Excerpts from The New Outlook

Mid November 2007
 

Hanging of the Greens Begins Season of Advent  
Sunday, November 25, 5:30 p.m.
An Intergenerational Evening!

The Hanging of the Greens will begin with a potluck dinner in Fellowship Hall at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, November 25. Please bring a covered dish to share with others. Following dinner, we will decorate the sanctuary and narthex as a church family, with roles for all ages. Then we will gather in the sanctuary for a relaxed, informal time in which Stephen Jones will tell two stories: “Barrington Bunny” and “Claude the Dog.” We will sing familiar Christmas carols and dedicate our 2007 Advent candles and wreath for use during the Advent worship services. Advent wreaths for home devotional use will be available. The program will conclude by 7:45 p.m.

Second’s Children Invite You To an Imaginary Cruise
Come join the children of Second Baptist Sunday, December 2, at 5:00 for an imaginary cruise around the Hawaiian Islands. Let us spoil you with delicious food and loads of fun as the children perform the play “Cricket County Christmas Cruise.” And that special guy from the North Pole has put Second Baptist on his schedule for that night.

A Progressive Dinner
You Are Invited
To a Progressive Dinner
On Saturday, December 8, 2007
At 5:00 p.m.
Tickets will be available Sunday, November 18, 25, and December 2.
The cost is $15 per person.

More Advent Opportunities
December 16   Lessons and Carols Service, 10:30 a.m.
                      Luncheon and congregational meeting to vote on the budget after worship
December 24   Christmas Eve Candlelighting Service, 5:00 p.m.

Overnight Lock-in For Middle Schoolers
Middle Schoolers are invited to a  lock-in from 8:00 p.m. Friday, November 16, to 8:00 a.m. Saturday at First Congregational Church. We'll be doing service projects and playing some fun games. Contact Shari Nelson-Faulkner for more information.

Young Adult Potluck—And a New Class! 
All single and married young adults (20’s – 40’s) are invited to a potluck in Fellowship Hall on Saturday, November 17, at 5:00 p.m. Babysitting will be available. Please bring a salad, vegetable or dessert. Meat will be provided. 

See the article below for details about a new young adult class beginning November 18.

New Adult Classes Begin November 18 at 9:15 a.m.
Jesus and Global Teachers
Co-taught by Stephen Jones and Mary Shepardson

More and more, Christianity finds itself interacting with other major religions around the world. This interaction prompts us to consider Jesus and other global teachers: their parallel teachings, their synergies, and their differences. Meets in Fellowship Hall.   

Schedule:
November 18   Jesus and Buddha
November 25   Jesus and Gandhi
December 2     Jesus and Hillel (Judaism)
December 9     Jesus and Lao Tsu (Taoism)
December 16   Jesus and Muhammed. (Islam)

Young Adult Class
Taught by Judy Gurley

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus asked many questions. This class will use those questions as our focus. We will look at the context in which a particular question was asked, its significance in that time, and the responses of the listeners. Then, we’ll ask the same questions of ourselves.  All young adults, 20’s to 40’s, are urged to participate. To get to the young adult room, go through the door in the front of the sanctuary.

The Bible Study Class
Taught by Bill Gurley

A wide-open discussion continues on the book of Genesis. Meets in the Community Room.

Upcoming Sermons
Come join us for worship at 10:30 each Sunday morning in the Sanctuary of the Beatitudes.

Blessings Sunday, November 18:  “BLESSED TO BE A BLESSING…In Our Words”
Next Sunday, all the members and friends of the congregation will contribute to a “shared sermon” as we read from the Second Baptist Blessings Book. Don’t miss this special Sunday. At the end of the service, we will bring forward our 2008 Financial Commitment Cards

November 25, 2007: “A GOD WHO RULES BY CHOICES”
Dr. Stephen Jones, preaching

How can God allow bad things to happen?  Is God at fault?  Does God rule, or stand by and watch?  How is God involved in a world filled with so much tragedy and despair?
Texts: Deuteronomy 30:15-20, Luke 16:13

Great News!
One of our church families is going to purchase a new grand piano for the church! “I am thrilled, delighted, and can’t wait for it to arrive” says Marilyn Short, our music director. “I can provide nuance and musical artistry that just weren’t available on the piano we have.”

The current plan is for the piano to arrive in time for the beginning of our anniversary celebration on January 6. To give us a chance to celebrate it and enjoy it, it will be delivered to the front of the sanctuary and will remain there for a month or so. During that time Marilyn will provide special music to showcase its fine qualities. In February it will be moved to the choir loft.

The piano that has been chosen is a Yamaha, sold by Piano Distributors, the company that loaned us a piano last month and met with interested members to answer our questions. Marilyn says Yamahas are everywhere because of their high quality. “This piano will be in our choir loft for years and years,” she says. “We’re not just buying this for ourselves. Our successors will also be thrilled to have it. And piano tuners love to work on Yamahas because they are so easy to get back in tune.” Quite a contrast to the piano we have now, which the tuner refused to work on any more!

Many, many thanks to the donors of the piano for providing this way to enhance our worship experience through quality music.

Special Events Planned for 3^rd through 8^th Graders
Second Baptist is a part of an interdenominational group of 7 churches that offers joint programs for youth from 3^rd through 8^th grades. Below is their schedule for early 2008. All meetings are on Sundays from 5 - 7 p.m.
Young Youth (3rd through 5th grades)
January 17       First Congregational Church, 6501 Wydown, co-hosted by Second Baptist
March 9           Second Baptist
April 27           First Presbyterian Church, 7200 Delmar

Middle School Youth (6th through 8th grades)
January 13       Samuel UCC (320 North Forsyth) (co-hosted by Second Baptist)
February 24     First Presbyterian Church (7200 Delmar)
April 13           Faith Des Peres Presbyterian (11155 Clayton  Road)

Second to Help Christmas Families
A family of of eight has been chosen by Northside Team Ministries as our Christmas family this year. Items needed by members of the family will be listed on ornaments hung on the tree by the elevator in the narthex. As you choose an ornament, please write your name down next to the item on the sign-up sheet near the tree. Gift cards are also helpful.  Please wrap and tag gifts with the recipient's name and place them under the tree by December 10th. Thank you. 

Second Begins Angel Tree Ministry
Second Baptist has been assigned three young children by Angel Tree Ministry, an organization that works with children of incarcerated parents. Two of the children are from a family in the Lake Saint Louis area and one is from Richmond Heights. The Angel Tree Committee will purchase gifts for the children for Christmas and will continue to communicate with them by sending holiday and birthday cards. They range in age from 13 to 16 years.

BLESSINGS SUNDAY/THANKSGIVING SUNDAY
A Harvest Ingathering of our Gifts:

Next Sunday, November 18, you are invited to bring into the sanctuary a sack of canned and imperishable food items for the hungry in the St. Louis area. They will be contributed to Northside Team Ministries.  We will collect them toward the end of the service on the chancel stairs in a Harvest Ingathering.

You are invited to participate in a collection for the Karen (Burma) family we are sponsoring as a church.  Yae, Sali, Tham Tham, MaNgwe and Than Dar are now living in St. Louis. They just arrived from a refugee camp near the border of Thailand. They have little formal education and very few English language skills. Their two daughters (aged 5 and 12) will be starting school after they are more settled in their new home and receive immunizations.  The family also has a 7 month-old baby daughter.

   Their needs are:

Bring any of these items with you into worship and near the close of the service we will bring them forward in our Harvest ingathering to the chancel stairs. 

From the Pastor
Normal and Novel Times
Our transition to Missouri has been one of the most natural of our lives. It has been complicated by our own decisions – to wait upon construction of a new house. Temporary living is never natural or easy. It is amazing how much you miss the “things” of your life. Such things have stories, memories and special meanings. But the cultural transition to Missouri has felt utterly right from the very beginning. Discovering St. Louis has been a great deal of fun. I have known the city since I was a child and our family visited here. I had forgotten that my parents lived here at the close of World War II.  Mom was remembering an apartment on Shaw Street where they lived for six months.  But with our other transitions we have had to learn about the customs and ways of people in the mid-Atlantic seaboard, and the upper Great Lakes, and the mountain States, and the Northwest and all these have distinct cultures. It is unfortunate that America is becoming more and more a conglomerate with franchises and big box stores uniformly the same across the country, but this still hasn’t completely snuffed out the personality of different regions.

Our lives are taking on a pattern of normalcy as we become acquainted with a sophisticated city and church. Many coastal Americans have an attitude toward the Midwest which is unfair and uninformed. We have found St. Louis to be a sophisticated and urban city with a definite “East coast” feel, particularly the older areas. But it is also true to its Midwest environment of friendliness, approachability and openness.

It feels like our lives are returning to normalcy. There is something about “normal” that is very attractive. It means that things are familiar, that life has a routine, that there is predictability to the patterns of daily life. The rituals and meanings of life are in place and relationships are familiar. Normal is good. Since early summer when we knew we were relocating, things haven’t been normal for us. Again, normal is good.

But I have never been as taken by “normal” as I have by the novel. I enjoy some change and I get restless if things become too predictable in my life. I think one of my gifts as a pastor is to help congregations discover new avenues of service, new ways of being faithful, new ways of expressing the Gospel. I enjoy the novel because it seems to keep me fresh and to make life more exciting.

So somehow in this business of life in which we are all engaged, we have to maintain some balance between normal and novel. And each of us has different tolerances for normal and novel. Some of us tend to enjoy life better when things are more predictable and familiar and others of us tend to enjoy life better when things are in transition. But in truth, we all need normal and novel. We need vision and pattern. We need change and stability. We have to learn to live with this creative tension. 

If in my beginning with you everything felt as it did before, no matter how good that might have been, you would likely feel somewhat disappointed. A new pastor is expected to bring change and to help introduce a new way of being faithful. On the other hand, if I had little respect for the traditions and patterns that have evolved in the historical context of the congregation, my pastorate would be doomed for failure. So we have all around us this creative tension of normal and novel. And we are at our best when there are doses of both in our life. 

– Stephen Jones 

 WEEKLY ACTIVITIES
Sun     8:45 a.m.       Adult Choir rehearsal in Sanctuary,  
          9:15 a.m.       Classes for children, youth and adults
         10:30 a.m.      Worship in the Sanctuary ,
         11:30 a.m.      Coffee Fellowship
Mon   7:00 p.m.        Obsessive-Compulsive Group, Community Room                    
Tue    1st and 3rd      10:00 a.m., American Baptist Women’s Ministries                      T
Tue    6:30 p.m.        Adult Children of Alcoholics, Community Room
Wed   6:30 p.m.        Choir rehearsal

 SPECIAL ACTIVITIES
Nov 16-17  Middle School Lock-In, First Congregational Church, 8 p.m. – 8 a.m.  
Nov 17      Young Adult Potluck, 5:00 p.m., Fellowship Hall
Nov 18      New Young Adult Class begins, 9:15 a.m.
                "Jesus and Global Teachers" begins
                Stewardship Dinner, 11:45 a.m.       
                “Blessings Sunday” (Pledges due)                               
Nov 19       Council Meeting, 6:15 pm Fellowship Hall  
Nov 22 & 23  Church office closed in observance of  Thanksgiving
Nov 25       Hanging of the Greens, 5:30 p.m.                                 
Nov 26       Prostate Cancer Group, 7:00 pm         

9030 Clayton Road (at McKnight Road, 3/10 mile west of the Galleria)    St. Louis, MO 63117     (314) 991-3424