Worship with Us Sunday at 10am

Join us in person or on Facebook Live for worship at 10am

-- or anytime later on Facebook. This Sunday experience will help us get in the mood and mode of Thanksgiving.

Our scripture texts are Deuteronomy 8:7-18 (counting our blessings along with the ancient Israelites) and Matthew 25:14-30 (Jesus tells the parable of talents where the rich one gives wealth to several of his servants and then returns to see what they have done with it).

We will sing some wonderful songs for Thanksgiving: Come, Ye Thankful People, Come; We Gather Together; Now Thank We All Our God; Give Thanks; For the Beauty of the Earth; We Plow the Fields and Scatter; For the Fruit of All Creation

After worship in the Gathering Space, we'll be having a mini-Thanksgiving Potluck, where you are invited to bring your favorite dessert or finger food, brought to you by our Youth Ministry. We hope you can join us for this festive time! Questions? gabriel@parkwayucc.org

The worship bulletin can be found here:

https://parkwayucc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/11-19-23-bulletin-FINAL.pdf

Please participate in worship virtually via our livestream on Facebook if that is convenient for you and/or if you have health concerns. Masks are available and respected here.

FROM GABRIEL REQUADT ~

OUR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION & YOUTH DIRECTOR!

Sour grapes!

In Youth Ministry, we're continuing our theme of Our Sin, God's Faithfulness by looking at Israel, God's Vineyard. Think of a gardener. They work diligently to prepare the vineyard, taking into consideration every factor. But, still the grapes are sour. In this week's passage from Isaiah 5:1-7 and 11:1-5, God is depicted as a gardener. We'll read about God's disappointment in God's people's actions, the hope that perseveres, and God's determination to help us grow. The Point of all this: God calls us to love and respect others.

Living the Story link for the week of November 19 -- to work on at home:

At home - November 19 Week

In Children's Ministry, we'll be jumping to the New Testament with our heroines of Mary and Elizabeth as they journey to Nazareth, looking at Emmanuel, or 'God with us'.

Our littlest ones in the Nursery will be hearing some simple Bible stories and enjoying one another with Becca and Julie.

* We are wanting to add a few more people to our Nursery Substitute List. If you are interested, please let me know.

gabriel@parkwayucc.org

Gather virtually with our UCC siblings from around the country on Monday, November 20 at 6pm CT...

Trans Day of Remembrance vigil will be a time where we collectively hold space to honor and remember the names of trans siblings we know and may never know lost to violence this year. Just as we hold space for All Saints Day, may we hold space for our transgender saints in this special offering from Gender & Sexuality Justice Ministries of our United Church of Christ.

Register here for this free event:

https://ucc.zoom.us/webinar/register/6916994608128/WN_XNY3P_KoTdSlBlc9jc3bQg?inf_contact_key=ae0c80db990406eaa15057d81d5933647e470d92b8b75168d98a0b8cac0e9c09#/registration

TAD ~ Tuesday Afternoon Dialogue… Zoom with us!

All are welcome to join us on Zoom on Tuesdays, November 21 and December 5 at 2pm as we work with The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michelle Richardson. Related to current issues of book accessibility in libraries, this book is historical fiction but based on true stories about the women librarians in Kentucky back in the 1930’s who rode on horseback into the mountains to deliver books and newspapers. The main character has a genetic condition causing her to be shunned by her community. This adds an important component to the story about how isolation impacts the human spirit and how education and acceptance can overcome ignorance to allow understanding and kindness.

Come 15 minutes early if you want to chat and build community before we start the book discussion…

Zoom…https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83670617428?pwd=bUxPZEdDMlU4ay9oNndTWW4yZUYwUT09

(312) 626-6799; Meeting ID: 836 7061 7428; Passcode: 480007

Questions? Contact Jackie Eiffert, jeiffert2@gmail.com; (661) 378-6781   

Praying through Advent - Thursdays at 11am CT on Zoom

This four-week series from our UCC Nurture the Soul will bring us deep into the Advent story, from escaping the violence of Herod, to journeying through the desert, to being left outside to give birth. Hosted by Rev. Tracy Howe and featuring guests from across the National Setting of the United Church of Christ and Local Church pastors around the country, we will consider how these stories are still unfolding in the forms of repression, migration and the housing crisis. We will join in fervent prayer, that we may be part of God’s unfolding love in this world. The final episode, on December 21st, will feature a music filled virtual worship event, featuring beloved music collective, The Many, which local churches can then download and share.

Honoring Tyler Wessel ~ Raising Mental Health Awareness

Parkway Central High and CHADS Mental Health Coalition invite you to a varsity basketball game on Tuesday, November 28 at 6:30pm at Parkway Central High School ~ 369 N Woodsmill Rd, Chesterfield 63017 -- just north of Ladue Rd at 141.

Cheer on Tyler Wessel's old basketball team at Parkway Central High School and help raise money for mental health programs.

Tyler loved sports and was an accomplished athlete. He was kind, good humored and brought people together. He grew up here at PUCC - attended our PUNS Preschool, Bellerive Elementary, Central Junior and Central High. He was a student at Indiana University at the time of his death by suicide in August 2021.

His basketball team has hosted a fundraiser for mental health in 2021 and 2022 and is doing so again this year. 'Talk for Tyler' is the theme that reminds all of us that we need to speak about mental health regularly and make sure that the people around us know that we are willing to listen to them and love them in the midst of any challenge or struggle.

Join us as we remember Tyler, rally around his parents Cindy and Ralf and enjoy some good basketball.

To learn more about CHADS, visit https://www.chadscoalition.org/

https://www.schrader.com/obituary/tyler-wessel

For more information, please contact kevin@parkwayucc.org;

314-872-9330

In the prophetic tradition of our faith, justice is a river that never stops. As Amos declared, "Let justice roll down like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." In this special event, two prophetic leaders will join in conversation about the never-ending movement for justice that extends from one generation to the next.

In the 1980s, the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Chavis, Jr. coined the phrase "environmental racism" and helped lead protests that garnered the attention of the world to the struggle for environmental justice. More recently, Rep. Justin Pearson of Tennessee has been involved in protests that have challenged the status quo and awakened the conscience of the public in calling for common sense gun legislation.

Before becoming a state representative, Pearson was an environmental justice leader in Memphis where he co-founded Memphis Community Against the Pipeline (MCAP), now known as Memphis Community Against Pollution.

Register here for this free event:

https://ucc.zoom.us/webinar/register/7616974776276/WN_ikMs0VIDRcupxezA68OG6g?inf_contact_key=e0df16c822dbe2c03fe87d7c1c72a2cf09c74070ac2bf3cfa7869e3cfd4ff832#/registration

Join us for a Special All Ages Worship Experience to Start Advent

Come One, Come All to a Special Worship Experience on December 3 at 10am. We will begin with Worship in the Sanctuary and then...

A Journey to Bethlehem in Fellowship Hall to visit Mary and Joseph, Angels, and spend time in the stable. Travel further on to the Bethlehem Market and taste some of the foods of the era, visit some farm animals, and make a final visit with The Wisemen. Bring children of all ages -- and invite grandkids to join us. There will be tables in the middle with more activities: God's Eyes, Festive Paper Chains, Ornaments, and Writing Poetry.

Join us on the first Sunday of Advent for all ages experience.

More info? Contact Carol Cobb: ccjcobb@aol.com | (314) 640-8166

Parkway Adventurers - Open to All!

Thursday, December 7 | 9:15am |Magic Chef Mansion

Join us for a tour of the mansion --- it will last an hour and fifteen minutes. We’ll meet at church by 9:15am to carpool or meet at the mansion before 10am. There is a $20 per person fee (15 person minimum) for the tour with the money to be paid the day of the tour. 

RSVP to Kent Tallyn (314-303-5606; bsee74-pucc@yahoo.com) or Diane Tallyn (314-910-2032) no later than Thursday, November 30. Lunch to be determined. Please wear only flat-sole shoes as no small-tipped heels are permitted. 

The Magic Chef Mansion was built for Charles Stockstrom (1852-1935), the founder of the Quick Meal Stove Company, later renamed Magic Chef.

The largest stove maker in the world at one time, the St. Louis plant alone sprawled over 600,000 square feet and employed 2,000 people.

After his death, Stockstrom’s daughter Adda Ohmeyer resided in the mansion until her death. Shortly thereafter, all of the original furnishings and some of the fixtures were sold at a week-long public auction prior to the house's sale in the fall of 1990 to the current owner. The new family moved in four months later and began restoration. Over the next twenty years, some of the original items were tracked down, repurchased and returned to the house. The mansion has been painstakingly restored to its turn-of-the-century elegance, including original lighting fixtures and period furnishings. We will see uncovered original murals in the parlor, an original and operating Magic Chef oven in the kitchen, and a bowling alley in the basement. Hopefully, it will be decorated for Christmas.

http://magicchefmansion.com/

Parkway Adventurers is open to all!

Past events have included the Chihuly Exhibit at the amazing Missouri Botanical Garden and the intense and informative Holocaust Museum in Creve Coeur. For more info on this relatively new group, please contact Jackie Eiffert jeiffert2@gmail.com, 661-378-6781 or Carol Cobb ccjcobb@aol.com, (314) 640-8166

Prayer List Updates as of November 17

All the acts of kindness, justice and equity near and far.

Seasonal beauty.

Families and individuals making wonderful plans for Thanksgiving.

Grieving/struggling families or individuals as the holidays approach.

Bill Hilgeman - home after hospitalization - injuries from ATV accident

Coree Mix and family as they grieve and give thanks for great-grandma.

Lucia and John Bieg - as they mourn the sudden death of his cousin.

Karen Grayheck - healing after recent back surgery.

Gram Ruth Hughes - Lymphoma; receiving hospice care (Schneider).

The Yakels - as Amy’s mother transitions to new care center this month.

Annette Harrison - recovering from injuries (Stifel).

Trudy - living with cancer; healing after a fall (Scharf).

Clare Chapman - diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer (Svenson)

Iceland - thousands of earthquakes; concerns about volcanoes erupting.

The people of Nepal after the earthquake earlier this month.

The continuing war in Ukraine.

War in the Mideast - Israel and Hamas… Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Yemen.  

Dear Parkway Family,

I could have been a candle of remembrance this year. 

I don't remember, but I've been told that I was wandering in the valley of the shadow late last Spring. 

Thanks to you, my loving family, our Pastor and People I don't even know on prayer chains, somehow I pulled through. 

I'm still in physical therapy and voice therapy but I'm doing remarkably well. 

Doug and I are so grateful to all of you for your caring, love, visits, cards, flowers and especially prayers.

Grace and Thanksgiving to all. 

With Love, Val, Doug and the Detjen Family

Pray for our UCC’s CAIM

The Council for American Indian Ministry (CAIM) is the voice for American Indian people in the UCC. CAIM provides Christian ministry and witness to American Indians and to the wider church. Justice issues that affect American Indian life are communicated to the whole UCC by CAIM.

Historically, the forebears of the UCC established churches and worked with Lakota, Dakota, Nakota, Mandan, Hidatsa, Arickara, and Hocak in North and South Dakota, Wisconsin and northern Nebraska. Today there are 20 UCC congregations on reservations and one urban, multi-tribal UCC congregation in Minneapolis, Minnesota. CAIM supports these local churches and their pastors. In addition, CAIM strives to be a resource for more than 1,000 individuals from dozens of other tribes and nations who are members of other UCC congregations and to strengthen their participation in the life of the church.

Christmas Dinner Pot Luck

Monday, December 25

2-4pm in the Heritage Room

at PUCC

Please join us for a fun, festive Christmas potluck dinner. Ham and rolls provided… together we will do the rest!

Please contact Gerry and Mike Rogers with RSVP, questions and/or comments at gcr123055@gmail.com;

314-434-7122 

New Guidance for Mental Health Services from the World Health Organization and the United Nations

Read the report on the WHO website: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240080737

This groundbreaking report has been published by the World Health Organization alongside the United Nations (on behalf of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights).

It prioritizes the human rights of people who use mental health services, which is an entirely different approach to most current mental health laws, which are focused primarily on compulsion and containment.

Of particular interest on p.57 of the report ~

Prescription of psychotropic drugs…

Countries should adopt a higher standard for the free and informed consent to psychotropic drugs given their potential risks of harm in the short and long term. Countries, for example, can require written or documented informed consent (e.g. expressed by a recording in video or audio formats) after providing detailed information on potential negative and positive effects, and the availability of alternative treatment and non-medical options.

Legislation can require medical staff to inform service users about their right to discontinue treatment and to receive support in this. Support should be provided to help people safely withdraw from treatment with drugs.

The prescription of psychotropic drugs and follow-up requires careful physical health assessment and monitoring.

For an overview of the report and its context, you could read the blog by IIPDW Chair Professor John Read in Psychology Today.

Ponder

There's another Christian movement that's changing our politics ... it has nothing to do with whiteness or nationalism...

Please carve out some time to read this ponderful piece.

Let us know what you think about it - kevin@parkwayucc.org

"The Social Gospel was a Christian movement that emerged in late 19th-century America as a response to the obscene levels of inequality in a rapidly industrializing country. Its adherents took on the exploitation of workers and unethical business practices of robber barons like oil magnate John D. Rockefeller, who, when once asked by a reporter how much money he needed to finally have enough, purportedly said, 'Just a bit more.'"

https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/13/us/social-gospel-movement-uaw-strike-blake-cec?cid=ios_app

[Thanks to our Council President, Lana Biondo, for passing this along to us.]

For The Beauty of the Earth – lyrics reworked by Maren Tirabassi

For the beauty of the earth, for the water, wind and sky,

For the love secure from birth and the love that is surprise.

God of all to you we raise – this our hymn of grateful praise.

For the beauty of each time – autumn gold or winter snow.

For the season’s pantomime - August berries, March winds blow.

God of all to you we raise – this our hymn of grateful praise.

For communities of faith, each unique and filled with grace,

and the ways we join and share, lifting up compassion’s face –

God of all to you we raise – this our hymn of grateful praise.

For this sharing of our gifts, for inclusion deep and wide,

for our songs and prayers and dreams, offering hope on every side.

God of all to you we raise – this our hymn of grateful praise.

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