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 at FPC have been talking for some time now about the way that faith sometimes calls us to take risks – even if the outcome isn’t guaranteed. Phrases like “taking a leap of faith” and “trusting God even in the dark“ have been a central part of our faith vocabulary. However, it’s easier said than done. In the following words, Walter Brueggeman offers some wisdom about this very human condition.
“Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask of imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.” (Eph. 3: 20-21)
The apostle knows the power of God to be effectively active in the life of the world, an effective action in abundance. The human counterpoint to God’s effective abundance is to “ask or imagine”. This is not a discouragement or limit on our asking from God or our imagining about God. It is rather, I suggest, an invitation that we should be asking from God, and imagining about God extravagantly. Our text affirms that we must not curb our asking or imagining, but recognize the inadequacy of our asking and imagining. God still surprises us with more and better. It is not fashionable in progressive circles to imagine that God can do “abundantly”. Consequently, we ask only anemically because we do not trust much in God’s agency. It is not fashionable in conservative circles to ask or imagine God’s goodness beyond a rigid calculus of obedience. But this fact simply make clear how progressive and conservative Christians stand together before the mystery of God, who outruns all of our timid calculus; whether the rationalism of progressives, or the moralism of conservatives.
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Heb 11:1)
Faith in the rhetoric of this text is not a package of certitudes or a trusted mantra. It is rather reliance on and trust in a future-giving, future-hoping God who constantly makes a way out of no way. Thus faith in this verse promptly morphs into hope for the future that will be unlike the present. Hope is not a head trip or a heart trip; it is a body trip of putting one’s body at risk for the sake of a new possibility.“
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.