Ongoing Response to COVID-19
Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2020-07-17
Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Dear Friends,
Your church attempts to be the hands, feet, and heart of Jesus in the world. Our annual “Rain Drop Project” shines a light on an innovative program that is bringing Christ’s peace to the Mexico-US border. See below at the very bottom of this email for more info.
* * *
Ian Evensen has produced a worship documentary for us. Check it out! (Thanks, Ian.) Here it is:
https://www.firstpres.church/
* * *
The tree that has be best bark? Mary Gritten guessed right AGAIN: a dogwood. (Please, PLEASE send me your jokes!)
* * *
Where have you seen God, lately? That’s what I’ll be asking you on Sunday morning in my sermon. Be thinking about that.
See you on Sunday. Invite a friend.
Pay attention to God’s activity in the world around you.
Be amazed.
PEACE,
Matt Matthews
864.386.9138
More
* * *
PHOTO Challenge! From your Nurture Team — Congrats to Naomi Rempe for being the first to correctly recognize last Friday’s photo of Linda Peterson! Several others correctly guessed Linda, as well.
Here’s this week’s photo.
Visit http://fb.com/groups/
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@
Saturday
French Evening Prayer Service 6 pm
* * *
An Irish Blessing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Vivaldi? Yes, Vivaldi!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
(I’ll include some STAX headliners next week. My son asked me what the difference was between Motown and Stax. Your answer? Both made some great music.)
* * *
EXTRA, EXTRA!
World Mission’s 2020 Raindrop Project supports the ministries of Frontera de Cristo.
Frontera de Cristo is a Presbyterian border ministry located in the sister cities of Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico and Douglas, Arizona.
As one of five binational ministry sites of Presbyterian Border Region Outreach, they work with churches, presbyteries, and secular organizations on both sides of the border to do justice, love, mercy, and walk humbly with God.
Frontera de Cristo’s different ministries include the New Hope Community Center, Mission Education, Migrant Resource Center, Family Ministry, Church Development and a Health Ministry and CAME (Exodus Migrant Ministry).
The cost of living at the border is about the same as it is in the United States. One difference in financial impact is that people working in Mexico do not get government subsidies when they lose their job. Covid-19 has increased the loss of jobs and the border conflict has restricted commerce for our neighbors on the border. People in Aqua Prieta are frugal buying used clothing and locally sewing protective masks.
How to Give
No single raindrop amounts to much. And yet all the raindrops taken together can make a big difference.
Choose an amount to give. Together our giving will help reduce the impact of COVID-19 and the increased financial need at Frontera de Cristo because of it.
You can give either through check or online giving. Click here to give online.
Please write the check to First Presbyterian Church, indicate “Raindrop” on your check or online giving information line.
First Presbyterian Church will be sending one check to Frontera de Cristo at the end of our collection. The Raindrop Offering will be collected in the month of July.
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Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2020-07-16
Thursday July 16, 2020
A daily e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
To Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Dear Friends,
In my Sunday sermon I make a passing reference to Lamar Williamson one of our esteemed professors at Union Theological Seminary and, across the road, at the Presbyterian School of Christian Education. His brilliance was matched by his tender love of people. Lamar made me feel like I really mattered. What a sweet man.
He began his teaching career in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Many of our local Presbyterian African friends have families whose lives were touched by Lamar and Ruthmary and their work training pastors in Africa.
It’s a small world. And, no, the circle will not be broken.
Here’s Brian Blount’s remembrance of Lamar. This is one story of one Christian life lived in community with God’s wide, wide family.
https://mailchi.mp/upsem.edu/
Take on Race:
For your library: White Fragility 2018 by Robin DiAngelo. It should be in stock on Amazon on July1 priced at $9.39 paperback and also available in digital form. For those of you who have read this book, what stuck out for you?
* * *
The words “change” and “chance” differ by only one letter, but their relationship intrigues me.
News:
Your Session meets tonight. Prayer for them.
Friday:
Men’s Prayer Group 8:30 am
Email zoom@firstpres.church for the link.
Friday Night Lights 7:30 pm
Email zoom@firstpres.church for the link.
* * *
If you missed this, try again. Todd Ledbetter funeral highlights. (Thanks Ian Evensen.)
https://www.facebook.com/
* * *
Join your church friends for pickleball on Wednesdays at 1:00 at the courts of Hessel Park. Bring your paddle.
* * *
Our Wednesday night Zoom was a delight last night. Don’t miss out. Join us next week.
Humor: (Serious times call for re-creation, joy, and humor.)
Please send me some jokes. I’ve only got 4th grade groaners:
- Where did the spaghetti and sauce go to dance? (The Meat Ball.)
- What does the corn say when it’s frustrated? (Aw, shucks.)
- What kind of tree has the best bark? (Tune in tomorrow for the answer, and PLEASE send some jokes!)
GOOD WORD:
Ephesians 2:19
19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God . . .
Let us pray:
A Charge from John Wesley:
Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as you ever can.
A prayer:
LORD, help us.
AMEN
PEACE to you all,
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
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Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2020-07-15
Wednesday July 15, 2020
A daily e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
To Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Dear Friends,
I talked to a friend who talked to a friend who talked to a friend who was tired of talking about race. He said, essentially, “I have nothing left to learn. I like everyone. I am not a racist.”
Ouch!
Stay the course, friends. Let’s keep learning, growing, reaching.
Take on Race:
June 28 was the birthday of the founder of the Methodist movement, John Wesley (1703). He was born in Epworth, Lincolnshire, England, and his father was a Nonconformist — a dissenter from the Church of England. Wesley studied at Oxford, where he decided to become a priest. He and his brother joined a religious study group that was given the nickname “the Methodists” for their rigorous and methodical study habits; the name wasn’t meant as a compliment, but Wesley hung onto it anyway and managed to attract several new members to the group, which fasted two days a week and spent time in social service.
By 1739, he felt he wasn’t really reaching people from the pulpit, so he took to the fields, traveling on horseback, preaching two or three times a day. He began recruiting local laypeople to preach as well, and ran afoul of the Church of England for doing so. He believed that Christians could be made “perfect in love” when their actions arose out of a desire to please God and to promote the welfare of the less fortunate. He wrote: “Love is the fulfilling of the law, the end of the commandment. It is not only ‘the first and great’ command, but all the commandments in one. ‘Whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise,’ they are all comprised in this one word, love.”
He was also an ardent abolitionist. In Thoughts on Slavery (1774), he wrote: “Are you a man? Then you should have a human heart. But have you indeed? What is your heart made of? Is there no such principle as Compassion there? Do you never feel another’s pain? Have you no Sympathy? No sense of human woe? No pity for the miserable? When you saw the flowing eyes, the heaving breasts, or the bleeding sides and tortured limbs of your fellow-creatures, was you a stone, or a brute? Did you look upon them with the eyes of a tiger? When you squeezed the agonizing creatures down in the ship, or when you threw their poor mangled remains into the sea, had you no relenting? Did not one tear drop from your eye, one sigh escape from your breast? Do you feel no relenting now? If you do not, you must go on, till the measure of your iniquities is full. Then will the Great GOD deal with You, as you have dealt with them, and require all their blood at your hands.”
He’s said to have traveled 250,000 miles, preached 40,000 sermons, and written, translated, or edited more than 200 volumes. He made £20,000 for his publications but gave most of it away and died in poverty. Though there’s no evidence that he actually wrote it himself, “John Wesley’s Rule” does a fair job of summing up his life:
Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as you ever can.
* * *
4-minutes 16-seconds with Oscar Romero:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
News:
Mary Gritten wants to share the sad news of the death of a cousin-in-law yesterday. (Steve’s cousin’s husband.) “They live in FL so we have made it a point to visit with them every winter. How we did enjoy our time together. Bob, the one who died, and I disagreed about many issues but we always were able to laugh and tease and have fun about those differences. And to look forward to the next round. We liked and respected each other even while taking opposite positions. I will miss him, as will Steve.”
Holy God, bless Mary and Steve as they grieve this loss.
* * *
Todd Ledbetter funeral highlights. (Thanks Ian Evensen.)
https://www.facebook.com/
* * *
Join us at 7:00 p.m. tonight for conversation and a concert. This link is:
Email zoom@firstpres.church for the link.
Thursday
Youth Gathering 4 pm
Email zoom@firstpres.church for the link.
Humor: (Serious times call for re-creation, joy, and humor.)
- What kind of dance did the snowman go to? (A snowball.)
GOOD WORD: THE GLORIOUS NEW CREATION
Isaiah 65:17-25 (NRSV)
17 For I am about to create new heavens
and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered
or come to mind.
18 But be glad and rejoice forever
in what I am creating;
for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy,
and its people as a delight.
19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem,
and delight in my people;
no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it,
or the cry of distress.
20 No more shall there be in it
an infant that lives but a few days,
or an old person who does not live out a lifetime;
for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,
and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.
21 They shall build houses and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
22 They shall not build and another inhabit;
they shall not plant and another eat;
for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,
and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
23 They shall not labor in vain,
or bear children for calamity;[a]
for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord—
and their descendants as well.
24 Before they call I will answer,
while they are yet speaking I will hear.
25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
the lion shall eat straw like the ox;
but the serpent—its food shall be dust!
They shall not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain,
says the Lord.
Let us pray:
With your hands of power and your heart of love, help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nations shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid, when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.
Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day
when black will not be asked to get in back,
when brown can stick around
when yellow will be mellow…
when the red man can get ahead, man;
and when white will embrace what is right.
That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen.
(Rev. Joseph Lowry)
PEACE to you all,
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
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Weekday Email to Members and Friends — 2020-07-14
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| Midweek Online Gathering 7 pm Wednesday evening Email zoom@firstpres.church for the link. |
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Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2020-07-13
Monday July 13, 2020
A daily e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
To Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Dear Friends,
“Death has come up into our windows, it has entered our palaces, to cut off the children from the streets and the young men from the squares.” Jeremiah 9:21
The Corona Virus is not going away. I thought it would just evaporate with summer heat. By now I thought this past winter-into-spring would feel like a faraway dream. Fall would be a blank canvas. Fall still is a blank canvas but the need to social distance and wear a mask leave me feeling like I only get to use one color on that blank canvas.
My mom used to say, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” She probably stole that from my tennis coach, who said it to us a lot during winter strength training. In the summer and fall, Coach Mann was the defensive line coach for the mighty Hampton (Virginia) Crabbers, always a contender for triple-A state competition. The origin of that phrase may be a coach from a Texas football field, says Wikipedia.
If there’s anything true about this admonition, then I think the definition of the word ‘tough’ bears teasing out. In my experience, the toughest people are often the most tender. And ‘tough’ people speak the language of grace. Paul puts it this way to the church at Galatia: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 humility, self control” (Galatians 5:22). That’s as good a definition of ‘tough’ as one can find anywhere. We need exactly that kind of ‘fruit.’
Yes, death has come up to our windows, and it is likely the playgrounds will be cordoned off again to keep children from spreading the virus. But the ‘toughest’ among us are already making a way for the rest of us to follow.
Thank God.
Take on Race:
It’s your turn. Given Ian Evensen’s powerful essay on what he has learned about racism (on Thursday), what have you been learning? Tells us.
News:
Our internet was out Sunday due to storm damage in the neighborhood. If you weren’t able to tune into worship in the morning, you can tune in anytime. Eric Corbin preached a good sermon. Find it here: https://www.facebook.
And at:
https://www.firstpres.church/
Humor: (Serious times call for re-creation, joy, and humor.)
(From Mary Gritten’s son-in-law. Her daughter chose a funny guy!)
- Why does a chicken coop only have two doors? Because if it had four doors it would be a chicken sedan.
- Why didn’t the skeleton cross the road? It didn’t have the guts.
- What did the mathematician say when her parrot flew away? Polygon.
- What did the mathematical acorn say after it grew up? Geometry! (Gee, I’m a tree!)
(And these chestnuts from Gary Peterson:)
- Two pickles fell out of the jar onto the floor. What did one say to the other? Dill with it!
- Why was 6 afraid of 7? Because 7, 8, 9
Men’s Bible Study 8 am
Email zoom@firstpres.church for the link.
International Friends Dinner Meeting 7 pm
Email zoom@firstpres.church for the link.
Since Judi’s photo was guessed so quickly and so many times, we’re releasing a new challenge early.
Visit http://fb.com/groups/
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@
Good Word:
Genesis 28:10-19a
10Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. 11He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. 12And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 And the LORD stood beside him and said, “I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; 14and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. 15Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” 16Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the LORD is in this place — and I did not know it!”17And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”
18So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. 19aHe called that place Bethel
Let us pray:
(from Psalm 139:1-6, 23-24)
1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.
3 You search out my path and my lying down,
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
O LORD, you know it completely.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is so high that I cannot attain it.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my thoughts.
24 See if there is any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
PEACE to you all,
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
[1] Surely the Spirit of the Lord is in this place. There’s a sweet, sweet Spirit in this place and I know that it’s the Spirit of the LORD.
[2] Fear? Why not awe, wonder, joy?
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