Hello Westport Presbies, family and friends!

We greet you with a message of power and God’s love!

Despite spreading sufferings and injustices in the world, we are still able to share this message with you because we trust that by following Jesus into the Kingdom of God, we will get there one day. Our faith rests on believing God—not just believing in God—but believing God!—that God loves all—God is within all—and that our work is to give birth within the scope of our own lives to Higher Consciousness and Higher Compassion which are the signs of God’s will being done.

Right now, we are committed to deepening the great works we are already doing:

Creative Livestream Worship Service every Sunday at 11:00 a.m. Are you joining us to listen, pray, sing, learn and give? We know many of you are. If you have not been joining us, or are only joining in sporadically, we hope you will commit yourself to trying us out for six services this fall and see if it makes a difference in your life and in your understanding of what God is doing in the world and in your life right now. If you cannot watch at 11 am, you can watch a recording of the service at another time on the same Facebook page.
Facebook Livestream Page

Through the Shower Ministry, we are growing a great work of compassion and love for people without homes to live in, without sufficient food or ability to clean and clothe themselves adequately. This work will be needed more as colder weather arrives. Our growing team is now serving 30 men and women on Sundays with breakfast, showers, clothing, clothes washing and a sack lunch to take away.Needed for Sunday are casseroles, orange juice, sides like potato salad and cole slaw, and good quality clothing. And you! God wants you!

In the weekday sack lunch ministry, we are serving 50 men and women weekly (12+ a day) with a generous, nutritious sack lunch including a meat sandwich, chips, fruit, carbohydrates, peanut butter, and water. Peanut butter is always needed, as are bread, fresh fruit, lunchmeat  and cheese. Thanks to all who are working to love Jesus Christ in the person who is thirsty, sick, without clothes, hungry and a stranger. God is Love!

Four of us—Stan Morgan, Karen Elmer, Jim Turner, Rev. Scott and eleven members of Scott’s family joined in the September March on Kansas City. Our purpose was to “Rock the Vote” and end racism and police brutality in the Kansas City Police Department. The work continues because unfortunately, the injustice continues. The time is now to begin to listen to the experiences and perspectives of Black and Brown people and begin to commit to becoming an anti-racist church and anti-racist individual followers of Jesus. The reality is that reliable white allies are needed to make the social changes that are now demanded. We need to awaken to our own complicity with racism and our own possibility of creating a non-racist society in which all men and women are truly equal.

The church’s commitment to community arts is crucial in this hour. Our commitment of funds, space and volunteer board members is energizing the Westport Center for the Arts to re-create itself in this time of pandemic and continue to create community and art with its programming. The fact is that as the pandemic began, WCA’s programming would have been “dead” had we not created new initiatives. Kids Team Up for Art became Kids Spread Out for Art. Friday noon- hour Brown Bag Concerts became Friday night Livestream concerts. Live Theater became Livestream Dancing Word, which merges poetry and dance and shows a lot of promise as a new art form even as we began with a pioneering version of it on Friday, Oct. 2.

We pray for the whole family of Marian and Tim Thomas, in the tragic death of their son Stephen, and in the present struggle of their daughter Julie Thomas to live a life beyond breast cancer. So far, Julie is responding well to treatments in preparation for surgery. Keep Fred Culver in your prayers, Rae Peterson, Deanna Wardlow, Mark Wardlow, Carly Simon’s family, our two “new” babies in the families of Drew and Alison and Joe and Rita Marie, Elidah Chibanda and her family in Arizona and Africa, Darrell and Sue Newman, Rob and Natalie, Bob and Elaine’s “new” grandchild, Steve Zeoli in is work toward ordination, our young people—Trail, William, Gregor, Ave, Mollie, Margot, Madeline, Evan, Reese, Zack, Holden, Maddy—as they learn and grow in a challenging time. Stan Morgan’s daughter, Kimberly is expecting a child in the next few months, as she also graduates from college. “Stan the Grandpa Man”! Smile.

We invite you to a Friday night, Oct. 30, 7:30 p.m. Livestream Concert entitled Make Them Hear You: Amplifying Voices That Need to Be Heard.

The performers include: Emily Davidson, piano; Neal Long, tenor; Joshua Stark, baritone; Jordan Voth, piano; Jennifer Weiman, mezzo-soprano; and Emma Witbols Feugen, mezzo-soprano. Composers include John Rosamond Johnson, Florence Price, Leonard Bernstein, Juliana Hall, Stacy Garrop. The works will include  “My Dearest Ruth”, “Home of the Brave” (in honor of Matthew Shepard) and “Martin Luther King, Jr” and “Lady of the Harbor.”

Join in the thrill! It is no coincidence that we’re doing this four days before election day. There might not be any Rock ‘n Roll in this concert, but we still want to “Rock the Vote”.

We hope you will keep giving to the church. Thanks to all who have been giving. If you haven’t been able to give, we hope you can this give fall as we pledge and figure out our budget for 2021. Our stock broker and his wife gave $1,000 to the Shower Ministry recently. We praise God for all of you who give and give generously to God’s work here.
May you stay strong!
Keep the faith!
Let the Spirit fill you and flow through you!

You can give to the church and any of its missions by sending a check to 201 Westport Road, Kansas City, Missouri or going to the website. 
You can subscribe yourself to our mailing list by going to the newsletter subscription page and filling out the form: http://westportpresbyterian.org/email-newsletter/