Shining at GA

Blog Post by the Rev. Dr. Craig M. Howard

Transitional Leader of

Presbytery of Giddings-Lovejoy

      

I’m going to need my Thesaurus to find the proper words to describe the job our Committee on Local Arrangements (COLA) is doing at General Assembly. I will need help finding words to thank all of the volunteers who are participating in GA. Let me start with outstanding, and admirable. I have to add fantastic and incredible. 

Continue here to read on.

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PLEASE NOTE: The Oaks Conference Room (Oaks) and St. Andrews Conference Room (St. Andrews) are both located at the new Presbytery office, 1001 Craig Rd., Suite 170, St. Louis, MO 63146.

(Oaks) is on the first floor (St. Andrews) is on the second floor

Directions can be found here.

Staff will still be accessing email and voice this week, however with delayed response. General inquiries can be sent here.

The “125 ^th Anniversary Celebration” of Gibson Heights Presbyterian Church

We’re celebrating an anniversary, 125 years no less. The congregation of Gibson Heights Presbyterian Church would like to invite you to our 125th Anniversary Celebration. Gibson Heights has ministered and sustained a continuous presence in the Grove Neighborhood in the city of St. Louis for 125 years. To celebrate this historic occasion, please join us Friday evening, June 22, at 7:00 p.m. when A Call to Conscience will present “ I’ve Been to the Mountain Top,” an interactive interpretation of the last speech given by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to the striking sanitation workers of Memphis at Mason’s Temple Church of God in Christ on April 3, 1968. The production will also feature the Voices of Young Christian Servants gospel choir from our associated congregation, Everlasting Light Church. Refreshments and conversation with the cast will follow the celebration in the adjacent Fellowship Hall. Directions can be found here.

Families’ Together Camp - July 6-8

Escape to the hills and river for a replenishing weekend designed with you and your family in mind. This overnight camp is presented retreat style. All generations will enjoy the mix of rest and recreation we have planned as we fellowship, play, worship together and share our ‘stories.’ Individuals, groups and families (*whoever is family to you is family to us!) are welcome as Together we enjoy a weekend around the campfire, skipping stones, hiking, canoeing, swimming, practicing yoga on the beach and simply being in the spectacular Missouri treasure which is Mound Ridge! To register, click here.

Kaleidoscope Scholarships Available

The Stewardship Team approved ten $100 scholarships to the 2018 Kaleidoscope Conference.   Priority will be given to lay leaders. Names and contact information should be sent to Liz Rolf Kanerva [email protected] no later than July 1st. 

Kaleidoscope will be held in St. Louis this year, and full details of the conference can be found here.

Museum Tour Available

The Interfaith Partnership will have a tour of the St. Louis Holocaust Museum on Sunday, June 24 at 2 p.m. This museum is at 12 Millstone Campus Drive, St. Louis, Missouri 63146 . Directions can be found here .  Please email David Oughton for further details at [email protected] .

UKirk - St. Louis

Are you a college student spending the summer in the St. Louis area? UKirk (the Presbyterian Campus Ministry in St. Louis) hosts fellowship gatherings for college students like you! E-mail Pastor Miriam ( [email protected] ) to get on our contact list about planned events. (A June pool party is in the works!) Our last gathering for this summer is on July 31 from 7-9 p.m. at Trinity Presbyterian Church; we'll meet for dinner and an information session about the Montreat College Conference (January 1-5, 2019). 

Leadership in Ministry (LIM) Workshop

 

The workshop will be held in Kansas City, and is a fall and spring commitment, be held October 22 - 24, 2018 and March 11-13, 2019, and is intended for pastors, rabbis, other congregational staff members, interim pastors, chaplains, lay leaders, denominational workers, pastoral counselors, public school counselors and early childhood educators.

The Leadership in Ministry workshops will apply Bowen Family Systems Theory as further developed by Edwin Friedman, author of Generation to Generation and A Failure of Nerve, to ministerial and organizational leadership. The majority of time is spent in small group case studies led by participants and facilitated by experienced faculty coaches. As such, participants work to apply the theory to the “real world” realities of their ministry context. More information can be found here.

Connections Coordinator Needed at WGPC

We are currently searching for an outgoing, friendly person to fill the position of Connections Coordinator at WGPC! It is a part time position (about 25 hours per week), responsible for social media, newsletter communications, and website maintenance, as well as welcoming visitors and members to worship and other church activities, and connecting visitors and new members to current members, events and mission opportunities. If you know someone who might be interested in this type of work, please advise them to email their resume to Carrie Rao at [email protected] . 

WGPC members are not eligible for this position.

Seeking Interim Youth Minister

Trinity Presbyterian Church in University City is looking for an Interim Youth Minister for a four month period. Our permanent youth minister will be taking a leave of absence, beginning July 21 through November.  

This is a part-time position, handling elementary through high school programming, including Sunday morning Children's Worship, Confirmation class and youth groups. If interested, please contact Rev. Johanna Wagner at (314) 725-3840.

Seeking Musicians

We provide worship services for several area nursing homes. Most of these people have been involved in worship all their lives, now they find themselves in nursing homes and unable to worship. So we are currently seeking a guitar player, a piano player, any instrument that the old folks can sing to!!! We are not fussy.

We have these opportunities to serve:

Tuesday at 2 p.m. in West country; Wednesday at 2:15 p.m. in DesPeres; the first and third Sundays in Kirkwood at 3:30pm.

If you find God calling you to use your skills in this very needed service, please call Jeanne Zimmerman at 314-707-4003.

Volunteers Needed

YIKES! Our volunteers have left the property!! Due to the repeated natural disasters affecting our East Coast the Americorp Team scheduled to work at Mound Ridge Retreat Center has been relocated. We need your help to prepare for the busy season in our midst. CAN YOU HELP AFTER GA?? We need KITCHEN HELP (cooking, cleaning, serving) June 25-29 and CLEANING HELP (turning cabins around) June 28-29. Our resources are slimmer than ever but camp is especially breathtaking this year so…COME ON OUT!! Please let us know when to expect you, your youth group or team (no lodging available) www.moundridge.org 1-573-265-3098.

AMEN Saint Louis – Seeking a Director

 AMEN Saint Louis is a Ministry Embracing the Neighborhood. They are a mission of Oak Hill Presbyterian Church, a small, urban church, located in South St. Louis, Missouri. They provide mission experiences and housing for church groups, youth groups, college groups, activists, and others seeking to serve in the city. Groups of all kinds stay in our AMEN House and head out on daily service projects with a variety of local agencies, and the AMEN St. Louis Director will coordinate all activities of the AMEN St. Louis ministry. More information can be found here.