Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2020-08-21
Friday 21 August 2020
Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Dear Friends,
I’ve been writing this week on my novel. It’s a powerful thing to be the god and creator of your own world. I decide what characters do, when they do it, and how they feel about it. I’m the sole ruler of this universe on the page. If I don’t like what I create, I can fix it. It’s called editing. You can do this when you write fiction.
In real life, however, we are not the god of our universe. God is. We can’t decide what will happen next in our story. We can’t always even fully control our responses to the peaks and valleys that come up in our lives.
One of the challenging things about being a person of faith is exploring how our story intersects with the story we find in the Bible. Eric did that well in last week’s sermon. Rachel does that amazingly in the sermon you will hear this Sunday. We’ve trod the Jericho road. We’ve been to the manger and to the cross. What do we bring to these places? What do we take away? How do we learn? How are we transformed?
Every preacher reads the Bible from the pulpit on Sunday and then tries to get out of the way. The Spirit does the real preaching.
Bring your story and prayers to worship on this Sunday. You and the Spirit can think about your life.
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
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Fritz & Christine and Their Very Nervous Parents
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
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PHOTO Challenge!
From your Nurture Team — Congrats to Pam Grubb for being the first (of several) to guess last Friday’s photo was of Claudia Kirby!
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@
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Good Grief ?!*&
Help Larry with his research on grief. His letter to his pastor (and us) follows: As part of my research to better understand the experience of grief, I am collecting data via an online survey. If you have experienced grief in response to loss due to human death, then I invite you to take the survey.
The link to the survey is here:
Grief Experience Survey (https://etsuredcap.
Thank you!
Larry
_______________________
Larry Childress, M.A.
Doctoral Student
Translational Experimental Psychology
East Tennessee State University
zldc2@etsu.edu
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Listen to this girl sing!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
