• August 29
• September 5
• September 19

This year will be filled with plenty of new music, including a special Christmas musical.

Come lift your voice up to the Lord! All singers, high school age and beyond, are welcome to join. Please contact Buffy Evans (fpchoir@gmail.com) with any questions.

The FPC congregation raised money, supplies and equipment for a trip in June back to Lukome as well as to several of the other orphanages. Chris Hult and Kelly Rhea collected and sorted school books. Dorthy Jones helped by providing sewing patterns and samples for backpacks for the children. Linda Roberts and Andy Anderson located and arranged for the donation of a modern microscope. The microscope will be used in the medical clinic serving over 500 children at Byana Mary Hill orphanage for early diagnosis of malaria. The knitting group provided many colorful blankets. Many members of the congregation donated time and money to the project. The trip was organized in conjunction with the Institute for Sustainable Education, Economics, and Engineering (SeeeMe.org).

During the two trips this past six months, FPC has supported a variety of projects at the orphanages including: eye clinics, solar power, educational computer laboratories, micro-loans for small businesses, recreational equipment, school libraries, self-help sewing projects, medical equipment, and educational materials. Perhaps more importantly, we have forged a bond of friendship with the staff and students at these institutions.

FPC plans to continue this successful program. You can help by making a donation to FPC and indicating Uganda Project on the memo line.

INSTALLING SOLAR PANELS: Volunteers installed solar panels to power lights and to support an educational computer lab. Two laptop computers were donated and school staff and students were trained to use them.

TEACHING MATERIALS: Hundreds of surplus educational books from a USU Scholastic book sale were acquired by FPC (Thanks to Chris Hult and Kelly Rhea). Materials were transported to Uganda in the team's checked luggage. Volunteers built shelving units to accommodate them in a NEW school library.

MIXING CONCRETE TO SECURE SWING SET: Swing sets, slides, and tetherball equipment were installed at five schools.

MIXING PLASTER FOR THE CLASSROOM INTERIOR: A major project made possible with FPC funds was RENOVATION of a classroom: installing solar power, concrete floors, windows, a door, and plastering and painting the walls. The room will contain two computers to start an educational computer lab and provide library space for the books donated by the church.

A MICROSCOPE AND EQUIPMENT TO USE WITH IT: The team delivered a microscope to the Byana Mary Hill medical clinic that serves over 500 children. The microscope was acquired through the efforts of two FPC members. It will be used for medical diagnosis in treatment of children and nearby villagers and will be particularly useful in detecting malaria, saving a 12-day delay in accessing the nearest microscope.

The following is only an excerpt of this sermon. The full sermon can be heard by clicking the audio link below.

Hebrews 11.29-12.2; Luke 12.49-56

There is an image that I sometimes like to share with couples as they come to me in pre-marital counseling. We talk about how we, as human beings, when we are threatened or we face conflict, how we respond. We have two general ways of responding: we are either tigers or turtles. It’s another take on the fight or flight response.

But when you are a tiger, if your tendency is to be a tiger, when you are faced with a threat, when there is conflict, what do you do? You strike out. Others of us, when we are faced with conflict or when we’re faced with tension or division, what do we do? We’re turtles. We hide in our shells, we withdraw. We hide under those hard shells to protect us.

Now be honest, are you a turtle or a tiger?

Perhaps when we’re more confident we tend to be a tiger, or when we’re more uncertain we tend to be a turtle. Most of us are a little bit of both.

But is we would characterize Jesus today, if we listened to his words, we would definitely say that at least in this moment, Jesus is all tiger. As I read these words, I hear Jesus striking out, going on offense: “I don’t come to bring peace, but division.” And to be honest with you, I don’t know if I like it. I’m not sure if I like Jesus here, I don’t know if my Jesus would look like this, or speak like this. These words, in fact, make me very uncomfortable.

These sayings are hard, perhaps they’re offensive in any age, but particularly in the Middle East where everything in society is focused around family. Jesus goes right for the jugular. And he says, “When I come, when I speak, I’m not coming to bring peace, to smooth things over, to make everything calm and nice and rosy. I’m coming to bring division. And those intimate relationships that are supposed to be so peaceful, I’ve come and when I speak, son will be set against father, mother against daughter.” Say it ain’t so, Jesus.

I wonder if Jesus, as he is looking towards Jerusalem, as he thinks about his fate there, and all of the suffering that he is undergoing, as he feels all of the opposition starting to generate around him, I wonder if he’s beginning to feel frustrated. Maybe a little exasperated, maybe even a little anxious as a human being about what is to come. Do you hear how the NRSV translates it: “What a stress I am under. I wish I could just get it over with!” Perhaps he feels frustrated and exasperated as he heads to the cross.

Now we have two ways of responding to this language of division, this talk of not bringing peace, but bringing conflict. We can either like it too much or not enough. We can either be tigers or turtles.

When we like it too much, this talk of division, when we connect with it too easily, division becomes the goal in and of itself. Nurturing ferment becomes the sign and seal of our conversations and our actions. Oh, that Pastor Paul, he just loves stirring the pot. He just loves to cause trouble. And we like this language of division too much, we are not happy when people compromise or discover common ground. We are not pleased when the focus changes from what drives us apart to what brings us together. When we like these verses too much, we like to rock the boat and we are happy when those with whom we disagree fall into the sea.

(To listen to the sermon in full, please click below)

After a wonderfully, successful boutique last year where local artisans sold their beautiful wares, the Deacon’s Fund of First Presbyterian is excited to announce a call for entries for a second round. Part of the proceeds from this sale will go to benefit people in our community.

November 5, 2010 6-8 pm
November 6, 2010 10-4 pm

• Fiber Art
• Jewelry
• Pottery
• Photography
• Bread of Life (Holiday and Yeast Breads)
• Soap and so much more!

To apply for booth space and view the regulations, please download this application.

Don’t delay! Applications are due September 17. Applicants will be notified by October 7.

Dear Friends, I am happy and excited to begin my new position as Children and Adult Christian Education Coordinator at F.P.C. During the next month, Lauri will continue to flood my brain with information with information about the job so that I can begin in earnest on the first of September.

A notebook will be available in Bruner Hall starting this Sunday during Hospitality for any and all suggestions you as a congregation may have as to activities or programs you would be interested in seeing continued or added to the curriculum or schedule here at the church.

Carole Gibbs and I have started a lending library at the Swenson House. It is located in the glass shelves on either side of the fireplace. Adult and children’s books will be available to check out. It is to be run on the honor system, and a sign out tablet will be provided for that purpose. If you don’t bring it back, we will know that you needed it more than we did. Donations of current and in good condition books are encouraged. Leecia Bloss has already signed on to donate a bag. (Thanks, Leecia). We have had interest expressed in forming a book club.

I am also looking into introducing a Zoomba class at one of the fitness centers for those of us who would like a fun, no stress, exercise opportunity. Diana Kline has generously offered to teach a Yoga session, so we will find a user friendly place on the schedule for that.

We are also looking into opportunities to expand the children’s music program, and suggestions for that are welcome also. I am looking forward to your suggestions as we are a church family, and all family members should certainly have a voice in what we do. See you in Church!

Thanks, Sue Postma

The focus of this morning’s text and message is prayer. And as I reflected on prayer I quite naturally thought about…caterpillars. There was a story on NPR this past week about a researcher who was studying how caterpillars move.

“Caterpillars don’t have a bone in their body. They move by squeezing muscles in sequence in an undulating wave motion. It is easy enough to observe from the outside, but [the researchers] wanted to know what was happening on the inside. They decided they needed to X- ray a caterpillar as it crawled.”

That’s no easy task. For their caterpillars they custom built a tiny caterpillar treadmill. They took their treadmill and caterpillars in training to a “special, X- ray-producing particle accelerator at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois.”

But then came the really hard part: they had to get the caterpillars to move. “Do you realize how hard it is to get a caterpillar to move when it doesn’t want to?” lamented the researcher. They tried foods, smells, blowing on them, and stroking them gently with different things. They threatened to ground them on the weekends and take away their XBox (actually I made these last ones up). They tried everything.
Finally, after all that, they moved. The treadmill did its thing, and the particle accelerator did its thing, and there was rejoicing. They found something interesting. They discovered that a caterpillar (well, to be accurate, the Manduca Sexta variety of caterpillar) precedes each step with a thrust of its gut, i.e. its innards.

Just at the start of every little caterpillar step, something inside sways forward. It’s insides moves before it’s outside. Can you picture it? (Isn’t God’s delicate creation wonderful? All it took to discover how wonderful it is was a particle accelerator and a custom built caterpillar treadmill!)

The researcher and his adviser (he is doing this for his PhD) say that they are “unaware of any other animal where the insides move before the outsides do.”

I beg to differ. Now, I’m not a biologist, I’m just a small town preacher, but I would offer that there is at least one other creature in God’s beautiful creation who moves (I would say at least most of the time) from the inside out; yes, I am speaking of the human creature. It may not work that way with regard to the mechanics of the body (we have bones, caterpillars don’t), but it sure works that way in the mechanics of our lives.

We move–forward, backward, to the sides–from the inside out. Whether it’s rooted in fear, anger, some cleverly devised intellectual rationale, or some unknown instinct that is written deep within our genetic code, or whether its rooted in love, we move from the inside out. We may move for self-preservation or betterment, or for love of family or friends, or for compassion for neighbor, or love for God, but it begins in here, with a thrust of our gut, our innards…and this is precisely why prayer is so important.

That one disciple saw Jesus move away from the group often. Praying was a regular part of Jesus routine. Not being dense all the time, the disciple began to make the connection that Jesus’ prayer life had something to do with his faithful life. He began to understand that there was a connection between Jesus praying and his powerful teaching, and with his never ending compassion, and with his relentless focus on what he came to do. He saw Jesus spend time in conversation with Abba, his Father, and then wondrous, special, mysterious things would follow. He saw Jesus move from the inside out.

You know, when I first heard the story of the caterpillars, as I pictured the researcher yelling at that caterpillar, “Would you please, please move!” and as I pictured that caterpillar motionless on that custom built caterpillar treadmill while million dollar machines whirred in the background, I thought of God as that caterpillar. We tend to think of prayer that way. We pray because we want God to move! That’s the way prosperity preachers preach about prayer. Pray (and send in your $50 bucks to the P.O. Box below or we’ll be happy to prayerfully accept your credit card over the phone) and God will move. Too often, I won’t say always, but too often, God seems to sit motionless on the custom built treadmills we construct. Those who don’t connect with a life of faith, and to be honest we ourselves too, wait with our particle accelerators to record God’s response to our yelling, our stroking, our blowing; and we are disappointed in God’s refusal to move. If you think it’s hard to get a caterpillar to move when it doesn’t want to, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

While hoping that God responds to our prayer in the ways that we’d like is a natural, and valid part of prayer, I have come to believe that the most important part of prayer is not trying to get God to move, but allowing God to move us. I believe an active prayer life is a wonderful thing because it moves our gut. It moves our innards so that we can then move on the outside based on what God has done on the inside.

“Lord teach us to pray.”

Oh this is a rich text. Jesus responds to the disciples request (and invites our innards to move) by giving the disciples a model prayer. Say this.

Our Father – this is someone who cares for you, who is in relationship with you, who wants to be close to you and spend time with you. This is a God who loves you.

Hallowed be thy name – You are our father, yes, but oh how awesome you are oh, Lord! We cannot understand you fully, we can’t fathom your depths. You are holy, set apart. We recognize that you move not only within our gaze but beyond it as well.

Your kingdom come – We focus on your will, O God. God help us when we focus on our kingdoms; how messed up they get, and how many pay the price. But you promise righteousness, and justice and peace and joy and wholeness, we want that kingdom, O God, your kingdom. We trust in the hope you proclaim.

Give us each day our daily bread – Help us not to worry about our next meal so that we can focus on you O Lord. We depend upon you. Make it just enough for every day, otherwise I focus more on my bread than on your coming kingdom. BTW, Lord, if I do have more than enough, what do you want me to do with it?

Forgive us as we do the same in our relationships with others. Your grace and love shown toward us provide the model for how we are to live with others.

And Lord, if you can keep us out from all the stuff hitting the fan…in our lives, in our communities…in our world? We depend completely upon you.

This prayer certainly asks things of God, but more significantly, I believe, it also shapes us. It moves our guts. That prayer centers our focus on a loving and awesome God. It reminds us that we are dependent upon God, and it prays that we imitate the same gracious and loving ways God shows us. When we pray, it shapes our insides, and gets them moving, so that our outsides can follow.

And when enough of our individual insides move in the same direction, as we pray together, than bigger outsides, our families, our churches, our communities, our world begin to move. That the way prayer works.

I don’t know how significant this is grammatically, but did you notice that the disciple doesn’t say, “teach us how to pray?” He asks “teach us to pray.”

That’s because our outside world distracts us. It can overwhelm us, depress us, and in so doing, draw our attention away from the source of life. The outside world can confuse our insides and get them moving different directions (sometimes at the same time!). Prayer lets us know that the outside world is not the final word. Our outer circumstances do not have final control over our lives. Prayer draws our gaze inward, toward God’s grace and love and to a place of peace that has a deeper foundation than we can understand.

How do I make it during the day? How are we going to survive together in such a crazy world? Prayer, scripture suggests, a daily discipline of breathing, meditation, and quiet, a time when we can figure out of what is really moving our insides. Is it fear? Guilt? Anger? Sadness? Love? God meets us there and orients our insides in such a way that we are able to move in the right direction. It makes a difference…and its a whole lot better than yelling at a caterpillar God.

It must also be said that, like human life in all it’s complexity, prayer rarely works according to a formula. There are times when we feel empty, or when God seems distant, or when answers are lacking, or the answers we get are exactly opposite to the ones we want. It’s a struggle. There is mystery here that we cannot comprehend.

I don’t have an answer for that. But persistent prayer does open our eyes and spirits to truth, and to new possibilities, and to God’s surprises. We see things in ourselves and in the world that we didn’t see before. We find God in places we don’t expect.

I know it’s tough. I myself am not a prayer warrior. But that’s why its good that we come here. We remind ourselves that when we knock on that door, somewhere an opening will appear, a door or a window will open and we are invited to move (or climb) through it.

When we seek, God will guides us at some point to what will give us light, and warmth, and sustenance and wisdom and peace. Lord teach us to pray.

One final note. In Jesus story, when the neighbor knocks on the door in the night, Jesus says that because of his persistence, the one inside will stir and respond. Persistence is nice. That works for me, but the term actually is closer to meaning ‘shameless’.

In ancient world-with their honor/shame culture-shame is what moved people to action. Some interpreters think that Jesus is saying that the neighbor inside will certainly respond to the petition of the one knocking if not out of friendship, then to avoid the shame in the eyes of the community of turning a neighbor in need down…perhaps. How much more will God do for the children God loves?

Others suggest that it is the shamelessness of the one making the request that stirs the one inside. I like this too. I believe in shameless, audacious prayer. I believe God likes it too. I believe that God loves it when we come to God asking for anything and everything. I believe that because I believe God loves it when we come, praying “Lord move, or move me.”

So be shameless in your prayer. Pray. Pray. Pray. Pray until God moves, or until God gets your insides moving and moves you.

If God can do it with a caterpillar, how much more will God be there with you. Amen.

(To listen to the recorded sermon, please click below)

The following is only an excerpt of this sermon. The full sermon can be heard by clicking the audio link below.

John 20.19-31

Does anybody want to go to Hawaii?

Well, I’d like to take you, as Barney might say, in our imagination to the north shore of the island of Oahu. There is a bay there called Waimea Bay. Has anybody ever been there, Waimea Bay? If you go there in the winter, it’s best not to enter the water, because they have some of the wildest, largest surf on the planet there. But in the summer, the bay is actually pretty calm and you can scuba dive around there if you want. To one side of the bay is a big rock that extends out from the sand into the water. And they call it, “The Big Rock.” It is perfectly positioned with a steep face right over the water and it’s about 30 feet high. Does anybody know how high this ceiling is, to the tip of the ceiling? About 30 feet? So you would be standing there about at the top. Now in terms of cliff-diving it might not be the highest thing, but if you’re a little kid, or if you’re a little squeamish about heights, that’s a big rock.

It’s become a tradition to ignore the signs not to climb on the rocks and to make your way up to the top and to jump off into the water. Perhaps if you would visit with me in your imagination and would go up on the rock with me… now I want to ask you, are you someone who would just go up there and look and go “YEAH!!!!” and jump off and fly into the water, legs and arms flailing, or would you kind of inch your way up to the top and peer over and say, “Uh, you do it first.” Now which kind of person are you?

Somebody’s looking at their partner and saying, “No, you’re not! You’re the other kind!”

At the bottom is cool refreshing water, but you have to leap to reach it. This morning we gather here in this place, we climb a rock of a different sort, it is the Rock of Decision. At the bottom we see the cool refreshing waters of faith, but to get there, you have to take a leap. We don’t hurl our bodies off, at least not in the beginning (faith may involve that later), but initially, the leap of faith is one that involves our minds and our hearts and our very spirits.

When you sincerely leap, it shapes your core convictions. Not just the convictions that we utter for public consumption, you know the ones that we like to talk about when others are looking and listening. But it shapes the convictions that govern how we see things, that determine what we do, and what we say and what decisions we make with our money and our time and our talents. Folks, that Rock of Decision is The Big Rock. It shapes our life.

Now some go up and climb up that rock and make the leap with abandon. They jump off, legs flailing, “Yes, Jesus! I’m yours! Amen! Hallelujah!” Some make this leap hesitantly, inching up to the side, watching others go first. And then there are also some that wait at the top of the rock, just looking, thinking, wondering whether it’s really worth it at the bottom. Wondering whether there are any rocks that we can’t see down there that might break a leg or two. Maybe we can just climb down and wade in the water.

Well, that might be an option in Waimea, but not when it comes to faith. There comes a point when faith asks us to step out, to leap off, to give ourselves up to gravity and the water. We might not be sure about how deep it is, but others are doing it. How about us? When it comes to faith, are you a doubter or a leaper?

(To listen to the sermon in full, please click below)

The following is only an excerpt of this sermon. The full sermon can be heard by clicking the audio link below.

Luke 10.25-37

I’m going to go out on a limb here… have any of you heard of this thing called the ‘Internet’? Yes, you use the internet? Wonderful tool, isn’t it? One of the blessings of the Internet is that it offers us a place where folks like you and me can discuss and learn. It offers a chance for us to offer our thoughts and our opinions and to listen to the perspectives of others. It offers us the opportunity for mature and reasoned and useful dialogue. Right? Right? Well, the opportunity is there. Yes, the comments section on internet stories offer us chances for good dialogue, but that’s not what we get, much of the time.

There is a maxim that has been offered about internet dialogue called “Godwin’s Law” – I don’t know if any of you have heard that. It’s an observation, and I’m paraphrasing here, that no matter what the discussion may be, it can be about science or politics, it doesn’t matter what it is, at some point sooner or later, someone is going to call someone else a Nazi. Or someone’s going to compare another to a Nazi. Sooner or later, dialogue devolves, says the maxim, to a place where one demonizes another as the epitome of evil. That’s what Nazis are, right? The epitome of evil.

It’s interesting for me to reflect on what this says about us, that this maxim turns out so often to be true, but the reason I raise this law at this moment is that it popped into my head when I was thinking about the story that Jesus tells us in scripture. Because Jesus seems to fall right into Godwin’s Law. Jesus and the lawyer, scripture says… Well, let me go off on a small tangent here. I had to apologize in the first service to Nathan, who happens to be a lawyer, and lawyers you know, always get a bad rap, right?. Any other lawyers here? Sorry about that! But in this story I have to come clean and say that the lawyer is much more like a scholar of the Torah, a bible teacher, a preacher. That’s me.

Jesus and the one who studies the bible are having a discussion, and a good one. They are dialoguing about the law and the lawyer asks a question that we all ask at one point or another: What do we need to do to inherit eternal life? It’s a good discussion, perking along, and wouldn’t you know it, Godwin’s Law comes up because Jesus ends up talking about a Nazi. Except that in the telling of his story, the Nazi is the hero and not the demon. Jesus tells the story about a Samaritan playing the role of hero. Now Samaritans weren’t Nazis, but for the lawyer and many of Jesus’ listeners, the Samaritans were the hated enemy. The hated ones. The demonized ones. If you wanted to insult a Jew, you would say, “You Samaritan, you.”

(To listen to the sermon in full, please click below)

The following is only an excerpt of this sermon. The full sermon can be heard by clicking the audio link below.

1 Kings 19.1-15a

These stories from the Old Testament, they’re great stuff. Amen? Nice, juicy, just full of stuff for us to chew on. There’s this great image, just before our story: There has been a drought on the land that Elijah pronounced because of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God and just after the triumph on Mt. Carmel, God tells Elijah that the drought is coming to an end and he takes him up to the peak of Mt. Carmel and he says Look out over the ocean, and there’s a small cloud that begins to rise up and says You better tell King Ahab he better get to his royal residence in Jezreel. And so Elijah tells him, You’d better get into your chariot and head to Jezreel because there’s a storm coming. And so Ahab hitches up his chariot and you know how fast chariots go, right? They go pretty fast! And so he’s riding as fast as he can, but the bible tells us that 17 miles away (well,you can measure it now), but 17 miles away he’s urging his horses on and on to try and beat that gathering storm, but out in front of his chariot is Elijah! Like the Six-Million-Dollar Prophet. Running! 17 miles! There might be some marathoners out there, but even so, that’s pretty impressive. I bet you couldn’t beat a chariot. 17 miles. In sandals. And a robe. Actually, the bible doesn’t say what he was wearing, but I’m guessing. Still pretty impressive.

All that leads into this wonderful story that we have before us this morning. Oh, it is a wonderful story. It has danger and suspense. It has excitement. It swims in despair and hopelessness, but it doesn’t end there. It’s a story that displays tender grace. It models good communication and it moves toward healing and renewal and action. The larger story is very real and profound and I like it because it portrays for us Elijah’s humanity. Here he is, one of the greatest prophets of the Hebrew tradition, and we can see it leading up to the story. Can you see him there, bellowing out against the prophets of Baal, challenging them in the power of the Lord, proclaiming! That’s what prophets are supposed to do! Bring down fire! And it happens and that’s Elijah at his best. He’s strong, he’s confident, expressing the power of the Lord. He’s on top of his game up on that mountain. He’s victorious. This is the public Elijah, the one everyone sees. This is the one everyone knows. The one, gussied up on Sundays. The one always looking their best.

But in the next episode, just a little bit later, Elijah is running for his life! He’s depressed, he’s alone, he’s questioning himself. He’s questioning the God who brought all of this on him. This is the private Elijah. This is the one you don’t see gussied up on Sundays. This is the one the Israelites and the prophets of Baal and Ahab and Jezebel didn’t see. This is the real inside of Elijah, in his moments of struggle and weakness.

These stories together picture Elijah a lot like us. We have our moments when we are strong, when we are confident , when we discover our gifts, we know who we are! We’re successful, we’re strong, we’re confident , we’re collected, we’re gussied up on Sunday. I have to tell you, honestly, you see me gussied up on Sunday. We have those moments when we look and feel and perform our best. This is the one that everyone sees. This is the we who everyone knows about. But then we also have other moments, as human beings. Those moments when we feel alone, when we feel drained of energy and strength and inspiration, when we struggle with despair. Like Elijah. The great, but human prophet. How human is this story.

(To listen to the sermon in full, please click below)