Pilgrim Congregational Church United Church of Christ in St. Louis

This week at Pilgrim

2009-07-12T13:19:00.002-05:00

After worship today Monica Parks Simon shared about her own faith journey. During the week we had a crew of elves come in and spread some new wood chips [much needed] at Pilgrim Park.

7/12/09

Night at the Muny

2009-07-09T13:16:00.000-05:00

We had over 80 people show up for a salad supper, back stage tour of the Muny and then the show "Meet Me In St. Louis." Members of the three churches and their guests were joined by a youth group from PA. Much of the backstage part was off limits to photographs but this will give you a sense of the scope of the theater.

Night at the Muny

Fathers' Day Celebration

2009-06-21T13:12:00.000-05:00

We celebrated Fathers' Day with our traditional hot dog and ice cream feast. Larry shows off his patriotic concoction.

Father's Day 2009

Building our online presence

2009-06-16T15:45:00.000-05:00

This afternoon I joined a Webinar sponsored by the New Church Leadership initiative of the UCC. Here are some thoughts in the wake of that event.

While we don’t want to abandon other efforts to get the message out about Pilgrim, it does seem prudent that we make a special push in the next few months to bolster our web presence. This is an initiative we have talked about a lot, and Cindy, Brien and I met about it and came to some agreement about how to proceed. In every case, what we discussed locally was supported by this national webinar.

* We need a web page which gives easily accessible information about who we are and what we are doing and how we can be found.
* We should be active in a social networking site and Facebook is growing as the most robust vehicle for that sort of community building.
* We should be producing original content which we post frequently which allows folks to feel like a part of the community even if they don’t physically come to the church. [We are doing this on the blog.]

Some other suggestions from the webinar which we did not discuss include:

* Producing video content that we would post on YouTube
* Contact through twitter is more personal and not something adaptable to evangelism

So I would like us to have a conversation among those of us who are online which addresses some questions about our online presence.

1. How much is our online presence for the purposes of communicating within Pilgrim and how much do we want to be creating content which is for non-Pilgrims?
2. To the degree that we are creating content for non-Pilgrims, who are the people we are trying to reach. Certainly we are making information available to those who are looking for Pilgrim or for a UCC church, but beyond that, do we reach out to a particular group of people?
3. Who will be responsible for creating this content? We want our professional staff to be supported in creating content, but if this is going to be an expression of who Pilgrim is, it will have to come from as many Pilgrims as possible. What do we need to do to enable Pilgrims to create content?

Your turn!

New Life in the City

2009-06-14T14:14:00.002-05:00

The discussion of "Because of Winn-Dixie" was briefly interrupted by a clattering at the library window of a juvenile hawk (I'm guessing it is a Cooper's Hawk). Mama was watching from her perch on the cross at the top of the tower. Click on the image for more pictures.

Hawk

Annual Meeting

2009-06-07T15:25:00.002-05:00

On this Sunday of our Annual Meeting and Dinner we took in new members and said goodbye to Rick Burk before engaging in a process for identifying what we treasure about Pilgrim.

Annual Meeting 09

First Pilgrim Palooza

2009-04-05T18:02:00.004-05:00

Pilgrim's first Palooza was a joyous affair mixing the themes of Palm Sunday and a consideration of the musical styles which enrich our worship. We had a parade of the choir and children and dancers, and a time with the children in which they became angels, being messengers inviting all to worship with us next Sunday for Easter.

Cindy's sermon was about the chant Ho San Na, Ho San Na, which the people greeted Jesus with upon his entry into Jerusalem and considered what it means. The roots of the word hosanna go to a plea that we be saved.

After a meal at the table of our Lord, we had a fuller meal and hymn sing and a consideration of musical styles in worship. Click on the picture below to see more.

Palooza

Pilgrim Palooza coming April 5

2009-03-23T22:11:00.001-05:00

Women's Week

2009-03-09T10:29:00.002-05:00

On Sunday, March 1 we celebrated Women's Week by hearing three profound essay's read by members of the congregation. While each was well delivered, the content is so thoughtful that you may want to go back and consider them more fully by reading them. Here we offer links to:

Pastor Cindy's introduction to the series:

The Power to Do…Through the Lens of Neuroscience

By Karen Lebacqz

The Power to Do…Through Climate Change and Green Technology

By Terry Yasuko Ogawa

The Power to Do…Healing Miracles and Genetic Technologies

By Olivia Masih White, Ph.D.

Felicia Scott Preaches on Black History

2009-02-23T12:05:00.002-06:00

Our Praise Dancers showed style and grace with dance with a beautiful basket. Felicia Scott led us through an historical review as she explored the case for continuing the tradition of February being Black History Month.

2-22-09

Rev. Henrietta Brown returns to preach

2009-02-08T15:29:00.003-06:00

Rev. Brown returned to preach this morning at a service which included an animated Children's Time and leadership of the choir by Rick Burk, our Interim Music Director.

2809

ML King Service and Dinner

2009-01-18T16:49:00.002-06:00

With combined choirs and guest speakers, Union Council gathered the three churches together for a celebration of the birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. An opening solo by Rose Marie Fischer-Vargas set the tone of expectation with "My Lord, What a Morning." In addition to the Bible readings, we heard Romaytha Abdullah read from the Qu'ran in both Arabic and English. Then Jenan Mohajir kept us spellbound by her weaving together her own story with that of the work of Dr. King and the promise of Barack Obama. Afterwords we enjoyed a sumptuous dinner. Pictures of the day are here

MLK Celebration 2009

Christmas Play and Baptsim of Kumar

2008-12-14T14:58:00.002-06:00

We all participated in a joyous and busy Sunday with the lighting of the third Advent candle, the baptism of David and Nick's son, Kumar, the annual Christmas Play and a shower for Jenny Spivey. It was dark in the sanctuary but I like natural light so much better than flash. These are a bit blurry trying to do handheld at a tenth of a second. Here are 17 of the 68 shots I took.

12-14-08

Link to the pictures

2008-10-26T18:05:00.002-05:00

Somehow the link to the pictures didn't come through on the previous post. If you want to see pictures of the walk, go to http://picasaweb.google.com/PilgrimUCC.Stl/CROPWalk2008#

CROP Walk

2008-10-26T16:30:00.001-05:00

It was a beautiful, if blustery, day for a walk in the park. After lunch in the Fellowship Hall, a dozen Pilgrims gathered in the Upper Muny Parking Lot for a walk to end hunger supporting Church World Service and Operation Food Search.

FaithWorks 08

2008-10-19T16:00:00.002-05:00

Several of us Pilgrims made it to FaithWorks 2008 at Lake of the Ozarks this weekend. The Keynotes were by Dr. Tex Sample who told us rich stories to inspire us around the theme of "Creating and Celebrating Healthy and Vital Churches."

During the Mission Fest on Saturday morning Kim and Kimberly chatted and Cindy staffed the table for Gateway ONA. I have bee working with the Strategic Planning Working Group for the conference and participants at FaithWorks were invited to express preferences for the various Priority Areas by placing stickers on posters on the wall at Mission Fest.

The weekend closed with worship at which Jeffery Whitman, our Conference Minister preached and presided at communion.

FaithWorks 08

CROP Walk

2008-10-12T20:53:00.000-05:00

The annual CROP Walk is two weeks from today. Put it on your calendar and plan to walk with us starting at 2:00 on Sunday afternoon October 26th.

Rally Day and Picnic (indoors)

2008-09-14T17:40:00.002-05:00

Remnants of Hurricane Ike came through early in the morning and gave us the test of the storm drain system we have been waiting for. Unfortunately, we flunked the test. Inches of water in the kitchen, the dining room, and in the Gateway Men's chorus space forced a move from the Dining Room to the Library for the indoor picnic. I was busy with Vernon cleaning up the water and so didn't get any pictures of the service, but I was on hand to eat. [Click on the picture to see the pictures full screen.]

New Site on Shutterfly

2008-09-13T20:07:00.001-05:00

I am experimenting with new web tools. I am setting up a site at Shutterfly for pictures and text to see if we like it better than Picasa. It is at http://pilgrimuccstl.shutterfly.com/

Pastor Cindy and Pastor Kimberly

2008-08-31T13:45:00.001-05:00

We said goodbye to Cindy for now and Hello to Pastor Kimberly who will be doing an extended pastoral supply with us until Cindy's return December 1, 2008.

Sonderegger Baptism

2008-08-24T12:35:00.004-05:00

We celebrated the return to the sanctuary, the return of the Praise Dancers, and the baptism of Grace Sonderegger all on the same morning. You may see pictures of the day by clicking on the picture below.

Sonderegger Baptism

Pictures from Susan Sanders

2008-02-14T13:16:00.001-06:00

Here are few pictures from last Sunday with Susan Sanders.
http://picasaweb.google.com/PilgrimUCC.Stl/SusanSanders

Susan Sanders

Steve Berry's Sermon

2008-02-12T09:33:00.001-06:00

I have just posted Steve Berry's sermon as a page on the Google Group. You can find it here
The pictures can be found here>

Soup Kitchen Sunday

Final Anniversary Celebration with Valerie Tutson

2007-12-02T16:39:00.000-06:00

We had a great turnout for a great service celebrating the 100th anniversary of the dedication of our current building. Valerie Tutson, storyteller, was the featured guest. She led a conversation about and exploration of the role of stories in our lives at the education event before worship in the library. During worship she told the story of Rosa Parks which was beginning to unfold just 44 years ago at this season. Following worship we gathered for a sumptuous meal and Valerie told her own story and the story of the larger civil rights movement inter spaced with stories from many cultures. For a peek at the events of the day including the Justice Sale which went on in the parlor, click on the picture.

Valerie Tutson

New By-laws

2007-11-26T21:43:00.000-06:00

We passed a new set of by-laws earlier this month. If you would like to see the final revised version, it is available at http://groups.google.com/group/pilgrim-ucc-stl/files. It is a Word document but many word processors can open it.