The Journey to Hope:
Advent at St. Gregory’s

Every Sunday (Nov 30, Dec 7, Dec 14, Dec 21)
Come for gorgeous music that brings us into the mystery, expectation, and peace of this season.

Dec 7: What Shall We Call Him? | 10:45-11:30
All ages are welcome to this fun and interactive event where we find out how the many names of Jesus help us to have a more meaningful Christmas.

Dec 14: Nicasa Wrapping Party | 10:45-11:30

Join our own Youth Service Corps, Scout Troops 50 & 52, and other parishioners for a fun morning of wrapping all our presents for the Nicasa client families.

Coffee with Pastor Dan

This can be a tough season for many reasons. If you want to talk about anything, drop by to talk with Pastor Dan at the Starbucks at Deerfield and Waukegan at any of these times:

• Wednesday, Dec 10 | 11:00 - 4:00

• Monday, Dec 15 | 1:00 - 5:00

• Wednesday, Dec 17 | 11:00 - 4:00

Interfaith Thanksgiving: THANK YOU!

Thank you to all whose efforts made for an astoundingly successful Interfaith Thanksgiving service last Sunday! We showed the welcoming heart of StGs to a packed house (more than 120 attendees!) with warm words, a beautifully decorated space, lovely music, and a delicious reception after. If you missed it, you can watch our recording of the service here. Donations at the service totaled $1570, which will be split between Neighbor2Neighbor and the West Deerfield Township Food Pantry.

We Did It!

We still have a couple of pledges to collect, but we are about ready to wrap up this Annual Giving campaign. Your generosity has been amazing, and the Vestry has approved a very sustainable budget for 2026. Be sure to come to the Annual Meeting on Feb 8 for the full report.  Thank you!

2025 Diocesan Convention

Thank you to Kate & Michael Launius, Scott Schaper, and Abby Kettlewell for representing StGs at last week’s 2025 Diocesan Convention! When it is ready, the Convention Report will be accessible to all via this link.  

NICASA Christmas Gifts!

Update: We still have 11 families left who need to be sponsored for Christmas! All remaining are families of 5 – so if that’s too much for one household to cover, we encourage you to join forces with others to sponsor a family. Maybe even ping your extended family over Thanksgiving dinner?

As is our annual custom, StGs will provide Christmas gifts for 40 Nicasa families! Click the button below to sign up to sponsor a whole family (2-6 people). Once you've signed up, Janet Foltz will email the family's wish list and all of the details to you. If you don’t have time to do the shopping, she is willing to do it for you.  

If you're unable to provide gifts for a whole family, please consider making a donation to St. Gregory's and indicating that it is to be used for Nicasa Christmas Gifts. If you have any questions, please contact Janet (847.477.5629) or  (jfoltz1004@hotmail.com. Thank you for your generosity!

THANK YOU silver polishers!

On Sunday you may have noticed everything silver was SPARKLING! A big thank you to the Altar Guild team that spent hours polishing and shining all the silver pieces for our services. Thank you Marilyn Knilans, Mary Keller, Sally Holtz, Barb Schaper, Sybil Ten Eyck, and Cissy Singleton.

Community Meals: thank you!

Volunteers including Cissy and Jeff Singleton; Catherine and Matthew Regalado; Jen and Fred Crone; Janet and Bill Foltz; and Matthew and Scott Schaper served a hot meal to 50 guests. We also gave them non-perishable food items and personal care items. Thanks to our bakers Tony Trevithick, Cecilia Rodriguez, Kim Baer, Cissy Singleton, and Linda Iles.  Linda is a member of Trinity Highland Park, but has volunteered with us in the past. Thanks also to Dan Nicholas who helped move the cases of water and other items from the storage room to Cissy's car.

Our next opportunity to serve is Sunday, December 28th. We need volunteers to come to Waukegan to prepare the meals and pack bags with non-perishable items. We also provide our guests with 2 cookies each. This amounts to 26 dozen cookies! When you are making holiday cookies, please make some extra for our ministry. If you make an extra 3 or 4 dozen that would be enough for 18 or 24 people. If you sign up and let me know how many cookies you want to contribute, I will take care of the math. We also need several people to cook pasta. If you’re able to join us, please email Barb via the button below, or sign up in the Sign Up Center.

December 10: Donate while you dine!

On Wednesday, December 10: support Scout Troop 50 when you dine in, carry out, or drive-thru at Culver’s in Lincolnshire or Northbrook! If you mention Troop 50 when you checkout, both locations will donate 25% of sales back to the Troop.

StGs Christmas Spotify Playlist!

Every year when the holidays begin their long approach, Kathryn’s inbox starts overflowing with fantastic musical recommendations from parishioners. Since we can’t necessarily sing these songs in our Sunday services (for logistical/wider appeal/subject/stylistic reasons), this year we’re going to create a StGs Christmas Spotify Playlist!

Pick out 1-2 favorite songs you love to hear around the holidays, and send Kathryn an email via the button below that includes a YouTube or Spotify link to the exact version you like! Optional: also send a brief description (2-3 sentences max) of why you like it, or what special memories it evokes for you. Once all have been received, we’ll publish a Spotify playlist for everyone to enjoy throughout the month of December! Songs don’t need to be specifically sacred in theme, they just need to be seasonally appropriate. :) Deadline is TODAY!

Advent Wreath Lighting

Every Sunday in Advent we light a candle on the Advent wreath, showing our progress toward the manger. We need one individual (or couple, or household, or group of friends!) to light the candle each week, so we only have four slots. This takes place right at the very beginning of the service, so you’ll need to make sure to be there a few minutes before 9:30am. :)

We invite you to add your name to the sheet in the Sign-Up Center if you would like to help with this special part of our Advent liturgy!

Donate to Christmas Worship

In addition to the special musicians at our Christmas Eve service (bigger choir! brass! percussion!), we have gorgeous, abundant flowers decorating our altar for both Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. If you’d like to make a donation toward the music or flowers (or both!), please use the button below. You may specify that your donation is “in memory of” or “in thanksgiving for” someone, and those attributions will be listed in the Christmas bulletins. If you would prefer to give in person, please use the green envelopes that will be in each pew. To have your attribution listed in the bulletin, you must have it submitted no later than Sunday, December 14!

Christmas Eve & Day Services:

Christmas is a particularly wonderful time at StGs, with special liturgy, music, and flowers!

• Join us at 4pm on Christmas Eve for an intergenerational festive Eucharist with extra special music (a big choir, brass quintet, and timpani/percussion) and gorgeous flowers and decor throughout our space. Our nursery will be open for this service.

• (Please note that we will NOT have our usual 8am Wednesday morning healing service on Christmas Eve - plan to attend the  4pm service online instead!)

• Join us at 10am on Christmas morning for a casual, come-as-you-are service filled with fun and jazzy Christmas carols!

Both services will be accessible on Zoom as usual via the “Sunday Worship Online” button above, or by using Meeting ID 842 861 148, passcode 414299.

Midweek Prayer

Every Wednesday | 8:00am

Need a midweek spiritual boost?

Join a lovely small group of folks who gather online every week for spiritual renewal and to pray intentionally for everyone in our community who is in need.

Meeting ID: 750 552 357 
Password: 587299

Common Threads

Second Tuesday of the month  |  7:00pm

Bring a new or ongoing craft project to work on while you enjoy fun and fellowship with other parishioners. Whatever your craft - whether your medium is knitting, embroidery, painting, calligraphy, etc - and whatever your skill level, all are welcome! We meet in the Parker Room.

Book Club

3rd Wednesday of the month  |  7:00pm

Note: A reminder that we take December off, but will resume in January!

January 21:
James by Percival Everett

A brilliant reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—both harrowing and satirical—told from the enslaved Jim's point of view.

When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

Brimming with nuanced humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim's agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first-century American literature.

Meeting ID: 817 1184 3180
Passcode: 893734