Friday 14 August 2020
 
Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois

Dear Friends, 
 
In a perfect world, I’d shake your hands after service this week and hug your necks. I’d be taking mental shorthand about your lives, about your last week’s highs and lows, about the trepidations you have for the coming week. There would begin my week’s prayer list. 
 
I’d linger in the sanctuary after worship to hear the postlude. I’d applaud loudly when it was done. I’d go down stairs to Westminster Hall and eat three donut holes at once, get a cup of steaming hot water from the dispenser in the deacon’s kitchen, and drop in a tea bag. I’d get three more donut holes and place them daintily on a napkin and roam the room interrupting your conversations with each other. 
 
All the while I’d discreetly write notes in the palm of my hand of things I should follow up on that week; I have a bad memory and a terrible memory on Sunday. Then, I’d say goodbye to our children from Sunday school and slip into worship with The Gathering, followed by a few donut holes and conversation with more of the flock.
 
I might make a quick visit to the hospital on the way home. If I were lucky, I’d fall asleep on the couch watching football, basketball, or the British Bake Off.
 
I used to love Sundays.
 
I love them now in a different way. I worship with Rachel and our dog. We never wear shoes. We sometimes worship while eating breakfast. In bed. I practice singing harmony as Joe leads our hymns. My dog looks up at me and my wrong notes wondering if I’m okay. Harmony is beautiful. Bad harmony sounds like a chest wound. We follow worship often with a warm walk around the park.
 
Pandemic has spelled changes in routine. But Sunday is still Sunday, the Lord’s day. 
 
In all the changes, I’m grateful God doesn’t change. God isn’t a moving target. God grace is amazing and steady, reliable and trustworthy. From everlasting to everlasting, says the psalmist. Good News.
 
I’ll see you Sunday.
 
* * *
 
PS:  The Session has called a meeting of the Congregation to hear and act upon the report of the Congregation’s Officer Nominating Committee for this Sunday, 10 a.m. Sunday August 16^th.  

Please visit firstpres.church/meeting Friday or Saturday to make sure you are ready for Sunday’s meeting.  That page includes information about testing your ability to connect to the meeting on Zoom.  Then, Sunday morning at 10 go to that same page, firstpres.church/meeting, where you will find specific information about joining the congregational meeting. 
 
* * *
 
See you on Sunday. Invite a friend.
 
Pay attention to God’s activity in the world around you.
                  Be amazed.
                                    Tell somebody.
 
PEACE,
 
Matt Matthews
864.386.9138
 
* * *
 
PHOTO Challenge! 
From your Nurture Team — Congrats to Patty Farthing for being the first to guess last Friday’s photo was of Ritchie Drennen!  

Here’s this week’s photo. 

Visit http://fb.com/groups/firstpreschampaign to make your guesses, or email them to photos@firstpres.church.  
 
Please join in the fun!  We would like you to select a photo from your younger years (grade school, high school or early adulthood). Photos need not be professional. Candid shots are welcome. Please send your photos to photos@firstpres.church.

* * *

Join us on Sunday afternoon from 3:00 to 4:00 for a community service of prayer and discussion. Alan Cook, Ousmane, Sawadago, Michael Crosby, someone from B’hai community, and others will lead us in prayer, followed by discussion. This on-line event takes the place of the Interfaith Forum of Champaign County annual picnic. Find the event here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/579786492687821
 
* * *
 
From Marge Olson:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/moBvLFbFdJ4?rel=0&autoplay=1
 
The King of Mello:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZe3mXlnfNc
 
The King of Cool:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI_zG2eWGE4
 
Encore:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoI1XPqXQ90
 

Wednesday August 12^th, 2020
A daily e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
 
Dear Friends,
 
Many of you are ready for face to face worship. I’m ready in my heart, but not in my head. Community Covid numbers are too high, the disease is too deadly, and gathering just isn’t safe enough. 
 
Yet. 
 
When? 
 
I don’t know. Your Covid-19 Response Team meets regularly, prays often, and pays close attention to CDC and daily local numbers, hospitals, and the health department.  They do not take their work lightly. Their singular goal is the safety of this flock.
 
Which brings me back to Sunday worship. We’ve never stopped worship. We’ve never stopped meeting. Committees and other gatherings still fly. We’ve added a gathering time on Wednesday evenings at 7:00, which is an varied program of prayer, program put on by our Mission Team, study (a Bible study is coming  up; and another short Rachel Held Evans film is forthcoming), music, and fellowship. It’s not the Lincoln Center, but  it’s  your church.
 
I’m surprised to learn that there are many saints in our church who don’t tune into our recorded services. A ton of energy and prayer go into those services, as I’m sure you know, and while people from all over the country tune in each week, when I look into that camera, I imagine your faces.
 
Tuning in might be easier than you think. Take a deep breath, and then go to FirstPres.Live and click which viewing option you want (watch on our webpage, on YouTube, or Facebook). 
 
You won’t see “slick” worship, you’ll see authentic, heartfelt worship.
 
You’ll see worship that is fuller when you tune in.
 
Take on Race:

BELHAR CONFESSION

In 1982, Reformed South African theologian Dirk Smit (now a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary) was one of the authors who drafted the Belhar Confession as a rebuke to Apartheid in the 1980s. The Belhar Confession articulates how the Gospel of Jesus Christ stands opposed to segregation, racism, and apartheid, all systemic evils of our time. (Click on the title above to ready the Belhar Confession
 
News:
 
Tonight join the mid-week gathering at 7 p.m.
Email zoom@firstpres.church for the link.

The Session has called a meeting of the Congregation to hear and act upon the report of the Congregation’s Officer Nominating Committee for 10 a.m. this Sunday, August 16.  The address for that meeting is firstpres.church/meeting
 
Humor/: (Serious times call for re-creation, joy, and humor.)
 
If seagulls fly over the sea, what flies over the bay? (Bagels, of course.)
 
Good Word:
 
Psalm 124 (again)
 
¹ If it had not been the Lord who was on our side
    —let Israel now say—
² if it had not been the Lord who was on our side,
    when our enemies attacked us,
³ then they would have swallowed us up alive,
    when their anger was kindled against us;
⁴ then the flood would have swept us away,
    the torrent would have gone over us;
⁵ then over us would have gone
    the raging waters.
⁶ Blessed be the Lord,
who has not given us
    as prey to their teeth.
⁷ We have escaped like a bird
    from the snare of the fowlers;
the snare is broken,
    and we have escaped.
⁸ Our help is in the name of the Lord,
    who made heaven and earth.
 
Let us pray:
 
Everlasting God, 
in whom we live and move and have our being: 
You have made us for yourself, 
so that our hearts are restless 
until they rest in you. 
Give us purity of heart and strength of purpose, 
that no selfish passion may hinder us from knowing your will, 
no weakness keep us from doing it; 
that in your light we may see light clearly, 
and in your service find perfect freedom; 
through Jesus Christ our Lord, 
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, 
One God, now and forever.  AMEN
 
 PEACE to you all,
 
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church

Monday August 10^th, 2020
A daily e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
  
Dear Friends,
 
Overheard: 
 
“It’s easy to have gratitude when you already have what you want.” (Anne Lamotte)
 
“The Jesus I grew up with in my Presbyterian church was quiet and nice, liked children, and didn’t cause waves. Then I read the Bible.” (Rev. Liz  Theoharis)
 
* * *
Let Comfort Come
We read while form stays
still and waits. The words sing
or speak, clamber on or say
or tell or even sometimes step
aside and hope we wander in.
Everywhere within the form
of letter, word, space, structure
rests the hush around the hurry,
the opening wherein any form —
table, door, the lover’s arm
and tongue, the cat asleep
on the sill—lies the quiet,
the shawl around us all
who have to clatter through.
Let be be the nothing of not.
–Jack Ridl
First published in The Colorado Review
Subsequently published in Saint Peter and the Goldfinch (Wayne State University Press)
 
Take on Race:
The Presbyterian Church USA hopes to be a transformative church in this intercultural era by taking eight steps to end racism. Those steps are:
1.)    RECOGNITION—As it happened in John 20:11–18, like Mary Magdalene, we hear our names called and recognize that we are captive to the power of race. We cease denying that race has power in our individual and communal lives. 
2.)    REPENTANCE—We acknowledge to ourselves and to others that race has power in our lives and contributes to our white privilege. 
3.)    RESISTANCE—We commit ourselves to combating the power of racism in ourselves, in others, in churches, and in institutional life. Because of its long reach in American history, at times we will feel like those who are battling principalities and powers in Ephesians 6:10–20. 
4.)    RESILIENCE—We are called to affirm the traditional ways of combating racism while seeking new ways to engage a powerful force that continues to be present in American life and that continues to evolve.
5.)    REPARATIONS—We commit ourselves to doing our part to repair the breaches that have been made through racism, including psychological, spiritual, and economic damage. 
6.)    RECONCILIATION—We recognize that we have long benefitted from racism and that in order for reconciliation to take place, we will need to work the first five steps listed above. 
7.)    RECOVERY—We receive and commit ourselves to live by a new vision of a humanity created by God to live in love, equity, and justice rather than in the hierarchy and domination of the system of race.
8.)    RESONANCE—We understand and resonate with our own cultural background.
 
News:
 
Your Covid-19 Response Team met last week: (1) We agreed to meet in early September to revisit when to reopen for face to face worship; the group still feels opening is unwise given the Covid numbers upward drift. We wonder if influx of UI students will radically change community Covid cases. (2) We talked about upcoming funerals, use of van for the confirmation class, DREAAM work on campus, the health of our church staff, and the possibility of outdoor small group meetings hosted by Nurture Committee.

Tuesdays Men’s Bible Study 8 am
Email zoom@firstpres.church for the link.

 
Humor/the body edition: (Serious times call for re-creation, joy, and humor.)
 
From Tom Gilmore: Why did the teddy bear turn down a second helping? Because he was stuffed.
 
Good Word:
 
1 John 4:7-8                            
(New Revised Standard Version) Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.
 
Let us pray:
 
Guide our steps, Holy God,
and our tonguelisteningthinkingwon-
deringhopingreachingrelationships,
jobsprayersparentingcareintellect,
our hello and goodbye,
our comings and goings,
our then and now,
our hither and yon.
 
Guide our steps, Holy God.
 
Amen.
 
PEACE to you all,
 
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church