Ongoing Response to COVID-19
Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2020-06-02
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Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2020-06-01
Monday June 1st 2020
A daily e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
To Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Holy God,
I pray for all the people on the streets of our cities in our nation, and the people at home and work. Forgive us all, help us all, heal us all.
As our nation laments and is aghast at what we have seen on television news, I pray for wholeness even as that lamentation and outrage have literally caught fire. Ease those mobs who rant and rave. Give us the gifts of the Spirit we all need to breathe.
For firefighters who run into fires while others run away;
For police whom we call when things go badly wrong;
For our National Guard who shovel sand into bags where the waters rise, and who stand in the streets attempting to keep crowds safe at times like this;
For the protesters who keep vigil;
For the rioters and looters whose actions I do not understand, but whose call for justice I do;
For the mothers and fathers who don’t know where their children are;
For all those who wait, and watch, and pray during these impatient hours;
For neighbors and friends we love who are almost uncontrollably anxious;
For my flock of saints at First Presbyterian Church—wise people who have walked through many seasons of valleys and mountaintops. Help us to lean on one another in these days of physical distancing. Help us to learn from each other. Bless them to be a blessing.
May we cast our worry upon You, O God.
May we claim the responsibilities entrusted to our care.
Guide our walk as we follow the path you would have us trod.
In a season of much rage, may you grant us the patience to listen.
And when we are given our moment to speak, might our few words bear your holy grace to all.
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
More Prayers:
Hippo Mbungu’s mom died in Congo last week. Hippo and his wife, Gladyle, have been in Easy English Fellowship. Alex is in our Sunday School and had been looking forward very much to VBS. We provide transportation for him. Alex has a younger brother, Ritchie.
Rev. Michael Evanchack’s mom, Jackie Evanchak, died last week. Michael serves as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Taylorville and as the moderator of the presbytery’s Committee on Preparation for Ministry.
A childhood friend of Steve Gritten is in hospice. The family would appreciate prayer.
Nancy MacGregor writes this: Grieving for Minneapolis today – my grandfather’s last church was in the area where the young man was killed. The husband of Mac’s cousin served a Covenant church in that area for more than 20 years and was probably the only white man in a very violent time who could walk safely through the area because of the work he did.
Prayers for Chris, Helen, and Henry Hutchens whose Chicagoland neighborhood is shut down.
Thank you to those who joined us in prayer last night for a quickly called service of prayer. Remember prayer is speaking. Prayer is our “sorry” prayers, our ‘praise’ prayers, our prayers for “ourselves” and for “others,” and prayers for “needs.” (SPOON). Prayer is also listening.
* * *
Join us via ZOOM…
Tuesday, Men’s Breakfast Study, 8 am
* Email info@firstpres.church for the link.
For 150 years, the women of this church have faithfully served within the church and the community and world. During the present need for “social distancing”, we’re missing meeting together for study and fellowship, but the ministries continue. So a first step in moving forward is the annual installation of women in the variety of positions in Presbyterian Women. Yes, we’ll Zoom forward, on June 4 at 1:00 p.m. Every woman in the church is invited to log in to her email account and click on the link provided for PW officer installation, thereby joining in support and embracing all that is to come.
* Email info@firstpres.church for the link.
—
Good Word:
Romans 12:9-21
Let love be genuine;
hate what is evil,
hold fast to what is good;
love one another with mutual affection;
outdo one another in showing honor.
Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit,
serve the Lord.
Rejoice in hope,
be patient in suffering,
persevere in prayer.
Contribute to the needs of the saints;
extend hospitality to strangers.
Bless those who persecute you;
bless and do not curse them.
Rejoice with those who rejoice,
weep with those who weep.
Live in harmony with one another;
do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly;
do not claim to be wiser than you are.
Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought
for what is noble in the sight of all.
If it is possible, so far as it depends on you,
live peaceably with all.
Never avenge yourselves, but leave room
for the wrath of God;
If your enemies are hungry, feed them;
if they are thirsty, give them something to drink;
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome
evil with good.
Let us pray:
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,
thy kingdom come, thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our debts,
as we forgive our debtors;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory, forever.
Amen.
PEACE,
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2020-05-29
Friday 29 May 2020
Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Dear Friends,
About the time you get this email, your Session’s Covid-19 Response Team will be meeting via Zoom. Please pray for that group, and thank Peter Yau for his role as our science advisor.
* * *
On this Sunday, we have a special service of worship for you. It was fun to record. I’ll see you Sunday at 9:00 on Facebook, YouTube, and the Church website. Go to FirstPres.Live to find the links.
* * *
What happens every Wednesday at 7:00 p.m.?
* * *
Don’t forget to wear your masks when you go out. When you do, you are telling the world
· you respect the power of this pandemic,
· you are using the brains God gave you,
· you care about your safety,
· you especially care for others’ safety, and
· you are taking your role as God’s steward of creation seriously.
* * *
How are you sharing your violin/using God’s gifts to heal the world?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
I’m reminded of the hymn “Lord of the Dance”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
22-million views. Plus you. Turn it up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
* * *
I’ll ‘see’ you on Sunday.
Turn on your “device” and find us at: FirstPres.Live
Pay attention to God’s activity in the world around you.
Be amazed.
Tell somebody.
PEACE,
Matt Matthews
864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
* * *
New fun photo challenge! Each Friday the Nurture Committee is challenging us to read an assigned scripture about Jesus and come up with a representation of the story using whatever you already have around the house and share it in photo form.
CHALLENGE #7
RESURRECTION – Luke 24:1-12
Some may think that our story is done.
But they would be wrong, it has only begun!
For after 3 days, Jesus rose from the dead
To give us new life forever, just as He said!
Our greatest hope comes in knowing that we will get to spend all of eternity with Jesus and with all who follow him! We don’t have to be slaves to sin. Jesus can help us to live with joy and life now. That is what Easter is all about!
Take a picture of you celebrating. Maybe you have a Easter photo, past or present to share.
Post your photo to:
https://www.facebook.com/
live@firstpres.church
For Instagram @fpcchampaign
Example
Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2020-05-28
Thursday May 28th 2020
A daily e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
To Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Dear Friends,
This from Cousin Tom, who prays for our congregation:
In a London Review of Books essay by Jacqueline Rose discussing Camus’ The Plague, she dwells on the disparate suffering experienced during a pandemic. In New Mexico we have first-hand knowledge of the pandemic’s apparent prejudice, watching the mortality and morbidity numbers of the Navajo nation sky rocket.
For decades Navajos and Mexican-Americans have had intolerable rates of adult-onset diabetes, heart disease and essential hypertension. For more than a century a large segment of Navajos on reservation has lived at the margin, with too little nutritious food, too little good water and with substandard shelter and health care.
Rose delivers a sort of reverse rationale employed by the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who identified AIDS as God’s punishment of gays: the dispossessed suffer for our sins of bigotry and neglect.
Today I opened the June Harper’s and found the Easy Chair in which Thomas Chatterton Williams describes quarantining in Paris and thinking about Camus and The Plague.
Quoting Camus: “There’s no question of heroism in all this. It’s a matter of common decency. That’s an idea that may make some people smile, but the only means of fighting a plague is –common decency.”
Quoting Williams: “For Camus, the question of sickness, of life’s two irreducible teams – pestilences and victims – and of the Sisyphean struggle for meaning in a godless, absurdly indifferent universe, was always quite literal. He worked on the book for six eventful years: first in Oran, then in the French Alpine village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, where he went to treat his tuberculosis, and afterward in Paris, during the Resistance, distilling into fiction his painstaking research on the history of plagues in Europe and Asia…
“A pandemic, if you are fortunate enough not to be hospitalized or killed by it, wears you down by other, more subtle measures. It administers by a thousand cuts, a kind of spiritual and psychological incapacitation… Indeed one of the key insights of The Plague is its emphasis on the fundamental fragility of all human arrangements, and the concomitant inability of most people to acknowledge this tenuousness until it is far too late for meaningful collective action. (Beyond the particular menace of the coronavirus, this is ultimately what is so terrifying about the climate crisis.)”
Yesterday the NY Times reported on the Columbia U study by public health statisticians as they looked back at the beginnings of the pandemic in the United States. Creating elaborate calculations dependent on a list of variables, the researchers were able to estimate that at least 36,000 deaths could have been avoided had federal officials declared the lockdown a week earlier.
That estimate, however, depends on the assumption that Americans would have been willing to accept the need for an earlier sheltering-in-place, an assumption that seems non-sensible given the current rush to have tatoos and hair styling as the disease curve in many states reach record heights in a kurtosis of death.
News:
Wednesday Vespers! Thanks for joining us last night.
* * *
Members in the News:
Lisa Ainsworth elected to the National Academy of Sciences
https://ripe.illinois.edu/
Stretch Ledford receives teaching award!
https://news.illinois.edu/
* * *
John Muirhead invites us to celebrate Louise Allen’s 95th Bday!
Louise Allen
The Bickford
1002 S. Staley Road
Champaign, IL 61822
* * *
Presbyterian Women will gather next week! Plan now.
\For 150 years, the women of this church have faithfully served within the church and the community and world. During the present need for “social distancing”, we’re missing meeting together for study and fellowship, but the ministries continue. So a first step in moving forward is the annual installation of women in the variety of positions in Presbyterian Women. Yes, we’ll Zoom forward, on June 4 at 1:00 p.m. Every woman in the church is invited to log in to her email account and click on the link provided for PW officer installation, thereby joining in support and embracing all that is to come.
—
Humor:
What gets wet as it gets dryer? A towel.
When is a door not a door? When it’s ajar.
When the three-legged dog walked into the bar, what did he say? “I’m lookin’ for the man who shot my Pa.”
I know, groan…
New monthly budget: Gas $0 Entertainment $0 Clothes $0 Groceries $2,799.
Breaking News: Wearing a mask inside your home is now highly recommended. Not so much to stop COVID-19, but to stop eating.
Good Word:
Galatians 5:22-23
22 By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.
Let us pray:
Holy God,
today I thank you for the Peony:
the way the heavy-headed buds
bow before you then lift their
heads in that profusion of color.
May I lift my head to you
with such radiance, even
if only for a single day—
for your Son,
for your Spirit,
for your Whole Self
with my whole self.
AMEN
PEACE,
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2020-05-27
A daily e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
To Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Dear Friends,
Some of you have asked for Sunday’s lyric. Here it is:
How Do I Pray?
I.
How do I pray?
What do I say
to a God from whom
nothing is secret?
II.
How do I say
What’s in my heart
—a heart that is swirling and aching,
a heart that’s a secret to me?
III.
God of the cosmos
Ruler of all
Lover of nature and nations
O Spirit of God I’m in awe . . .
IV.
I stand here before you
I shake in your sight.
Unworthy and broken and
pleading and seeking your light.
V.
How do I reach you
With a voice that’s so weak?
Or do you do the finding
And into this darkness
you seek even me?
Even me?
VI.
How do I pray?
What do I say
to a God from whom
nothing is secret?
(Matt Matthews, for the play Kara’s Dance)
News:
Wednesday Vespers! Tonight at 7:00 p.m. our weekly Wednesday Night Gathering via ZOOM will feature Dr. Rachel Matthews leading a Bible study on the Old Testament book of Joel. Let’s build our church! Email info@firstpres.church for the link.
The Pathways To Peace / Pakistan Group would love to have you join them. Come on in for a visit, Wednesday, May 27 at 1:30
Join Zoom Meeting
Members of Mission Possible have been busy creating and installing a handrail to the stairway leading up to the choir room and Sanctuary. Many thanks to Bill Gamble and Itch Jones for their work…note they are obeying the “mask” guidelines!
For All The Saints . . . We celebrate the lives of Elizabeth Robinson Eisner (Nancy Martin’s mother) and Jeannie Murray. Both saints died on Friday. The families appreciate your prayers and we all look forward to the day when we can have Memorial Services in the Sanctuary to celebrate the God of life.
Humor:
What gets wet as it gets dryer?
When is a door not a door?
When the three-legged dog walked into the bar, what did he say?
(I’ll share your answers tomorrow.)
Good Word: (David’s prayer)
2 Samuel 7:18-19 Good News Translation (GNT)
18 Then King David went into the
Tent of the Lord’s presence,
sat down and prayed,
“Sovereign Lord, I am not worthy
of what you have already
done for me,
nor is my family.
Let us pray: (Another David’s prayer)
Glory to you, Prodigal Provider,
for the bumper crop of generosity
being harvested in this season.
I pray your heart gladdens with delight
as you see children’s encouraging
sidewalk art,
or an exhausted parent’s calming hug;
hear sweet music from balcony soloists
or virtual choirs;
smell donated flowers,
aromas from chef-prepared meals
donated for the poor,
or fresh baked goods left at
the front lines of care;
feel the pulsing flow from donors’
veins to blood banks,
or the touch of nurses’, doctors’,
or chaplains’ gloved hands on the brows
of the sick or dying, while still speaking
words of hope, comfort,
or blessing to those in need.
In the midst of the bombastic bedlam
of the self-serving, may I not miss
these beautiful, bounteous blessings
discretely planted, fed, and nourished
by your goodness and grace. Amen.
(Rev. Dr. David Hindman)
Much, much love to you all.
PEACE,
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
