Wednesday August 12^th, 2020
A daily e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
 
Dear Friends,
 
Many of you are ready for face to face worship. I’m ready in my heart, but not in my head. Community Covid numbers are too high, the disease is too deadly, and gathering just isn’t safe enough. 
 
Yet. 
 
When? 
 
I don’t know. Your Covid-19 Response Team meets regularly, prays often, and pays close attention to CDC and daily local numbers, hospitals, and the health department.  They do not take their work lightly. Their singular goal is the safety of this flock.
 
Which brings me back to Sunday worship. We’ve never stopped worship. We’ve never stopped meeting. Committees and other gatherings still fly. We’ve added a gathering time on Wednesday evenings at 7:00, which is an varied program of prayer, program put on by our Mission Team, study (a Bible study is coming  up; and another short Rachel Held Evans film is forthcoming), music, and fellowship. It’s not the Lincoln Center, but  it’s  your church.
 
I’m surprised to learn that there are many saints in our church who don’t tune into our recorded services. A ton of energy and prayer go into those services, as I’m sure you know, and while people from all over the country tune in each week, when I look into that camera, I imagine your faces.
 
Tuning in might be easier than you think. Take a deep breath, and then go to FirstPres.Live and click which viewing option you want (watch on our webpage, on YouTube, or Facebook). 
 
You won’t see “slick” worship, you’ll see authentic, heartfelt worship.
 
You’ll see worship that is fuller when you tune in.
 
Take on Race:

BELHAR CONFESSION

In 1982, Reformed South African theologian Dirk Smit (now a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary) was one of the authors who drafted the Belhar Confession as a rebuke to Apartheid in the 1980s. The Belhar Confession articulates how the Gospel of Jesus Christ stands opposed to segregation, racism, and apartheid, all systemic evils of our time. (Click on the title above to ready the Belhar Confession
 
News:
 
Tonight join the mid-week gathering at 7 p.m.
Email zoom@firstpres.church for the link.

The Session has called a meeting of the Congregation to hear and act upon the report of the Congregation’s Officer Nominating Committee for 10 a.m. this Sunday, August 16.  The address for that meeting is firstpres.church/meeting
 
Humor/: (Serious times call for re-creation, joy, and humor.)
 
If seagulls fly over the sea, what flies over the bay? (Bagels, of course.)
 
Good Word:
 
Psalm 124 (again)
 
¹ If it had not been the Lord who was on our side
    —let Israel now say—
² if it had not been the Lord who was on our side,
    when our enemies attacked us,
³ then they would have swallowed us up alive,
    when their anger was kindled against us;
⁴ then the flood would have swept us away,
    the torrent would have gone over us;
⁵ then over us would have gone
    the raging waters.
⁶ Blessed be the Lord,
who has not given us
    as prey to their teeth.
⁷ We have escaped like a bird
    from the snare of the fowlers;
the snare is broken,
    and we have escaped.
⁸ Our help is in the name of the Lord,
    who made heaven and earth.
 
Let us pray:
 
Everlasting God, 
in whom we live and move and have our being: 
You have made us for yourself, 
so that our hearts are restless 
until they rest in you. 
Give us purity of heart and strength of purpose, 
that no selfish passion may hinder us from knowing your will, 
no weakness keep us from doing it; 
that in your light we may see light clearly, 
and in your service find perfect freedom; 
through Jesus Christ our Lord, 
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, 
One God, now and forever.  AMEN
 
 PEACE to you all,
 
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church