What’s Going on at the Church
Imagine this: supporting the mission of First Presbyterian Church while scrolling through your social media feed! By engaging with our content, you’re not just filling your feed with uplifting messages; you’re also helping us spread God’s love and hope to our wider community.
So why not take a moment while you’re browsing through your social media to support the church. Below is a ‘how-to’ you can follow. So, we invite you to dive into our vibrant online community, and let’s make some joyful noise together—one like, one comment, and one share at a time! How easy and great is that?
“Weighing Truth and Life”
We’re living in turbulent times. There are loud voices spouting dehumanizing rhetoric. There are loud voices shouting hateful racist and xenophobic misinformation which is drawing battle lines with increasing fervor. There are all kinds of elephants in the room these days wearing titles like, “Black Lives Matter”, “LBGTQ Rights“, Immigration and Deportation” and many more. In such times faith communities want so badly to be nice comfortable places to escape all of this upheaval. Even if they’re just pretending to be such places. But what if this isn’t what we really need our faith communities to be? Author John Pavlovitz offers a different perspective.
“Places where people of faith, morality, and conscience gather should be courageous environments where the absolute, most difficult aspects of being human are laid bare. We should be marked by our awkward conversations, our uncomfortable silences and our upended tables. We’ve inverted church by imagining it should be the most pleasant part of our week; a place where we just feel good feelings and think happy thoughts. I’m not sure that’s biblical or helpful or loving because there are people outside our building who don’t have that luxury; they’re outside breaking their backs for the crumbs of their daily bread living with urgency as their default setting.
Of course we want people to leave a church service feeling comforted, but just as often we should want them to feel burdened to run from it into the places where pain is commonplace in order to make them less painful. That’s what love does. Real love is fierce and relentless and it risks being misunderstood because of just how passionate it is. Maybe it’s time we start incarnating the compassionate activist heart of Jesus.
This is the inheritance we’re here to steward both individually and collectively. A love that looks like Jesus is fierce and audacious and bold and courageous. It doesn’t sit quietly while bigotry bullies the most vulnerable. It will not be tone policed into making nice with discrimination. It does not apologize for its passion for humanity. It will not wilt when it is labeled too political. It is dangerous to injustice, it confronts ugliness, it welcomes turbulence. It will drive us into the discomfort of the trenches. It will be called political and angry – and it will love anyway.”
Blessing and Peace, Ed
Looking to donate to our thrift sales?
If you have any furniture to donate, please take a photo of what you have and send the photos to office@1stpresrahway.org. At this time, we’re not accepting clothes or shoes.
Members usually work on Wednesday’s for our sales from 10:30 am -1:30 pm. If that’s not a convenient time for you to drop off donations, other arrangements can be made. Please email the church office and your request will be forwarded to the “sales crew” so they can respond to your inquiry.
As always, thank you to all who donate. Our sales have been a great success this year because of you!
Important Message from the USRC Board of Directors:
Please read these guidelines about Squier Hall and the formation of the USRC Board of Directors, who will be overseeing the groups meeting in Squier.
As part of the guidelines, please use this form if you have any concerns so that they can be addressed.
Interested in Getting Involved?
We have a lot of different ways for you to get involved – short-term projects, one-time opportunities, working with our livestream technology on Sundays, plus much more. Click on the button below to see what we have on our ‘volunteer wish list’. As more opportunities become available, we will be sure to update our listings.