Wentz Memorial UCC is celebrating their 100th anniversary as a congregation next month. We invite your participation in this celebration as you see fit. For more than 60 years of those 100 years, Parkway has had ties to Wentz Memorial. Here are ways to participate:

Participate in an anniversary gift: We are designating some money from the 2021 ministry plan to offer Wentz as a gift. Feel free to add to this with an individual gift. Checks to the church should include in the memo line “Wentz anniversary.”

Send cards and notes of recognition: Send a note to the congregation sharing your gratitude for our connections in ministry to Wentz Memorial UCC, 3435 Carver School Road, Winston-Salem, NC 27105.

Saturday, October 2, 6 pm – 9 pm Anniversary Banquet & Dance at the Salem Lake Marina, with COVID-19 precautions including masking while not eating. Tickets are $45. Let us know if you are interested in tickets.

Sunday, October 10, 11 am Worship at Wentz Memorial UCC We will not have worship at Parkway on this Sunday but will be joining Wentz for worship. Watch for details about how to participate. Craig is the preacher for the morning.

This congregation which has offered us ministry partnership was founded October 21, 1921 as Peoples Congregational by the founding pastor Dr. Samuel Wentz. They first met in the Old Depot Graded School Chapel. That thriving Depot Street neighborhood of worship, education and commerce was eventually displaced by changes to the city, including expanding industrialization. The congregation then worshipped in a building at 1508 East 14th Street until the 1965 Redevelopment Commission slated that area for urban redevelopment. The congregation moved again in 1980 to its current Carver School Road location.

Wentz Memorial UCC has been deeply engaged in educational support, often part of the Greater Carver School Road Network for Better Education. They have offered in their history a nursery, had a social worker on staff, and sponsored scouting programs and camping retreats for young people. They’ve offered the wider community a thriving theater arts ministry. For many years, God’s Kingdom Kitchen, food pantry, and annual health fair have offered significant support for neighbors.

Help us commemorate this legacy of worship, mercy and justice as well as our congregations’ relationship with one another.

In these days, you should be receiving a packet in the mail from the church with a document outlining some of the celebrations from the past year, an invitation to think about your connection to the church currently, and a commitment card. The commitment card is more than a giving commitment. We are asking for a re-commitment to the life of Parkway, what helps connect you, how you’d like to be involved in the year ahead, and a giving commitment. Return that form in the self-addressed and stamped envelope or send a response via email to parkwayuccofwinstonsalem@gmail.com.

This effort is to invite in rather than to exclude.

We wish to celebrate our recommitments in worship on Sunday, November 14 – our commitments of prayer, relationship, energy, as well as financial giving.

Click below to read the Stewardship brochure and questionnaire.

Rev. Andrea Simmonds will preach. Rev. Carol Penick will share from an earth examen experience. We will hear music of the Triad Dulcimer Orchestra and Genie Carter. We will also hear from our Parkway “compost concierge” on using the compost bin at the church. Directly following worship, we will have a discussion of the proposed church by-laws revisions. Vice President of Council Ralph Peeples will walk us through the proposed changes and there will be time for questions until 11 am so our education our can proceed.

Hybrid worship from the Parkway grass lot and on Zoom and Facebook Live.

As the weather cools, we will return to 11:00am worship in October. Bible Study and the Drawdown Class will again meet at 9:30am.

We celebrate Cosmos Communion Sunday with a focus on the human experience in Psalm 8. We will celebrate communion with sealed wafers and cups distributed for those present outside at the beginning of worship. Those at home are encouraged to prepare something to eat and drink for worship.

The service will be held in the grass lot. We encourage you to bring your pets on leashes or in travel boxes for a blessing at a brief service at 4pm next Sunday. Encourage your friends and neighbors to bring their pets. We mark the eve of the Feast of St. Francis with this service.

Special Mission Offering  

Neighbors in Need (NIN) is a special mission offering of the United Church of Christ that supports ministries of Justice and Compassion in the United States. In 2021, Neighbors in Need “Unfailing Love” offering is focused on supporting organizations and projects that are serving homeless and immigrant neighbors or communities. One-third of NIN funds support the Council for American Indian Ministry (CAIM). Two-thirds of this offering is used by the UCC’s Justice and Witness Ministries (JWM) to provide funding grants to UCC churches and organizations leading justice initiatives, advocacy efforts, and direct service projects in their communities. We will be collecting for this special offering through the month of October.

You are invited to join in for the resumption of Second Sunday presentations on Sunday, November 14, at 9:15 am on Zoom. We plan to explore Resmaa Menakem’s book, My Grandmother’s Hands, with an introduction to the book and format for our upcoming Second Sunday meetings during the November meeting. Come learn why even with good intentions, racial justice is difficult work. This book is a valuable tool for us to learn how to heal trauma that may be generations old and how to mend our racial divisions.

Copies of Menakem’s book are available in the narthex. A contribution toward the purchase of the book is appreciated and can be made by check, with "My Grandmother’s Hands" in the “for” line. (Cost of the book is around $12.00)

What’s Happening at the PUCC Council  

The Parkway United Church of Christ Council met on Wednesday, September 8, 2021. Council news included reports from representatives of the Personnel Committee, the Property Committee, the Worship and Education Committee, the Nurture Committee, Finance, and the Community Engagement Committee. These committee representatives discussed their committees’ visions for 2022.  Another discussion about the PUCC by-laws occurred. The congregation will discuss the revised by-laws during coffee hour on September 26. The by-laws will be voted on October 24. Also, Parkway’s Irving Street house will be rented for another year. This year Youth Sunday is October 17, 2021. Table Talk forums will be held differently this year. This October, Table Talks will be held with the different PUCC groups, such as the Women’s Whimsical Group; the Men’s Group; the Single Women’s Group, etc. The Council’s next Zoom meeting will be Wednesday, October 13 at 7pm.

CROP Hunger Walk 2021  

The CROP Hunger Walk returns to Corpening Plaza on Sunday October 17. Parkway has a team with five walkers registered. Andrea Simmonds, Elise Schaub, Molly Jarosz and Ann McLain have joined the Parkway Team. Please consider walking with us and or donating to our team. You can donate to our team at the button below.

The CROP Hunger Walk is about helping our neighbors – Folks in Winston Salem and around the world who don’t have enough to eat. By giving someone a helping hand we give them the ability to help themselves and help others. Local food pantries that benefit from our fund raising are at Crisis Control Ministry and Sunnyside Ministry. For more information contact Ann McLain or Andrea Simmonds.

Women’s Group

Friday, October 1 and Thursday, October 21 at Noon 

The Parkway Single Women’s Group For details, contact: Lisa Wishon

The Women’s Whimsical Pod will be meeting on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month from 11am to noon. This group focuses on laughter, meditation, and self-care. For more information about joining this group and to get your Zoom link contact: Cynthia Drew

Please join me Sunday afternoon in my driveway to make supportive cards for healthcare workers at Novant and Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist. The cards will go to those caring for COVID patients. The cards will be paired with some "goodies."

I will have cards to write and card-making materials. You can learn how to make an iris folding card. Also, there will be markers and watercolors.

If possible, bring some small goodies to add to the bags.  We will be spread out and will be outside. Drop-in: 3:30-6pm. Bring friends!

Margaret Morris: 2010 Sherwood Drive, 27103 336-624-9364

P.S. Can't come but want to be involved? Drop off items anytime at Margaret's for the next 10 days.

Parkway Small Group Environment Conversations in October 

Are you feeling afraid and anxious regarding the growing disasters caused by climate change? Many of us are! Learning more about climate change can be totally paralyzing. Innocent people are starving, drowning, or becoming victims of mudslides and earthquakes. Big industries are continuing to dump toxic waste into rivers, and CO2 into the air. 200 species of animals are going extinct every day. It’s horrendous!

Here at Parkway, a small team is exploring ways that we as a faith community can move from paralysis to activation and relationship. We are inviting you to participate in a small group discussion similar to the Table Talks a few months ago. In the small group discussion, you will have a safe space to express all of your emotions around climate change. You will explore with us a response that is both faith based and hope filled. You will have an opportunity to see new possibilities for us as a community committed to justice, caring for others, and relationship building.

If you are part of the men’s group, the Tuesday women’s group, the Women’s Whimsical Pod, or the Single Women’s Group, each of those groups are scheduling such a conversation in the month of October.

We are evaluating whether all of these opportunities will be on Zoom or one or two outdoors in person.

If you are not part of one of the listed groups, we encourage you to sign up for one of these two times:

Saturday, October 16, 10:00am  or  Thursday, October 21, 7:00pm 

Let us make a choice for empowerment and new possibility instead of the crippling fear that paralyzes.

An emerging multi-racial, broad-based organizing group in town seeking to address systemic issues by building a coalition of 30+ committed congregations, civic organizations, neighborhood associations, etc. and training leaders to take action together. Several Parkway people have been part of the initial conversations over the last several months. We are now seeking eight Parkway people to commit to attend a one and one-half hour orientation session on Zoom on Thursday, October 21, Noon - 1:30 pm. 

Climate Justice Means Urgent Action at COP26: Sign the Petition

Despite decades of scientific evidence and the obvious worsening of climate impacts, current international pledges to cut emissions place us on track for more than 3°C of warming.

The Paris Agreement aims to limit warming to 1.5°C to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, which threaten human lives and livelihoods, the viability of ecosystems, and the very fabric of life upon which all living creatures depend.

Impoverished communities have historically generated a low carbon-footprint. Their contribution to the climate crisis is negligible yet they are among the most affected, making climate change a justice issue. Solutions to address climate change must be inclusive, participatory, human rights based, gender-sensitive and accountable to climate-vulnerable communities, and nature based where possible.

Many faith-based groups around the world are taking action to care for creation and to stand in solidarity with the most vulnerable people. We ask the COP Presidency and Parties to COP 26 of the United Nations Framework Convention of Climate Change (UNFCCC) to ensure that these points are reflected in the outcomes of the talks:

The window of opportunity to keep warming below 1.5C is closing rapidly. Let all governments be reminded that inaction on climate change translates into innocent lives lost and irreversible destruction to natural ecosystems. We, and future generations, are counting on you to take action before it is too late.

The redistricting resolution never made it to the commissioners’ meeting agenda, though two commissioners tried. Please view below the last public meeting, on 9/16, that discussed redistricting. You will find the commissioners reactions to redistricting very interesting: 50:25 1:01:35 (Use the time bar to find this time.)

You can also hear relevant public comments made by Elizabeth Carlson on 9/16:

1:04:15 – 1:07:43

The next meeting the commissioners accept public comments is on October 7th at 2pm. The commissioners meet in person downtown in the Forsyth County Government Center, 210 N Chestnut Street, 4th floor multipurpose room. You can talk in person or by phone. Prior to the meeting, you have to sign up to speak. By 1:30 on October 7th, sign up by calling clerk Ashleigh Sloop at 336-703-2025. If you forget to sign up and want to call in, you can speak during the meeting’s public comments section by dialing 336-422-1200. (It’s suggested you dial in by 1:45, but later should also work.)

The Board of Commissioners website has more information, including minutes and agendas.

Thank you again for your constant support!

Jean Alsup, League of Women Voters of the Piedmont Triad