Strategy Officer, PICO California

Facility Rentals

Thank you for your interest in having your event at CCSM! We are the perfect place for elegant weddings, intimate and large receptions, social events and musical performances.

View a slideshow of photos of CCSM's campus and facilities.

Weddings

CCSM gladly honors and celebrates those who wish to have their union blessed in our beautiful, sacred sanctuary. We are proud to bless and proclaim as glorious the union between all people, including same-gender and interfaith couples. Contact us to receive information about our wedding packages.

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Performance Space

We have held numerous performances at CCSM, including regular performances by Masterworks Chorale and various other choir, orchestra and band performances. Our Sanctuary is an ideal space with a capacity of 400 attendees. Our Organists are available to play the organ and our piano is tuned regularly.

Events

CCSM is the venue of choice for your next meeting, workshop, conference and more! Learn more about our campus here. Contact us for more information.

Livestreaming

CCSM has the ability to livestream or record your event in the Sanctuary.  Please inquire with our office if you would like more information and pricing.

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Music Events

Music is an integral part of the rich history of CCSM. Through our music we explore beauty, wonder, sadness, joy, and the many other mysteries of life, together.

Choir Performances

Our Chancel Choir is made up of volunteer singers under the dynamic leadership of our Director of Music, Lynnelle Bilsey. The choir performs a wide selection of music and offers special musical presentations as part of our morning worship.

In addition to enhancing our worship services, our choir, along with accompanying instrumentalists, offers outstanding musical events each year, including a Christmas Concert and a Spring Concert.

Organ Performances

CCSM houses our extraordinary Casavant organ, which is considered to be one of the best-crafted organs in California – artistically, musically, mechanically and architecturally. Visitors have many opportunities to hear this magnificent instrument throughout the year in worship and during special concerts. Also, each week our Organist in Residence presents a postlude on Sundays after our 10:30 am worship.

Concert Series and Special Music Events

A great community deserves great music! We offer concert series and special music events throughout the year, bringing the beauty and skill of high quality classical music performances to the San Francisco Peninsula.

Campus


Our campus is comprised of multiple buildings: our Sanctuary, Loggia building (office and meeting rooms), Kloss Hall, and our Betsy Woodward Christian Education building. We also have a Memorial Garden and central courtyard.

Housed on our campus is the Muslim Children’s Garden School, a preschool committed to teach and grow children through group learning, a sense of community, and Islamic values. Also on our campus is Little Wonders: A Parent-Child Center, a play-based, cooperative parent-child education center that teaches parents about child growth and development.

Learn more about how to hold your wedding or special event at CCSM. 

Click HERE to view a slideshow of photos of CCSM's campus and facilities.

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Sanctuary

Our beautiful Sanctuary is fully accessible — with wheelchair and hearing-impaired accessibility aids – so that we can welcome everyone…wherever you are on life’s journey.

It’s designed in the classic Spanish colonial revival style with a bell tower and carved, double wood main doors. The interior, which seats 400, has a long center aisle, an open chancel for flexibility and a balcony.

Its stunning visual focal point is a timeless five-window art glass installation designed by the world-renowned glass artist Gordon Huether of Napa, California. Our windows serve as the backdrop for our worship and special events.

During our services and special concerts, our Sanctuary reverberates from the magnificent tones of our Casavant Frères pipe organ, considered by many to be one the best pipe organs in the state of California.

Memorial Garden

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Columbarium and Wall of Remembrance in our Memorial Garden: Beauty, Renewal, and Remembrance

“We are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses…” Hebrews 12:1

Our Memorial Garden is our open-air sanctuary. In this sacred space, we honor the cycle of CCSM’s spiritual community — the connections from those who have gone before and those who will come after.

It is designed for meditation and prayer and is comprised of our Labyrinth, Columbarium, and Wall of Remembrance.

Labyrinth
Walk our Labyrinth and experience the simultaneity of the past and present; of the body and the soul; of the physical and the spiritual. The journey is one foot after another, and it is a path to the holy place inside us.

Columbarium
As a congregation, we are connected to those who have gone before us. The Columbarium is a sacred space designed as a granite wall for the permanent placement of cremated remains in an urn within individual niches. Each niche has enough space for two urns and each has a granite faceplate covering that can be engraved. The Columbarium allows members and friends of CCSM or their relatives to be interned in a place that has spiritual significance for them. The Memorial Garden is a restful and beautiful place that is open for private prayer and contemplation. 
The price of $4,000 per niche includes initial interment of one or two urns and plate engraving, as well as care in perpetuity.

Wall of Remembrance
For those whose remains are elsewhere, but whose lives are remembered by those here at CCSM, there is the naming opportunity to permanently engrave your loved ones’ names on a beautiful granite wall. Naming holds power. A physical place, where a name can be seen and felt, can offer a sense of permanence and comfort to loved ones who remain. An etched name can be an act of honoring, of relating through memory.
The price of $800 covers the engraving.

To learn more about memorializing a loved one, obtaining a niche for interment of a loved one’s remains, or to reserve space for your future use, please email Chase Montara, Director of Operations, at cmontara@ccsm-ucc.org or call 650-343-3694.