Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2021-03-31
Wednesday, March 31st, 2021
A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
To Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Friends,
EASTER worship alert: In-person worship on this Sunday, Easter, at 10:15 a.m., is three persons shy of being filled to capacity. By all means, if you want to attend, phone the office asap so you can fill those last open slots. Should we have guests show up who have not pre-registered and if we have reached capacity, they will be invited either to go home and watch the service there on their own screens, or to watch the service on screens in our overflow space in Westminster Hall. Being filled to capacity is a good problem, but turning people away is an agony.
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Jeff Kellam, the best man at our wedding, a friend, and profound mentor, wrote about OUR CHURCH in his Lenten blog. Here’s the link. You might enjoy scrolling through his thought blog. If you want to know how an ‘outside’ thinks about our on-line ministry, read this:
https://jeffkellam.wordpress.
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Here’s today’s devotional from the Presbyterian Outlook:
Wednesday, MARCH 31, 2021
MARK 8:34-38
“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” When Jesus exhorts disciples with these words, he is not suggesting that they pick up crosses they do not already bear, but rather that they acknowledge and name the crosses already bearing down upon their own lives and upon those around them — and that they resist all such savage forces. The exhortation invites our reflection on crosses and systemic evils that may bear down on our own lives.
Practice: Read this Scripture slowing and prayerfully, naming the crosses
that bear down on your own life and that of your community — and the
shape that your resistance to them is taking. Be as specific as you can.
Journal: Briefly note in your journal the crosses in your life and signs of
your resistance to them.
News:
Join us for our Wednesday Zoom for conversation this evening from 7 to 8.
Email zoom@firstpres.church for the link.
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Holy Week Services
Maundy Thursday, April 1
7 PM Live Stream and In-person Worship
Good Friday, April 2
7 PM Online Worship (We will be joining the Methodist Church.)
Easter Sunday, April 4
9 AM Online Worship
10:15 AM In-person Worship
Online worship and live stream are available at FirstPres.live.
We are now offering a limited capacity in-person worship service with mask wearing and distance observance. Preregistration is required. To attend worship in person call the church office at 217 356-7238 by noon Friday.
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Humor (Hard times really need godly laughter):
An annual competition is held by The New York Times to see who can create the best original lexophile. This year’s submissions (more coming):
Did you hear about the crossed-eyed teacher who lost her job because she couldn’t control her pupils?
I stayed up all night to see where the sun went, & then it dawned on me.
I’m reading a book about anti-gravity. I just can’t put it down.
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Good Word
Exodus 12:1-4 (5-10) 11-14
1The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: 2This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. 3Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. 4If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. 5Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. 6You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. 7They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 8 They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. 9Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. 10You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. 11This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the Passover of the LORD. 12For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD. 13The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
14This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.
LET US PRAY
These words are from seminary professor Rachel and I loved, Sibley Towner, from his book of Lenten prayers:
O God, Good Creator, with the basic ingredients of the earth—a pint of light, a dash of darkness, a peck of clay, and some mist —you fashioned the willow tree and the gray squirrel, the hippopotamus and the earth creature Adam. You made the earth creature in your own image, and from it you derived beautiful man and strong woman. When you were through, you saw the meaning of it all and you pronounced it good. We thank you that you have placed within us your image as creator, and that it abides in our hearts to this very day. We pray for the wit and the courage never to stifle it, but to shine it back to you, our creator, with works of our own creativity— beautifully built and cared-for churches, lovely flower beds, poetic words, diatonic scales, and well-designed curricula.
AMEN.
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Much, much love to you all.
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
