St. Paul's

United Church of Christ

December 2017

Newsletter

Church Office Hours

Monday-Friday: 9:00am-4:00pm

Pastor Mike Roth: Tuesday-Friday

Pastor Erica Roth: Tuesday-Thursday

Doug Gilliland: Monday-Thursday

Erica Faust: Tuesday-Thursday

St. Paul’s United Church of Christ

5508 Telegraph Road

St. Louis, Mo 63129

314-892-3332

Website: sp4u.org

Join us this Christmas Season as we prepare for the light of

Christ!

Shine On Us—Advent Preaching Series at 8:30 & 10:45 a.m. Worship

Dec. 3rd: “You Come Running” —Luke 15:11-20

Dec. 10th: “Shadows Scattered” —Matthew 4:12-16

Dec. 17th: “Into a Prism” —1 Corinthians 13:11-12

Dec. 24th: “Skies Illuminated!” —Numbers 6:25-26

Christmas Eve Worship

“Then I Saw You” —Matthew 2:11a

5:00 p.m. Family Worship (Very child friendly!)

9:00 p.m. Worship with Choir, Bells, Candlelight & Communion

11:00 p.m. Worship with Special Music, Candlelight &Communion

Shine On Us!

Middle School Youth Group

meets on almost every Sunday evening. 5:30 is a meal to-

gether, 6:00 is program time and 7 is free time. We will end

most nights around 7:30 p.m. Look for schedules outside

the main office on the bulletin board!— Dec. 3rd—No Youth group but come to the all church AdventFest 5-7:30 p.m.,

Dec. 10th—Decorating Ginger Bread Houses to auction for Lydia’s House, Dec. 19th—Come and see!, Dec. 24th—Come

worship with us at 5, 9 or 11 to celebrate Christmas Eve, Dec. 31st—No Youth group—enjoy break! Jan. 7th—Come

and see!

We need meals for our Middle School Youth Group!

We meet on Sunday evenings and eat around 5:30 p.m. There are usually about 25 of us total. If you can help out

with a meal—contact Pastor Erica

OR to sign up on-line go to takethemameal.com and in the

find box enter “Group” as the last name and “Youth” as the pass-

word. Several options will ap-

pear—just make sure Erica Roth is listed as the contact!

(3rd-5th grade youth) NEWS:

We will gather on Thursday, December 14th at 6 p.m. and will head to Dan’s

Emerald Forest and out for ice cream! Come experi-

ence the LIGHT

of Christmas with us! We should return by 8:30 p.m.

In January we will be doing a mis-sion project of some kind. TBD…

The Sr. High Youth Food Pantry is once again

up and running on the 4th Wednesday of eve-

ry month from 6:30-8:30 p.m.

Contact Mark Carter at 314.585.8526 for

more information.

DOG (Disciples of God) News:

Tuesday, Dec. 19th: CRAZY CHRIST-

MAS SWEATER PARTY! 6-8 p.m. at St. Paul’s in the Heritage room.

Wear a crazy Christmas sweater or shirt or just come ready to play

some Christmas games, eat some snacks and have a lot of fun! Family welcome!

We will be playing the chimes, a few Christmas Carols, at the open-

ing of the St. Paul’s Christmas Concert on Sunday, Dec. 10th at 6

p.m. We will have a practice on

Saturday, Dec. 9th at 11 a.m. Contact Pastor Erica if you have

any questions.

Christmas Eve at Trinity (Hot Lunch Program) We were not originally scheduled to serve lunch on

December 24th, although it would be our “normal” Sunday to do so. Lola, Lynn, and the people at

Trinity decided we would serve.

Lola has found a delicious chicken and Broccoli Casserole

recipe which we will serve with green beans, tossed salad, dinner rolls and butter, and assorted desserts. Please would

you consider making a dessert for us to serve?

We are also giving out stockings. A lively group has made

stockings and many, many people have donated “stuffers”. We will be filling the stockings on Sunday, December 3rd at

the Advent Event! Please come and help!

AND THERE WILL BE MUSIC!!

We are so excited to have a piano player to lead us in some

Christmas carols, and just musical fun. There will be a joyful noise at Trinity!

For those who wish to be servers, we will leave SPUCC at

12:30 and should return by 3:30 or 4.

We welcome any who would like to join us. It will be a very special Christmas Eve.

Lynn Schmittgens 314-329-6999

merryschmittgens@gmail.com

Trinity Hot Lunch Wrap UP

While we don’t have exact figures, we share our best guesti-mates here.

Number of people served 550-700 Number of SPUCC Sundays 6

Number of volunteers 100 plus

Dollars spent Unknown, so much is donated

Number of lives touched Countless Value of time spent Priceless

We are so very thankful for this opportunity to serve, to ex-tend this greeting of God’s love with our neighbors.

Tree Lot

The tree lot is off to a good start after the first weekend. Many thanks to all who responded to the appeal for help in the Tree Lot. If you have not taken advantage of the opportunity to sign up and help us the board is outside of the Sanctuary. Gather

your friends and family, find an open spot or two, and fill all the slots!

Lot s of Great things going on in our Adult Ed Sunday School Classes! If you haven’t al-

ready—check one of them out!

1) Foundations class: meets weekly and has a stand alone topic each week that

works us through the Biblical story. This class meets in the adult lounge West.

Upcoming Classes: Dec. 3rd: Jesus Foretold in Old Testament

Dec. 10th: Birth of Jesus in Luke

Dec. 17th: Birth of Jesus in Matthew

Dec. 24th: No Sunday School—Join us for an All Church Pancake Breakfast!

Dec. 31st: Wise Men

Digging Deeper class: are short (4-6 week) classes that build around a theme. This class meets in the Adult Lounge

East.

Upcoming Classes: Dec. 3rd-31st: The Shack: Led by Mike Sharimitaro

No Class on Dec. 24th: Pancake Breakfast!

Jan. 7-Feb. 25th: The Book of Revelation: Led by Pastor Mike

No Class on Jan. 21st: Congregational Meeting

Our Lady of the Snows December 19

We will be going to Our Lady of the Snows for a buffet din-

ner and then a beautiful ride through the Christmas light

display. The menu includes a salad bar, chicken, pork, brat-

wurst, 3 veggies, ise tea or lemonade and assorted desserts.

The cost is $20.00($10 for children) and will be collected as

we board the bus. We do have the option of cancelling for

inclement weather. Final sign up date is

December 10th.

We will leave the church around

5:00pm.

Dec. 10 "The Story of Christmas"

A Musical with Choir, Soloists, Orchestra and Narration.

6 p.m. Christmas Cookie Fellowship afterward.

Dec. 27 No Sanctuary Choir Rehearsal

No St. Paul's Ringers Rehearsal

(Rehearsals Resume Wednesday, January 3, 2018 ---

Palm Sunday is March 25 and Easter is April 1 - We will

begin learning music for lent/Easter)

Ladies Day Out Wednesday, December 20, 2017 @ 11:30 A.M.

Rich & Charlie’s Call Carol Trauth 314-604-1383

Advent Fest Sunday, Dec. 3

5:00-7:30 Chili Cook-Off (Fundraiser for Sen-

ior High Youth)

Advent crafts and activities for all ages, mission project, Christmas

carol sing-a-long in the sanctuary.

Confirmation News

Confirmation kids and other middle school youth will be auctioning off

Gingerbread Houses on Sunday, Dec. 17th. Proceeds from the auc-

tion will go to Lydia’s House.

We have 17 7th & 8th graders in our Confirmation Class this

year. We meet on Sundays, 4:30-5:30 for class, 5:30-6:00 for dinner, and 6:00-7:30 for Middle School Youth Group. Middle

schoolers who are not enrolled in the Confirmation Class are invited to join in for dinner and youth group time every Sun-

day.

A BIG Thank You to The Clobes Family and Ginny Van Horn for providing delicious meals for us in the month of November.

We appreciate you!

Sunday School Curriculum

for Nursery—5th Grade

We’re super excited to be offering Dig In!—The Life of Jesus this church year. All year long, kids in nurse-ry-5th grade will be learning about the life and love of Jesus

in fun, engaging ways.

This month’s lessons:

Advent and The Nativity Story

We look forward to a wonderful church year of teaching your children biblical truths and grace-filled lessons that will help

them grow in faith.

Middle School/High School Sunday School Class

Meets on Sundays mornings at 9:45 in The Gathering Place.

Class consists of relevant weekly lessons and sometimes some treats!

Nov. 26, Dec. 3, Dec. 10, Dec. 17--The Nativity Story---a 4-part class exploring all the details of the Christ-

mas story and watching the movie The Nativity Story

together.

Greeting Card Sale Dates:

Jan. 7, 21 Feb. 4, 18

Ronnie’s Theater has movies for $5 on Tuesdays. We are planning

to meet at Ronnie’s on Tuesday, December 5th for the 6 p.m. show-

ing of WONDER. This is a wonderful (pun intended) movie and we

hope to have fun watching it together.

Contact Pastor Erica with any questions.

Sunday School Info. & Update

9:45-10:30 Sunday School for Nursery--Adults

Nursery (Birth-age 2)

Pre-K/K Class (3 yr. olds--kindergartners)* School-age class (1st grade--5th grade)*

Middle School/High School Class (6th--12th grades, will meet in The Gathering Place)

Adult Education classes (See class schedule)

*Drop-off and Pick-up your child at the marked tables in the Social Hall. We will escort them

to and from the Sunday School classrooms.

10:45-11:45 (Connection Worship Service, Children’s

Church, Nursery)

Children’s Church will be for kids Pre-K through 2nd grade. Drop-off and Pick-Up your child in the

Social Hall before heading into the sanctuary. We will escort them to and from the movie theater,

where kids will participate in a child-oriented wor-ship service with song, dance, prayer, learning about

sacraments, and extending the Sunday School les-

son. Children in 3rd grade—High School will worship with the

church family in the Connection Worship service.

Adult Recreational Volleyball

The adult recreational Volleyball will restart after Jan 1. The schedule

will be posted on the bulletin board outside the social hall when it becomes available. Feel free to show up to any scheduled game. We

will be happy to have you. All skill levels are welcome. Play will end

before Easter. Play usually starts the first Friday in January. Please call Mike Abendroth at 846-6497 with any questions.

Jewelry Sale

Sunday, December 10th

In the Social Hall

To benefit Emmaus

Home

It was all turkeys and pilgrims at

our TreeHouse Thanksgiving

Feast!

December is such a joyful month

for us at TreeHouse! Fresh from

celebrating all that we are thankful

for, we plunge right into Christmas.

Our “Cookies and Cocoa with San-

ta” event is on Friday December

8th, and our annual Christmas pro-

gram to be held on Sunday Dec.

17th! If you ever wonder what the

season is about, please come by

and listen to the echoes of our little

children singing their joyful hymns!

Merry Christmas to all!

TreeHouse December