Take 5 for Advocacy: Week of August 10, 2020

Actions You Can Take This Week

Support JumpStart Seattle: Sign on to the Seattle King County Coalition on Homelessness’s letter asking the Seattle City Council to overturn Mayor Durkan's veto of the JumpStart Seattle plan, which would provide immediate economic relief to Seattle residents and small business owners, assist immigrants and refugees, and provide a steady source of revenue to invest in affordable housing and replenish the city's emergency funds. Click here to sign on to this letter.

Instead of Project Cool ...:  Because of the pandemic, the Coalition can't do its annual Project Cool drive to support ] Seattle and King County students who are experiencing homelessness with back-to-school supplies and books. However, these students still need your help! Click here to help donate to the Coalition's fund to provide students without shelter with school supplies and books. 

Vote for the Next Centering Prayer Time

Last Wednesday, on August 5, folks from Keystone gathered for a Lectio Divinia practice in our community Zoom space. Pastor Lauren is seeking feedback and input for future next steps and possible dates for a next practice. The next practice could look very similar to what happened on August 5, or it might be a little different, thanks to your input! 

If you were at the August 5 centering practice, or would be interested in future practices, please email Pastor Lauren (lauren.cannon@keystoneseattle.org) your thoughts on these questions:

Would you like to practice again?
Would you prefer a daytime, toward the start of your day or week?
Would you like to keep a Wednesday eve, say 6:30-7 pm?
Would you invite another from Keystone/your connections, to take time in community, to rest in God, this way?

Also, let Pastor Lauren know about preferred dates for a next practice, as well as the frequency of the practice:
Weekly Tuesdays @ 8:30 AM? 9 AM? so next up: August 18.
Couple Wednesday eves/month @ 6:30 PM? so next up: August 26.
Weekly Fridays @10:30 AM? so next up August 21.

Hear Our Prayers: Prayers from the Keystone Community

In worship last Sunday, we joined together in holding up these prayers:

• For fire season being less intense this year, offering a bit of break to our first responders, and stressed earth.

• Folks offered grateful hearts to God for all the progress and support in health.  And the ways we can help one another in this time of stress.  For continued love and mercy.  For peace on earth.  

• Others prayed for knowledge of the good in ourselves, to love self, to continue to heal, to become whole.  

We continue to lift in prayer: 

• For Jim and Ruth welcoming their grand baby this week! Congratulations!!! Joyful prayers around you all!

• Prayers surround Maureen's sister Teresa through surgery for cancer.

• With Dorothy's son Michael in his continued recovery from his tumor, so he might be free future surgeries.

• All our Keystone families and extended families being impacted by Covid, and those facing illness and injuries, and for those who grieve loved ones lost this year.  

• For the Keystone community, getting out the vote, having fresh conversations with family.

• Caregivers at Keystone, offering devoted love to those with whom they live.  For grace, holy patience, & humor.

• The Seattle Taiwanese Christian Church UCC, The Wallingford Co-Op PreSchool, The Seattle Labor Chorus, The Seattle Peace Chorus, The Meaningful Movies Project, Communities Rising, and our other many building users, figuring out news ways to be right now!

• Families & teachers at Keystone, who are figuring fall plans for youth scholars, college scholars, and for children who will have a new design than their daycare, preschool, or school. 

Holy God ... hear our prayers!

These prayers are crafted to carry those shared in worship to our whole community, in the general spirit in which they were given (a leader notes as others pray.)  Also send Rev. Lauren prayer requests, and we can add them  to our online worship.  Also add your prayers to the Zoom chat box during live worship, and we can fold them in to the spoken prayer time. 

Do you have pastoral concerns & prayers you’d like to share? Email:

Pastor Lauren:  lauren.cannon@keystoneseattle.org, (also feel free to text/ call Lauren’s cell:  773.501.7382)

Pastor Yuki (yuki.schwartz@keystoneseattle.org), 

Pastor Rich (keystone5019@gmail.com), 

Wednesday Evenings @ KeystoneUCC: Learning/ Gathering/Solidarity

Wednesday evenings are full of activity at Keystone’s online Zoom space! Check out this schedule of events for the next several Wednesdays:

Tonight, Wed. Aug. 12:  Justice Bible Study 6:30- 7:20 p.m. w/ Pastor Yuki.

Also Tonight, Wed. Aug. 12:  Solidarity: Gather & Build Resilience Hang Out: with your faithful crew: Connect, Lament & Laugh:  7:30-8:15 p.m.(Come this first gathering to circle up support around our faithful parents especially!  All are welcome) w/ Pastor Lauren.

Wed. Aug. 19:  StoryTelling. Theme: Transcendence, 6:30-7:15 p.m. w/ Pastor Rich.

Wed. Aug. 26:  This may be our second practice of Lectio Divina, 6:30 p.m. — or it might be another event. We’ll let you know in a future newsletter!

Note:

In months that have five Wednesdays, we plan to host regular Community Feedback Listening Sessions — for example: see you on  Sept. 30 and Dec. 30!

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Keystone is a Creation Justice Church!

After Keystone’s Lenten study on Naomi Klein’s book On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal, the members of the study (who are also part of the Keystone Green Team), pinpointed some specific actions we wanted to take on to live out our commitment to climate justice. One of those actions was to apply to become on of the United Church of Christ’s Creation Justice Churches, joining may other churches in the UCC who are committed to creation care and climate justice in the world. The Green Team spent a few months working on that application, which you can read here, and Pastor Yuki sent it to the UCC’s national offices on July 22.

In July, Pastor Yuki received an email from the UCC’s Environmental Justice Minister Rev. Brooks Berndt welcoming Keystone as one of the UCC’s Creation Justice Churches. Rev. Berndt wrote: “I was able to read Keystone’s Creation Justice Church application just now, and I am happy to share that you are now officially a Creation Justice Church! I was glad to learn about your ministries, and I am happy to connect with you.”

Rev. Berndt said in the email that usually Creation Justice Churches receive a vinyl banner that they can display outside the church to show the world that they are committed to climate justice, but because the Covid-19 pandemic has kept the UCC’s office staff working from home, the UCC won’t be able to send that banner anytime soon. Rev. Berndt also encourages members from our Green Team to write articles about our experiences for the UCC Environmental Justice Ministries blog, The Pollinator.

Thank you, Green Team, for your work on the application and your commitment to this important ministry!