Ongoing Response to COVID-19

Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2021-01-13

Wednesday, January 13th, 2020
A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
 
 Friends,
 
Don’t forget our Wednesday night “Mission Trip” at 7 PM.  For the link, email zoom@firstpres.church.

* * *
 
I know Christmas is over, but Don Hollis shared this with me last week and I didn’t read it in my email until this week. It’s beautiful. As we get busy with the “work of Christmas” may this encourage us.
 
From Don:  Reading your post yesterday reminded me of recently coming across a German writer and poet from the mid-1800s named Friedrich Ruckert. In 1834, Ruckert wrote his own version of “O Tannenbaum [O Fir Tree].” In David Bannon’s “Wounded in Spirit—Advent Art and Meditations,” Bannon says of Ruckert: 
 
“On Christmas Day, 1833, Friedrich Ruckert and his family decorated their tree. The next day Friedrich’s 3-year-old daughter fell ill with Scarlet fever and died a week later. Within days Ruckert’s 5-year-old son contracted Scarlet fever and, like his 3-year-old sister, died just days later.” After such a devastating loss just days following Christmas, the grieving Ruckert wrote his version of “O Tannenbaum,” calling it “O Christmas Tree”:
—–
O Christmas tree,
O Christmas dream.
how dark is your brilliance,
how broken is the dance that,
cut short, scattered your garland.
 
O Christmas tree,
O Christmas dream. 
The candles on each
branch burned but halfway before,
mid-celebration, we snuffed them out.
 
O Christmas tree,
O Christmas dream.
The candies on each twig
are uneaten, untouched.
Ah, that you survived the ravages of revelry.
 
O Christmas tree,
O Christmas dream,
With your virgin fruit,
your unburnt candles,
stand until Christmas returns,
until their memorial day.
 
O Christmas tree,
O Christmas dream.
when we light you again, we need buy no angel:
our pair will be here,
celebrating with us.
 
I can only imagine what the 12 Days of Christmas might have been like the year Ruckert lost his 3 and 5-year old back to back.
 
Luise Ruckert — 25 June 1830 – 31 December 1833
Ernst Ruckert — 1 January 1829 – 16 January 1834
 
 News
 
ESL Café Time
 
First Pres members are invited to join us for our monthly Zoom café time on January 14th at 10am. This would be a great time for you to get to know some of our students and tutors. If you’ve ever wondered what the ESL program is like, this is a great place to find out. We will be split into small groups so that we can discuss with each other. Bring your favorite hot drink and a snack to our Zoom Café Time.
 
 We will have a Zoom Café Time every second Thursday of the month.
 Email esl@firstpres.church for the link.
 
If you have any questions, please email the ESL Director, Jeanette Pyne, at jeanette@firstpres.church.

 
 
* * *

 
Our nation is having a deep, contentious conversation right now. Here are some ways to deepen the conversation:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/19/opinion/nine-nonobvious-ways-to-have-deeper-conversations.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
 
 
 Humor (Hard times really need godly laughter): 
 
Sports humor in anticipation of the Super Bowl…
 
Why do vampires love baseball? They like to play with bats.
 
Why couldn’t the strings ever win? They could only tie.
 
What did the team think about their stadium being covered? It was a dome idea.
 
(Help! I need jokes. Seriously!)
 
 
Good Word: 
 
1 Corinthians 13 The Message (MSG)
If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. 3-7 If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.
 
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
 
8-10 Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled. 
 
11 When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.
 
12 We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
 
13 But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

LET US PRAY: 
 
Oh Lord Christ, 
Son of God who takest away the sins of the world: 
Have mercy on us for we have sinned . . . 
In a world filled with much faithlessness, 
and lovelessness, 
and vindictiveness, 
forgive us, O Master of the Universe, 
for joining the crowd.
 
 * * *
 
Much, much love to you all.
 
 Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church


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Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2021-01-12

ESL is doing great things, including a Zoom Café. Here’s the info and the link:

ESL Café Time
 
First Pres members are invited to join us for our monthly Zoom café time on January 14th at 10am. This would be a great time for you to get to know some of our students and tutors. If you’ve ever wondered what the ESL program is like, this is a great place to find out. We will be split into small groups so that we can discuss with each other. Bring your favorite hot drink and a snack to our Zoom Café Time.
 
 We will have a Zoom Café Time every second Thursday of the month.
 
For the link, email esl@firstpres.church
If you have any questions, please email the ESL Director, Jeanette Pyne, at jeanette@firstpres.church.

 
 
   
                                                       


  

 
 The Heart of Mission
January 12, 2021
 
My mother texted me a picture of her back deck. She lives in Central Texas. It was covered with a thick layer of snow! Snow! What a rare sight in Central Texas! But, snow is not rare here in Champaign during January and February. It is COLD here! All the more reason to highlight this week the ministry of CU at Home, one of our mission partners. February 5 is the 10th anniversary of their One Winter Night, their primary annual fundraiser/education event.
 
CU at Home chooses to rely upon local funding from churches, families, and businesses rather than pursue state or federal funding; although, they are a 501(c)3 organization and money donated to them is tax deductible. They rely solely on the community to financially support their efforts.
 
Remember what I said last week about building relationships in order to reduce poverty. Friends, this is truly a partnership ministry in our neighborhood, with our neighbors for our neighbors. The Champaign Urbana community has come together during these last ten years to develop a top notch program to help our friends without an address. CU at Home thanks us and all their business and church partners for that but we should be thanking them.
 
This is what CU at Home does:
 
Phoenix Daytime Drop-In Center: (12:00-5:00pm, Tuesday-Friday)
The Phoenix is a casual, welcoming space with a living room, computers,
board games, musical instruments, and most importantly, companionship.
Each person who enters the facility has access to showers, laundry, and
assistance from our staff. The facility offers our friends with an address an
opportunity to build a lasting relationship with our friends without an
address. Whether you have an address or not, anyone is welcome to come
and enjoy an experience that could change their life.
 
Transitional Housing: C-U at Home operates a six bed Men’s Recovery
House, Step Above House, a two bed Women’s House, and small Family
House. Residents stay for 6-12 months and are provided with weekly case
management and a spiritual advisor. Our goal with each resident is to
support, encourage, and mentor them so that they can successfully become
more independent, self-sufficient, and enjoy a stable life on their own.
 
Year-Round Emergency SheltersC-U at Home took the C-U Men’s
Emergency Shelter and Austin’s Place Women’s Shelter under their umbrella
of services at the close of the 2019 season to be a refuge for those who
have no place to be safe at night. The need for a ‘damp’ shelter for those
who might be under the influence of alcohol or drugs is vital both to save
lives and to alleviate the frequent overuse of medical and law enforcement
resources, when they are not the best solution.
 
Transportation Ministry: Through the use of donated vehicles and
volunteer drivers and riders, we are able to provide safe transportation for
friends who seek detox, shelter, and housing assistance in other
communities across Illinois.
 
Street Outreach: The street outreach team takes time each week to go
into the streets and connect with all of our friends without an address. This
allows us to continue to build relationships with them. The street outreach
team is on-call 24/7 and often receive calls from local law enforcement and
hospitals to provide assistance in person or over the phone.
 
Education & Advocacy: We provide an opportunity for the community to
learn more about our friends without an address, the specific challenges
they face, and how we break the negative stereotypes associated with the
“homeless” population. This is done through viewings of our documentary
film, The Phoenix: Hope is Rising and speaking engagements at churches,
schools, etc.
 
C-U at Work: As a collaboration between C-U at Home and the City of
Champaign Township, the C-U at Work program offers our most vulnerable
friends without an address an opportunity to work doing municipal
beautification projects for the city of Champaign. At the end of each 4-hour
shift, participants receive payment for their work as well as a meal.
 
Please contact Rob Dalhaus III at 217-991-0356 or rob@cuathome.us with questions or to find out more about how to sponsor C-U at Home One Winter Night 2021. It is an opportunity that will impact our community in positive ways throughout the next year!
 
Find out more about One Winter Night by going to www.cuathome.us/one-winter-night/
 
Let’s build relationships with people in our community who are helping our community.
 
Peace,
 
Rev. Dr. Rachel Matthews, Mission Coordinator
 
Let us keep all our mission partners in our prayers, those who are waiting to go back to their place of ministry and those who are able to work where they are. Listen for God’s call to you in their ministry.
 
Our PC(USA) Mission CoWorkers:
 
Mark Adams and Miriam Maidonado Escobar (Mexico)
Farsijanna Adeney-Risakotta (Indonesia)
Jeff and Christi Boyd (Central Africa)
Jo Ella Holman (Caribbean and Cuba) – And, for the mission coworker you are preparing to take her place.
Bob and Kristi Rice (South Sudan)
 
Our regional and global mission partners:
 
Kemmerer Village (and Camp Carew)
Lifeline Pilots
Marion Medical Mission
Mission Aviation Fellowship
Opportunity International
Friends of Presbyterian Education Board in Pakistan Presbyterian Cuba Partnership
Special Offerings of the PC(USA)
Theological Education Fund
Young Adult Volunteers
 
Here in Champaign – Urbana:
 
CU at Home
CANAAN S.A.F.E. HOUSE
CANTEEN RUN
COURAGE CONNECTION
DREAAM
eMPTY TOMB, INC
FAITH IN ACTION
JESUS IS THE WAY PRISON MINISTRY
THE REFUGEE CENTER
RESTORATION URBAN MINISTRY
SALT & LIGHT
 
Here at First Presbyterian Church
 
FPCC Amateur Preachers
FPCC Environmental Committee working with Faith in Place
FPCC Presbyterian Women
FPCC ESL
FPCC Children, Youth and Families
FPCC Mission Possible/Go and Serve
 
 
 
A picture containing drawing Description automatically generated
 

  302 W. Church Street
  Champaign, IL 61820
  217-356-7238
  info@firstpres.church
 
 

 
   
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Weekday Email to New Members and Friends – 2021-01-11

Monday, January 11th, 2021

A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
 
Friends,
 
Today I need to be reminded of what’s at the center of my life. The following affirmation of faith from our Book of Confessions directs my gaze towards the heart of the faith. This is a Trinitarian creed, and this shorted version focuses on the work of the Holy Spirit.
 
Affirmation of Faith/from A Brief Statement of Faith
 
In life and in death we belong to God.
          Through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the love of God,
          and the communion of the Holy Spirit,
we trust in the one triune God, the Holy One of Israel,
          whom alone we worship and serve.
 
We trust in God the Holy Spirit,
          everywhere the giver and renewer of life.
The Spirit justifies us by grace through faith,
sets us free to accept ourselves and to love God and neighbor,
and binds us together with all believers
in the one body of Christ, the Church.
The same Spirit
who inspired the prophets and apostles
rules our faith and life in Christ through Scripture,
engages us through the Word proclaimed,
claims us in the waters of baptism,
feeds us with the bread of life and the cup of salvation,
and calls women and men to all ministries of the Church.
In a broken and fearful world
the Spirit gives us courage
to pray without ceasing,
          to witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior,
to unmask idolatries in Church and culture,
          to hear the voices of peoples long silenced,
and to work with others for justice, freedom, and peace.
 
In gratitude to God, empowered by the Spirit,
we strive to serve Christ in our daily tasks
and to live holy and joyful lives,
even as we watch for God’s new heaven and new earth,
praying, “Come, Lord Jesus!”
 
With believers in every time and place,
we rejoice that nothing in life or in death
can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Glory be to the Father, 
          and to the Son, 
and to the Holy Spirit. 
          Amen.
 
News
 
While it feels like much in our nation is turning upside down, your church has a week full of meetings and ordinary preparations. Marcia is on vacation this week. We have a special surprise for worship next week, and we’ll spend half a day Wednesday getting it ready, then half a day later in the week editing. Your Worship and Finance committees meet this week, as does the DREAAM Board and our SEA Groups. All of this is to say, please pray for your church as we keep on keeping on, to the Glory of God!
 
* * *
 
ESL is doing great things, including a Zoom Café. Here’s the info and the link:

ESL Café Time
 
First Pres members are invited to join us for our monthly Zoom café time on January 14th at 10am. This would be a great time for you to get to know some of our students and tutors. If you’ve ever wondered what the ESL program is like, this is a great place to find out. We will be split into small groups so that we can discuss with each other. Bring your favorite hot drink and a snack to our Zoom Café Time.
 
We will have a Zoom Café Time every second Thursday of the month.  For the link, email esl@firstpres.church.
 
If you have any questions, please email the ESL Director, Jeanette Pyne, at jeanette@firstpres.church.

Humor (Hard times really need godly laughter): 
 
What’s black and white and blue all over? A zebra in the freezer. 
 
(HELP! With some jokes!)
 
Good Word: 

I LOVE YOU, O LORD, MY STRENGTH.
The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer,
    my God, my rock in whom I take refuge,
    my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,
    so I shall be saved from my enemies.
The cords of death encompassed me;
    the torrents of perdition assailed me;
the cords of Sheol entangled me;
    the snares of death confronted me.
In my distress I called upon the Lord;
    to my God I cried for help.
From his temple he heard my voice,
    and my cry to him reached his ears.
                                    Psalm 18:1-6 

Let us pray: 

 
Allen Huff shared this prayer with me last Wednesday night late. I needed it after the madness unleashed on and around the Capitol that day. Consider praying this slowly. It you have a moment to linger over this prayer, filling in its edges with your own words and silences, you might experience a blessing—as I did last week when I first prayed it. 
 
Allen is a gifted minister, thoughtful song and story writer, and soulful friend. 
 
Most Holy and Merciful God,
         How do we even begin to pray right now? We can pray for our nation. We can pray for the families of those who died on Epiphany in Washington. We can pray for lawmakers, law enforcement, the military, and first responders. We can pray for our children, and their future. We can pray for enemies across the globe and across the aisle.
         Yes, we can pray these things; and indeed, we do.
         But Lord, if our prayers are words alone, they will do little more than clutter the air and numb our minds with lament, anxiety, fury, and sanctimony. And they will never be enough.
         So, give human ears our prayers, O God. Help us to listen to those with whom we so passionately disagree. Help us to do more than to “agree to disagree,” for that is simply to quit listening, to write off others as not worth our time, our effort, our honesty and love. And we have so thoroughly written off ‘the other’ these days that contempt has become a norm. And contempt is a fatal deafness.
         Give human eyes to our prayers, O God. Help us to see beyond appearances. Help us to search our hearts and the hearts of others the way the Magi searched the skies and trusted what they saw. Help us to see the signs of your presence in a hurting and hurtful world and in all the lives around us—black lives, brown lives, white lives, poor lives, sick lives, comfortable lives, young lives, old lives, grateful and gracious lives, terrified and angry lives. If we cannot see the holiness of the lives around us, we cannot see it in ourselves. And not to see You in ourselves and in others is a fatal blindness.
Give human hands and feet to our prayers, O God. Help us to unclench our fists and to reach out in humble service to those most wounded by our communal pride, and greed, and fear. And help us to serve. Help us to follow Jesus, to trust Jesus, to love him and to share him, to walk where he walks. This is hard, and for some of us almost impossible, for our culture, even our Christmas culture, tells us that we are entitled to material excess and to violence. But these are the enticements of the world’s selfish Caesars and brutal Herods who tempt us with shiny things, with mawkish platitudes, and promises of greatness and glory—things that must be held, carried, and protected with the hands and feet you have given us for lives of embodied prayer. To give into those temptations is to lose the reach of arm and hand, and the carriage of leg and foot. And such inaction is a fatal paralysis.
         And Lord, give to our prayers the beating, fearless, human heart of Jesus who did not shy away from truth-telling, from challenging those who led the temple with self-serving piety, and from vexing those who led Jerusalem with resentment and intimidation. Saturate our hearts with your Christ that they may push his own life-giving breath, your Holy Spirit, through our arteries and veins that we may raise our voices for peace, for righteousness, for justice, and equality throughout the earth and throughout this Creation which is so shaken, troubled, holy, and good. For not to live courageously and not to speak prophetically is a fatal silence.
         God, help us make our prayers more than words. Help us make our prayers our living, our doing, our seeing, our hearing, and our speaking. Help us to claim our Belovedness in Christ, and to acknowledge that same Belovedness in all that you have made. Turn us that we might follow Jesus as his humble disciples, as redeemed and redeeming servants, and as loving neighbors.
         Lord in your mercy, do more than hear our prayer. Resurrect us into embodied prayers for ourselves, our families, our neighbors, our communities, our nation, your Church, and your world. Amen.
 
 * * *

Much, much love to you all.
 
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
 


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Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2021-01-08

Friday, January 8th, 2021
A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
 
* * *
 
The story of Epiphany inspires us. 
 
A star reveals the light of God’s love in Jesus the Christ. Heavenly might is cradled in vulnerable love lying in a manger. Magi bearing gifts risk a dangerous trek across a foreboding dark dappled in star-light. Add imperial treachery in the form of Herod and his advisors, and we have a story for the ages. 
 
We see sin and treachery in the pages of both ancient scripture and the morning news. On Wednesday we saw it when domestic terrorists swarmed our U.S. Capital while sympathetic on-lookers and the Herods of our own generation egged them on. We were terrified and sickened.
 
Our steady love of God and neighbor and a resolve to abide by the rule of law in the face of lawless mobs and baseless lies will, by the grace of God, heal our nation. We will reach across the fences that divide us. We will deepen friendships, work towards reconciliation with the ones we have too long called enemy, seek the stranger, break bread together, discover common ground, listen, make amends, grow, care about the other’s well-being, rebuild, laugh, mend. We will hold one another accountable. 
 
Given God’s amazing love for us revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, we have every reason to believe God’s grace will abound.
 
Treachery of every age will always lurk in shadows, but evil doesn’t have to rule the day if we dare to stand up to its terrible sneer in this hour of grave darkness.
 
During this Season of Epiphany, we ponder the Magi who made an uncertain passage across a perilous wilderness. By God’s grace, we can, too. And, of course, we must. Even in an age of pandemic, may we figuratively join hands as we set out.
 
May God help us.
 
* * *
 
Let’s pray together on this Sunday at 9:00, okay? 
FirstPres.Live 
 
* * *
 
The Work of Christmas
by Howard Thurman 
 
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,

To make music in the heart.
  
* * *
 
Let’s be the church
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBHJobmBdK0
 
 
,
Matt Matthews
First Presbyterian Church Champaign
A (cool) congregation of the PC(USA)
Church: 217.356.7238; Cell: 864.386.9138
matt@firstpres.church
 


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Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2021-01-07

Thursday, January 7th, 2021
A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
  
* * *
 
Dear Friends,
 
I promised these emails would return to the standard format to which you have become accustomed. Yesterday’s news was so upending I find that I can’t return to that normal today. Not yet. 
 
I want to thank the 28-people in our flock who joined us in our Zoom service of prayer. We were honored to pray for many of you by name, and to pray for our nation. 
 
* * * 
 
“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” 
 
God of ages,
in your sight nations rise and fall,
and pass through times of peril.
Now when our land is troubled,
be near to judge and save.
May leaders be led by your wisdom;
may they search your will and see it clearly.
If we have turned from your way,
help us to reverse our ways and repent.
Give us your light and your truth to guide us;
through Jesus Christ,
who is Lord of this world, and our Savior. 
Amen.
 
—From the Book of Common Worship
 
* * *
 
Peace to you all. 
 
Matt
864.386.9138
 
* * *

ESL Café Time
 
First Pres members are invited to join us for our monthly Zoom café time on January 14th at 10 AM. This would be a great time for you to get to know some of our students and tutors. If you’ve ever wondered what the ESL program is like, this is a great place to find out. We will be split into small groups so that we can discuss with each other. Bring your favorite hot drink and a snack to our Zoom Café Time.
 
We will have a Zoom Café Time every second Thursday of the month.
Email esl@firstpres.church for the link. 

 
If you have any questions, please email the ESL Director, Jeanette Pyne, at jeanette@firstpres.church.
 

 


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