St. Peter's United Church of Christ

09/10/2026

A friendly reminder: this Sunday, September 13, 2026, we will convene the 2nd installment of our 7-part series, "Building Ferguson Together." This week's gathering will focus on the needs of the children and youth in our community.

The title of this gathering is “OUR CHILDREN, OUR FUTURE: Youth Speaks. Community Listens.” As part of the gathering, there will be 2 separate panel discussions: the first will feature community youth who will respond to a series of questions and share their experiences, needs, and hopes with us as adults. The second panel will feature adults representing youth-centered programs in our community.

Doors will open at 2 PM for a pre-program resource fair. The conversation will begin at 3 PM in the sanctuary and go until 5 PM. After the program, everyone is again invited to the fellowship hall for light refreshments and to connect with the organizations at the resource fair.

09/05/2026

Happy Labor Day weekend, St. Peter's friends and family! After two weeks away, Pastor Chandler returns to the pulpit, preaching from Matthew as Jesus, through the Gospel writer, addresses how to respond when conflict arises within the sacred community. On Sunday morning, Pastor Chandler brings us two texts: Isaiah's vision for the "Peaceable Kingdom" in Isaiah 11:1-9 and Matthew 18:15-20. The title of this week's sermon is "The Sacred Labor of Not Giving Up on Each Other."

After a long season of transition and grief, there's a particular kind of quiet that settles over a community — not peaceful, but cautious and tired. We know that quiet. We've felt it in the hallways, in the whispered conversations, in the coalitions we build when it feels safer to talk about someone than to talk with them.

This week we turn to the prophet Isaiah, who doesn't offer a shattered people an easy blueprint for recovery. He gives them a stump — the stark evidence of loss — and then dares to promise a shoot growing straight out of that scarred wood. From there we turn to Jesus, who hands his own fragile community not a legal checklist for casting people out, but a single sacred goal: to regain your sibling.

What does it look like to choose direct, loving accountability over the whisper network? What does it mean that Jesus never actually walked away from the very people he seemed to name as outsiders? And what might it mean for a weary, grieving congregation to believe that a green shoot is already pushing up through the stump of what's been lost?

Come worship with us this Sunday morning at 10 AM CDT as we consider the relentless, stubborn, sacred labor of refusing to give up on each other — and on ourselves.

Worship is available in person or via the live stream link below!

Thank you for joining us this morning for worship. St. Peter's UC...

08/31/2026

Cold nights are coming, and we're getting ready early.
The Ferguson Warming Center is preparing to open its doors again: a warm place to sit, something to eat, and a few hours of rest for anyone who needs it, no questions asked.
It runs on people. Volunteers, donations, and neighbors who believe that no one should face a cold night alone.
A warm place for everyone. St. Peter's is an open and affirming faith community.

08/30/2026

Tomorrow morning, consider worshipping with St. Peter's UCC in Ferguson, beginning at 10 AM CDT, either in person or via our live stream. This week, Pastor Sonya concludes her two-part series on "The Banality of Evil" with her sermon, "Good Trouble, Holy Trouble."

What happens after we say NO to Pharaoh?

In Part 2 of the Banality of Evil sermon series, “Good Trouble, Holy Trouble: Overcoming Evil with Good,” we move from resisting injustice to asking an even harder question:
What are we helping God bring to life?

Through Romans 12:9–21 and Amos 5:21–24, we explore what it means to practice a faith that does more than recognize evil—a faith that confronts injustice without becoming consumed by it.
Drawing from Womanist and Liberation theology and the ongoing witness of St. Peter’s in Ferguson, this sermon challenges the Church to move beyond charity toward justice, beyond survival toward flourishing, and beyond good intentions toward courageous action.

Because God doesn’t need a Church that simply watches justice roll by.

God needs some holy troublemakers willing to help justice roll down.

Let love be genuine.

Let justice roll.

Overcome evil with good.

Good Trouble, Holy Trouble
Part 2 of The Banality of Evil Series

Thank you for joining us this morning for worship. St. Peter's UC...

08/29/2026

A few weeks ago, we started something.
Neighbors came together for the first session of Building Ferguson Together, sat down, and started asking the real questions: what does this community need, and what can we build if we build it together?
Here's the part we love most. The next session is shaped by the people who showed up to the last one. This isn't our agenda. It's ours, together.
The conversation keeps going, and there's room for you in it.
Missed the first session? Tell us you want in, and we'll make sure you know when the next one is. 🙌
Everyone has a place at this table. St. Peter's is open and affirming.

08/27/2026

St. Peter's United Church of Christ will host "Our Children, Our Future: Youth Speak, Community Listens" on Sunday, September 13, 2026, from 3:00–5:00 p.m. (Resource Fair opens at 2pm) as the next gathering in its Building Ferguson Together: Community Conversations for Hope, Healing & Action series.

The free community event will bring together young people ages 12–18, parents and caregivers, educators, youth mentors, mental-health professionals, municipalities, recreation programs and community organizations to address a central question:
What do young people in Ferguson and North St. Louis County need to be safe, supported, heard, connected and given genuine opportunities to thrive?

A Community Resource & Connection Fair will be open at 2pm before the 3:00 p.m. program and following its 5:00 p.m. conclusion.

08/27/2026

In Ferguson, we've learned that our struggles are connected.
When one part of this community is under pressure, the rest of us show up. Black neighbors and q***r neighbors, longtime members and brand-new faces, standing with each other, because justice for one has never been separate from justice for all.
That kind of solidarity isn't a campaign or a single moment. It's a habit we keep practicing, on the ordinary days as much as the hard ones.
At St. Peter's, affirming who you are and standing with you are the same commitment.
Who have you stood beside lately? Community gets built one act of solidarity at a time.
Open and affirming, and standing with our neighbors. Always.

08/25/2026

"Everyone is welcome here." We say it a lot, and we mean it without asterisks.
It's worth being honest about what that welcome is, and what it isn't.
Welcome doesn't mean anything goes. It means everyone belongs, and it means we care enough about each other to keep this a place where people are safe, respected, and treated with dignity.
All people are welcome. Not every behavior is. That's not a contradiction. It's what it takes to build a community that can actually hold everyone in it.
That's the kind of welcome we're working to live out. Come see it for yourself some Sunday.
Open and affirming, with room for everyone and care for everyone. That's St. Peter's.

08/22/2026

Join us for worship tomorrow at St. Peter's beginning at 10 AM CDT, and hear a powerful word from Pastor Sonya entitled "God Needs Midwives in Pharaoh's World." The texts guiding her sermon are Exodus 1:8-22 and Acts 5:27-29.

This week's sermon brings the courageous story of Shiphrah and Puah in Exodus 1 into conversation with Hannah Arendt’s concept of the “banality of evil” to confront an unsettling truth: evil does not always look monstrous. Sometimes it looks ordinary—like policy, procedure, silence, compliance, and the familiar excuse, “I’m just doing what I’m supposed to do.”

Ultimately, this sermon asks a question every congregation and disciple must answer: When injustice asks for our cooperation, will we comply—or will we become God’s midwives, helping to birth something different?

Because Pharaoh still shows up in policies, institutions, cultures, and assumptions—and God still needs midwives who fear God and are willing to say, “No. Not through me."

Join us this Sunday either in person or via our livestream beginning at 10 AM CDT.

Thank you for joining us this morning for worship. St. Peter's UC...

08/21/2026

At a funeral, of all places, someone looked around at the kind of welcome happening in the room and said quietly, "I didn't know a church like that existed."
We hear it more than you'd think, especially from people who decided a long time ago that church wasn't for them, or wasn't safe for them.
So consider this your introduction: a church that affirms who you are, celebrates who you love, and means it. Where LGBTQIA+ people aren't a debate to be had, but neighbors to be known. It's here. It has been here all along.
If you've been quietly wondering whether a place like this exists near you, it does. You just found it. 💛
Tag someone who needs to know this church is here for them.
St. Peter's UCC. Open and affirming, no exceptions and no fine print.