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”
One of the most characteristic responses in surveys about faith and religion is, “I’m spiritual not religious.” The problem with such a response is that the authenticity of it can go either way. Sometimes that response is just a way to say that one doesn’t go to church (but also doesn’t practice any sort of spirituality). Jesus on the other hand definitively taught that genuine spirituality is what God wants for human beings to experience. For the next several weeks, this site will be presenting insights from Brian McClaren concerning authentic spirituality from his book “Naked Spirituality”.
“In John’s gospel, Jesus explores the notion that spirituality is more than religiosity with a variety of vivid images. There is the episode when Jesus is standing by a well in the blazing desert heart sharing a drink of cool water with an unnamed woman known as the “woman at the well.” She was a lot like so many spiritual seekers today: confused and frustrated by the conflicting claims centered around the hot-button arguments over which mountain was more holy. She brings up this “My mountain is better than your mountain” controversy, inviting this rabbi to render his opinion.
Jesus predictably doesn’t answer her question. Instead, he said, that’s a superficial question of religion. You’re actually looking for something deeper and more satisfying; a cool drink of pure, lifegiving, thirst-quenching spirituality. So Jesus turns her attention away from a solid external fixed mountain, and helps her to imagine a flowing internal spiritual fountain. He asks her to think deeper – about living water that flows up within you, wherever you are, from the one fountain of Spirit that is accessible to everyone.
Similarly, Nicodemus was preoccupied with teachings and miracles, and Jesus told him that this approach would get him nowhere. He needed to become like a little child and start learning about spirituality from square one. This time, instead of comparing Spirit to water in the aquifer beneath their feet, he points out the window to the wind blowing free in the trees above them. “Hear that? He says, God is like that.” Wind. Spirit. Mysterious. Powerful. Wild and untamed and uncontained. Always moving. That’s how Spirit is. In both encounters, Jesus points away from religion and towards Spirit. He leads people away from religious structures and controversies that divide people, to a different space entirely where we all can experience the same Spirit.
When people say “I’m not religious, but I’m spiritual“ there is the potential to see what Jesus saw: that the Spirit’s realm of activity can’t be limited to the sphere of religion in general much less to any particular religion. The Spirit of God is the fine wine of justice, joy, and peace; the uncontained wind of creativity, comfort, and liberation; the living water of holiness, beauty, and love. Whenever people encounter these and any other good thing, they are in some way encountering the Spirit. Get this straight, and a thousand other things fall into place.”
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.