Ongoing Response to COVID-19
Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2020-04-30
Thursday April 30th 2020
A Weekday Emailer from
Matt Matthews
To Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Dear Friends,
Last night’s Zoom Dessert was fun!
My friend Kevin Murphy writes to the flock he pastors every day. He wrote this about dreams. Not the dreams we dream when we are asleep, but our “waking dreams.” Dig it:
Waking dreams are our imaginations taking flight. They are the ideas that move us ahead. They are the new understandings that undergird our best inventions and innovations. They may be seen as undoable or unattainable or just silly, but how would things like vaccines or immunizations ever have been invented if someone hadn’t dreamed of a world without infectious diseases? Who would ever think that open-heart surgery or an organ transplant could be an effective way of extending a life? Every innovation takes a dreamer who won’t give up. Every dreamer dreams of a better world and then works toward it.
As we slowly and carefully come out of our COVID-19 dens after this spring-long hibernation we are going to need lots of dreams and dreamers to envision what the next chapter of our lives will be. Will we learn new lessons from this experience that make our world safer? Will we continue to appreciate all those front-line workers who have keep our society moving and kept us safe? Will we figure out how to pay them better for the hard and necessary work they do?
God-shaped dreams will be needed. God-shaped dreamers will be welcomed. Will we, as the dreamers in God’s loving and loved family, dream those God-shaped dreams? If we don’t, who will? We can dream God-shaped dreams and we can work for them to come to fruition because we know the love and grace and mercy of God is always with us, calling us to be the God-shaped dreamers this world needs.
I say, AMEN.
News:
Don’t forget the new fun photo challenge! Each Friday the Nurture Committee is challenging us to read an assigned scripture about Jesus and come up with a representation of the story using whatever you already have around the house and share it in photo form. Tomorrow I’ll share the NEW Challenge. Here’s the old one:
CHALLENGE #2
BAPTISM 3:13-17
As he grew, he gained respect from God and man
And his calling to save us, He began to understand
He declared He came to set the captives free
And baptized by John to begin that journey
John the Baptist baptized Jesus in the Jordan River
Take a photo of your family doing something with water.
Take some time to discussed what happened when Jesus was baptized, how God spoke from heaven, and what John said about him.
Post your photo to:
https://www.facebook.com/
live@firstpres.church
For Instagram @fpcchampaign
* * *
CU-BetterTogether . . . Is a new community group (United Way, Community Foundation, YMCA, and local churches) coming together to fight hunger and give hope to area public school families in need. Laurie Jacob, Kena Jo Chapman, Rachel, and I helped yesterday and had a blast. Together we packed three pallets of food—possibly 1,500 grocery bags—for our public school children and their families. It was a WOW morning. Want to help? Are you between 18- and 60-years-old? You can, here: https://www.
Humor: How did Noah see the animals in the Ark at night? With flood lighting!!!!! (Thank you Gary and Linda Peterson.)
Good Word:
When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them.” The Lord has done great things for us, and we rejoiced. Psalm 126:1-3
Let us pray:
God of experts and amateurs, in a time of great uncertainty, we begin to realize how little we each know. Yet you have placed within our community those who speak from reason, who know the science, whose profession it is to protect. May we hear the voices of informed wisdom, and give thanks for what is already here: the knowledge that overcomes ignorance, the love that overcomes fear, the community that includes the grace we all need.
Amen. (Alex Wimberly)
Much love to you all.
PEACE,
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
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Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2020-04-29
Wednesday April 29th 2020
A Weekday Emailer from
Matt Matthews
To Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Dear Friends,
Wednesday Dessert! Join us for a Zoom gathering on Wednesday April 29th at 7:00 p.m. We’ll meet online to catch up, chat, visit, show off our flower gardens. Bring some dessert “to share.” We’ll practice having an online conversation with each other. Think of it as the Sunday morning coffee break after morning worship. Technology makes these gatherings over distance possible—but it might not be easy. We’ll have to figure out how to talk without talking over one another. We’ll get the hang of it. So, help us experiment. Nothing beats face to face gatherings, but in the absence of that we’re trying this. “See” you there. Email info@firstpres.church for the link.
A connection from our past: Bill Wimberly was our interim pastor here some years ago. I was in touch with his son Alex this week and he sends this email:
Thank you for reaching out. My parents have fond memories from their time at First Champaign. I hope you found yourself settled in before these unsettling times.
I doubt anyone at the church would have a memory of me; I was only there a few times visiting my folks while finishing up at seminary . . .
I have been writing daily prayers as Leader of the Corrymeela Community. Corrymeela is an ecumenical Christian community, based in Northern Ireland, committed to the work of peace and reconciliation. We have a residential center on the north coast of Ireland that hosts about 8,000 people a year. As Leader, I am meant to hold the dispersed community of Corrymeela members together through prayer and to lead us in our mission of transforming division through human encounter.
The pandemic has closed our center, but has kept me busy as we learn what it really means to be a ‘dispersed Christian community’ in these days. One thing we’ve done is to share ‘prayers for community in a time of pandemic.’ You can find those posted daily (with pretty pictures) on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/
You are, of course, more than welcome to share them.
Matt, I wish you every blessing in your ministry at First Champaign. We are all learning how to be the church again, and I pray that you and the congregation know of your brothers and sisters in Ireland stumbling forward in joy and faith with you.
Grace and peace,
Alex
Mary Jane Kelley Shares this Springtime poem:
Spring/ BY Gerard Manley Hopkins
Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.
News:
Prayer Concerns: Barb Hoover is under hospice care. Join me in praying for her and husband Lon. This is hard.
Deaths: We rejoice that Don Dixon and Marian Babbs have entered the Church Triumphant, but we are sad we won’t see them again here. Let us pray for their families.
Graveyard Walks: I’ve seen some of your family names on the silent stones of Mount Hope/Roselawn cemeteries. Thank you for the stories you are telling me and the tombstones you are introducing me to.
Safe drinking water is not a privilege! Marion Medical Mission fights the water crisis in Africa by partnering with villages to build over 3,000 wells each year. In 2019, our American volunteers traveled through rural areas of Malawi, Zambia & Tanzania to provide safe water and build sustainable, protected wells for over 380,000 people in 12 weeks! These Christian volunteers dedicated every well to the Glory of God. Volunteers spent three weeks on their mission trip and and shared Christ’s love with the extreme poor over 60,000 square miles. This is amazing! Marion Medical Mission:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Humor: Share your clean jokes with me. During this season especially we need to laugh. (What do you call a joke you make in the shower? A clean joke!)
Good Word:
Psalm 13
Prayer for Deliverance from Enemies
To the leader. A Psalm of David.
1 How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I bear pain in my soul,
and have sorrow in my heart all day long?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
3 Consider and answer me, O Lord my God!
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,
4 and my enemy will say, “I have prevailed”;
my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.
5 But I trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
6 I will sing to the Lord,
because he has dealt bountifully with me.
Let us pray:
God of those in plenty, God of those in want: this disease separates us one from another. It also exposes an underlying division that has been there all along: the difference between the haves and the have–nots. May the chasm finally close between those who will wait this pandemic out with stockpiles of reserves and the luxury of rest, and those who have been waiting too long for a voice at the table, a seat at the banquet, a prayer not filled with pleas.
Amen.
(Alex Wimberly)
Much love to you all.
PEACE,
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
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Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2020-04-28
Tuesday April 28th 2020
A Weekday Emailer from
Matt Matthews
To Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Dear Friends,
Rev. Cindy Shepherd prayed this “Climate Prayer” for us on our Sunday celebration of Earth Day. (Send me one of your favorite prayers.)
We Hold the Earth.
We hold siblings who
suffer from storms and droughts
intensified by climate change.
We hold all species that suffer.
We hold world leaders delegated
to make decisions for life.
We pray that the web of life
may be mended through
courageous actions to limit
carbon emissions.
We pray for right actions
for adaptation and mitigation
to help our already suffering
earth community.
We pray that love and wisdom
might inspire my actions and
our actions as communities. . .
so that we may, with integrity,
look into the eyes of siblings
and all beings and truthfully say,
we are doing our part to care for
them and the future of the children.
May love transform us and
our world with new steps
toward life. AMEN.
News:
Keep up with Mission: Check here https://www.firstpres.church/
Wednesday Dessert! Join us for a Zoom gathering on Wednesday April 29th at 7:00 p.m. We’ll meet online to catch up, chat, visit, show off our flower gardens. Bring some dessert “to share.” We’ll practice having an online conversation with each other. Think of it as the Sunday morning coffee break after morning worship. Technology makes these gatherings over distance possible—but it might not be easy. We’ll have to figure out how to talk without talking over one another. We’ll get the hang of it. So, help us experiment. Nothing beats face to face gatherings, but in the absence of that we’re trying this. “See” you there. Email info@firstpres.church for the link.
Prayer Concern: Miranda Rowland asks that we remember all the teachers out there teaching online, student-teachers, their students, and their families. This is a stressful time for these saints.
Your Staff meeting this morning. Pray for us!
Tithes and Pledges . . . Thank you for keeping your pledges up to date. If you know of anyone experiencing food insecurity, please let me know. Because of your generosity, I have grocery gifts cards. Thank you. Thanks be to God.
Graveyard Walks: I’ve seen some of your family names on the silent stones of Mount Hope/Roselawn cemeteries. I walk there regularly because it’s quiet and green.
Humor: When being chased by a bear, remember, you don’t need to outrun the bear, only the person you’re with.
Good Word:
Psalm 100
Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.
2 Worship the Lord with gladness;
come into his presence with singing.
3 Know that the Lord is God.
It is he that made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise.
Give thanks to him, bless his name.
5 For the Lord is good;
his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.
Let us pray:
Almighty God, your word of creation
caused the water to be filled
with many kinds of living beings
and the air to be filled with birds.
We rejoice in the richness of your creation,
and we pray for your wisdom
for all who live on this earth,
that we may wisely manage and
not destroy what you have made
for us and for our descendants.
In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
(A Samoan Prayer)
Much love to you all.
PEACE,
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
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Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2020-04-27
Monday April 27th 2020
A Weekday Emailer from
Matt Matthews
To Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Dear Friends,
Are you tired of sheltering at home, wearing masks, watching the news with trepidation? Me, too. So, let’s have some dessert together. Wednesday. We’ll meet at YOUR place at 7…
Just open your computer and join us for a Zoom gathering on Wednesday April 29th at 7:00 p.m. We’ll meet online to catch up, chat, visit, show off our flower gardens. Bring some dessert “to share.” We’ll practice having an online conversation with each other. Think of it as the Sunday morning coffee break after morning worship. Technology makes these gatherings over distance possible—but it might not be easy. We’ll have to figure out how to talk without talking over one another. We’ll get the hang of it. So, help us experiment. Nothing beats face to face gatherings, but in the absence of that we’re trying this. “See” you there. For the link, email info@firstpres.church.
We’ll be trying to have a gathering every Wednesday for a while to see how it goes. Let’s BE the church apart but together.
A poem from Tom Ulen. (Send me your favorite spring poems.)
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
William Wordsworth
1807
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
News:
Tithes and Pledges . . . Thank you for keeping your pledges up to date. If you know of anyone experiencing food insecurity, please let me know. Because of your generosity, I have grocery gifts cards. Thank you. Thanks be to God.
Graveyard Walks: I’ve seen some of your family names on the silent stones of Mount Hope/Roselawn cemeteries. I walk there regularly because it’s quiet and green.
Humor: I don’t know if this is humor or news. It comes from Dave Whitford, and he can be a very serious man. He also likes to joke. You decide. Here’s an email he shared with me over the weekend:
After a bountiful harvest of acorns in a fall that was followed by an unusually mild winder, a midwestern community began to suffer a plague of squirrels. There was a proverbial multitude of these clever furry creatures. They began to find their way into the community’s churches.
The Presbyterians called a meeting of the Session to decide what to do about their squirrel infestation. After much prayer and consideration, they formed a Squirrel Infestation Committee. After several months of deliberation, the Squirrel Committee issued a report. In due course they had congregational vote and issued a proclamation that stated that the squirrels were predestined to be there, and the church should not interfere with God’s divine will.
Over at the Baptist church the squirrels had taken a keen interest in the baptistery. The deacons met and decided to put a water-slide on the baptistery. Their hope was that the squirrels would drown themselves. The squirrels really liked the slide and unfortunately, knew instinctively how to swim. The following week twice as many squirrels showed up.
The Lutheran church’s Elders decided that they were not in a position to harm any of God’s creatures. So, they humanely trapped their squirrels and set them free near the Baptist church. Two weeks later the squirrels were back when the Baptists took down the water-slide.
The Episcopalians tried a much more tempting alternative to rid themselves of their squirrels. They set out pans of whiskey and wine around their church in an effort to kill the squirrels with alcohol poisoning. They quickly learned how much damage a band of drunk squirrels can do.
The Catholic church came up with an even more creative strategy! They baptized all the squirrels and made them members of the church. Now the squirrels only show themselves at Christmas and Easter.
Not much was heard from the Jewish synagogue. It is possibly due to the fact that the Rabbi was able to capture the first squirrel to enter the synagogue. In a matter of minutes the Rabbi circumcised and released him in a nearby park. They haven’t seen a squirrel since.
Selah*
Good Word:
John 10:11-18
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. 17 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. 18 No one takes[a] it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”
Let us pray:
This gutsy and beautiful hymn by David Haas dares to be a lullaby from God to us. Joe Grant will sing it with us this coming Sunday for worship.
I will come to you in the silence
I will lift you from all your fear
You will hear My voice
I claim you as My choice
Be still, and know I am near
I am hope for all who are hopeless
I am eyes for all who long to see
In the shadows of the night,
I will be your light
Come and rest in Me
Do not be afraid, I am with you
I have called you each by name
Come and follow Me
I will bring you home
I love you and you are mine
I am strength for all the despairing
Healing for the ones who dwell in shame
All the blind will see, the lame will all run free
And all will know My name
Do not be afraid, I am with you
I have called you each by name
Come and follow Me
I will bring you home
I love you and you are mine
I am the Word that leads all to freedom
I am the peace the world cannot give
I will call your name, embracing all your pain
Stand up, now, walk, and live
Do not be afraid, I am with you
I have called you each by name
Come and follow Me
I will bring you home
I love you and you are mine
Much love to you all.
PEACE,
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
Are you curious about that little word Dave ended his message with? “Selah” appears in the Psalms and Habakkuk some 74 times—but nobody really knows what this ancient Hebrew word means. Look here for an interesting article: https://en.wikipedia.
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Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2020-04-24
Friday 24 April 2020
Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Dear Friends,
Sometimes less is more.
Read this poem twice, slowly, with a southern accent, then at the bottom of this email, you’ll find a link to the page from which I stole it. There, Wendell Berry himself reads it. I’ve been noticing nature more lately. Tulips are my latest joy, preceded by daffodils, surrounded, all, by grace.
“The Peace of Wild Things”
By Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
* * *
On Sunday, we celebrate Earth Day with a special, special preacher. You know her and you’ll be super glad to see her again.
See you then.
Same time (9:00 a.m.). Same place. Leave early, or the commute will get you. Turn on your “device” and find us at: FirstPres.Live
Pay attention to God’s activity in the world around you.
Be amazed.
PEACE,
Matt Matthews
864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
* * *
Wendell Berry:
https://billmoyers.com/story/
* * *
New fun photo challenge! Each Friday the Nurture Committee is challenging us to read an assigned scripture about Jesus and come up with a representation of the story using whatever you already have around the house and share it in photo form.
CHALLENGE #2
BAPTISM 3:13-17
As he grew, he gained respect from God and man
And his calling to save us, He began to understand
He declared He came to set the captives free
And baptized by John to begin that journey
John the Baptist baptized Jesus in the Jordan River
Take a photo of your family doing something with water.
Take some time to discussed what happened when Jesus was baptized, how God spoke from heaven, and what John said about him.
Post your photo to:
https://www.facebook.com/
live@firstpres.church
For Instagram @fpcchampaign
Thanks to Gary and Linda Peterson for today’s example of baptism…
* * *
Whitman: I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world…
https://billmoyers.com/story/
* * *
And if you’ve read this far, a treat. April in Paris with Ella:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
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