The Commonplace Blog
Thursday, November 4, 2010 at 2:29PM Recruit people to decorate the church for Advent and Christmas! We'll decorate the church after the Thanksgiving Lunch/Christmas Giving Tree Kick-Off (DUO) on Sunday, November 21. It should not take too long. Many hands make light work! If you can help, please e-mail Annie at pastor@faithdesperes.org.
Thursday, November 4, 2010 at 2:27PM If so, Faith Des Peres will start a class led by Susan Marting who taught tai chi here last year. The class will begin in January. The day and time will be decided by the group. E-mail Annie at pastor@faithdesperes.org or sign-up in the Gathering Space if you are interested in tai chi. Thank you.
Thursday, November 4, 2010 at 2:17PM Fourteen women from Faith Des Peres got together last weekend at the Mercy Center for a time of rest, renewal, and relaxation. Susan Marting, FDP's tai chi teacher, taught the women how to manage stress in their lives by using the four steps to CALM: caring for your body, acknowledging emotions, looking for the positive, and making meaningful choices. The group had such a great time they've already reserved space for a retreat in September 2011. A big thank you goes to Sharon Wyman for planning and organizing the retreat.
Sunday, October 31, 2010 at 5:34PM It was great to see so many of you at church yesterday. If you weren't there, you missed a great Reformation Sunday celebration. The choir sounded great! Sunday's sermon is posted here.
In Sunday's sermon I posed the question:
How can Faith Des Peres be a church that honors its reformed tradition while at the same grow into a new way of being church in the world today? It’s not an easy question to answer. The session has been wrestling with this type of question for the past few months and, I think it’s fair to say, they’ve come up with more questions than answers.
I’ve asked them to answer 3 questions:
On the surface, they’re easy questions, right? We’re a nice, caring group of people who are here to help and serve each other and God’s people. Which is all well and good, but every church should be able to say that. What I want to know is, what sets Faith Des Peres apart from other churches?
Over the past few months as the Session has looked at these questions in depth, they’re proving difficult to answer because what we’re really trying to get at is:
1. What’s your identity? What makes Faith Des Peres, Faith Des Peres?
2. What’s your purpose? One church guru asks it this way: What business are you in? The fellowship business? The social action or social service business? Are you in the business of calling people in discipleship and forming them in a life-changing faith? Are you in the music business? The historic preservation business? The baby-sitting business? The landlord business? Or in the investment management business?
3. And whom are you trying to reach? Are you trying to reach people who look, think, and act like you? Are you trying to reach the unchurched or unconverted? Are you trying to reach people who once attended church but have for one reason or another put it on the backburner? Are you trying to reach people who are new to town? Live in this community?
I look forward to hearing your responses to the above questions. Leave a comment in the comment section. It's easy to do. Thank you!
Friday, October 29, 2010 at 1:39PM Sunday is Reformation Sunday! This is the day we celebrate our heritage and look to the future. As we say in the Presbyterian Church, ours is a church that is reformed and always reforming! But what does that mean, and what does that church look like? You'll have a chance to answer those questions yourself. The music on Sunday will be great! A guest trumpeter joins us.
Next Sunday, we'll celebrate All Saint's Day. Plan to join us for both of these very special services.
Kids, feel free to wear your costumes!
