Together as an inter-generational community we will give thanks. We will sing traditional Thanksgiving hymns and be treated to a bounty of beautiful music from our FPC choirs and Musicians of all Ages. The service will be led by our minister Tom Rosiello assisted by our music team, and director of religious education and our student minister, as well as children and youth. The service will include the traditional ritual of breaking and sharing of great bread that will be baked for us by the junior youth group.

Please bring non-perishable food and toiletries to the service which will be donated to the Stow Food Pantry.

On Wednesday November 7, (assuming the election is not so close that it takes weeks to determine the winner), about one half of the country will wake to discover their candidate won the election and the other almost half of the country will learn their candidate lost.  We will look back at the process and forward to where we go from here. We will ask ourselves, regardless of who won the election, what can we learn from it? This Sunday there will be an opportunity in our service to join the church.  At both services the sermon will be delivered by the Rev. Tom Rosiello and the anthem will be Somos el Barco, a beautiful song that reminds us all of our oneness and interdependence.

Gathered as a community of love and compassion we will explore the difficult question on which we will be asked to vote in the upcoming election.  Ballot question 2 asks us to vote for or against legalizing physician assisted suicide or what proponents of the bill call "death with dignity.”  This is a very complex end of life issue that raises many serious moral and ethical questions and we will try to look at all sides of the issue.  The sermon will delivered by the Rev Tom Rosiello.

The Rev Tom Rosiello preaching; Visiting Student Minister, Jennifer Duhamel, assisting with worship.

Today we live in an increasingly polarized nation and world.  At the heart of this polarization seems to be uncompromising religious positions and there seem to be many who wish to exploit those religious positions for political gain.   Of course religious values are important but how do we move forward as a diverse society when compromise seems less possible and competing interest seems to be ignored. Ethical decision making is always about balancing competing interests. 

This morning we will explore this difficult issue.  In our worship we will share joys and concerns and rich music making.  Our choirs will sing, “On that Holy Mountain” by Joe Mattingly and the message of that text taken from The Book of Isaiah (the story of the lion lying down with the lamb) will be our message for all ages. In our Religious Education classes, our children will be learning about the Sikh tradition.