Roger Button, George Fox Evangelical Seminary graduate and member of Sherwood Friends Church, is chaplain at the Sherwood YMCA, often walks around the track and prays with members at the Y. Button is the first ordained chaplain to serve a single branch of the YMCA of Columbia-Willamette. The regional Y is reminding people who think of it as a good place to work out or find dependable child care that the C in Young Men’s Christian Association still means Christian values inspired by Jesus’ life — but broadly applied across denominational lines.

“My role here is to minister to the staff and members who call the Sherwood YMCA their home,” Button says. “I feel blessed to be able to be here and be a listening ear.” Many of the people he listens to aren’t churchgoers, he says, but again, that doesn’t bother him.