the Holy Spirit changes everything.
(The themes for Advent are at the bottom of this letter.)
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
Grace and peace to you in the name of Christ the King, the one who remakes our broken places and calls us to lives of love and service.
We have been journeying together through Luke’s Book of Acts, the history of the early church. It started with the disciples still clinging to the presence of Christ, who spends 40 days talking about what life can be like when we live according to the values we learn in the words of God. Then Jesus disappears, leaving the Holy Spirit to empower and encourage those early followers into becoming the church.
That’s when things get interesting.
The Spirit begins by making sure everyone can hear the gospel in their own language. Then the growing crowds of believers start sharing all of their money and property, led by the Spirit, and living in a deep kind of Christian community. They appoint leaders, people who were full of the Spirit, to help with the administrative side of the church, and eventually they get hounded out of Jerusalem. Stephen is martyred, and then Philip has that amazing encounter with an Ethiopian eunuch, who becomes the first Gentile convert to the Way of Jesus.
This is just the first 8 chapters—the Holy Spirit has been busy.
The Spirit is still busy here at First Pres, inspiring and shaping and transforming and energizing all of us to be the people and the church that we’re called to be. Our kids are learning about God, we’re worshiping together and learning new ways to live in this community, and our service to the needy in our town never wavered, no matter what COVID threw our way. With our commitment to the Matthew 25 Project, we’ll see how the Spirit shapes us and leads us
As we look to Christ the King Sunday on the 21st, and the beginning of Advent the following week, We’ll see how the Holy Spirit is the driver of everything we sing and pray and do.
As we come to the end of our Stewardship season, we’ll see how the Spirit has prompted all of us to join in support the ministries of this church. This will be an interesting and exciting year of service together, no matter what happens. If COVID restrictions continue to stand in the way, what we’ve learned in this last year and a half is that we can go around them. If we’re able to return to some kind of normalcy, then we’re poised to move full speed ahead to demonstrate our love for God and each other.
See what I mean? The Holy Spirit is busy, and the Holy Spirit changes everything.
This Sunday Joel Drenckpohl of Front Porch will join us in worship and talk about Paul’s conversion in Acts 9. On the 21st I’ll finish the Acts series with a look at Peter’s developing understanding of the freedom we have in Christ. That will take us right up to Advent.
In the meantime, please take a moment to pray and reflect on your pledge for 2022. On the 21st we’ll celebrate all of the pledges of support of money, time, and talent, sending right into Thanksgiving week. It’s going to be a special season for all of us.
See you this Sunday. Stay safe and healthy and let us know how we can serve you best.
Blessings,
Pastor John
PS: The themes for Advent Sundays are, in order: Hope, Peace, Love and Joy. For your Bible in Community groups, find some passages that are meaningful to you on these topics, and let them help you prepare for the coming Advent and Christmas seasons.
the mission statement of the Messiah
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
(The remaining texts for the Acts series are at the end of this letter.)
Grace and peace to you in the name of Christ, the one whose name calls us both to bow in worship and venture out in service.
The Church of Scotland published a prayer recently that was very meaningful to me. As we journey through the Book of Acts together, I’m struck by how the early church was moving in ways that were more open, more inclusive, more welcoming—some of that has been lost from time to time in the church’s history.
But this prayer reminds us that there is so much more that we can be and do. So much more that we represent beyond our own squabbles and preferences.
Listen and make this your own prayer today:
We pray for those locked in by hurt
and loneliness and grief.
We pray for those locked in by addiction
and hunger and poverty.
We pray that we may bring our practical care and help
to those who cry out,
and to those who are silent,
and in our lived-out faith and love,
show no partiality
as we bring what hope we can to those in need.
Amen.
There’s beauty in a prayer that reminds us to care about people we often forget. I’m moved by the image of being “locked in”, of being trapped in pain and needing some help to find our way out. Remember the first words Jesus spoke as he started his ministry, quoting from Isaiah 61.
“The Spirit of the LORD is on me
because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives,
and release from darkness for the prisoners.”
It’s right there in the mission statement of the Messiah, looking for people who are “locked in”, and working to set them free. In our closing hymn last Sunday, the ensemble sang these words for us:
“He breaks the power of canceled sin, He sets the prisoner free.”
It really is a theme that matters to God, and so it’s a theme that matters to us. As we move through the coming year with new eyes for the “least of these”, we’ll be working to find paths to freedom for people who are trapped by poverty, or racism, or lifeless faith. Buckle up!
Blessings in Christ,
Pastor John
PS: We’ll be moving back to a traditional offering this Sunday. The ushers will be wearing gloves and cleaning the plates with sanitizing wipes, and there will be hand sanitizer in each pew. If you are not comfortable handling the plates, we will still have the offering boxes for you to use.
PSS: Bible in Community Texts
Nov 7 Acts 8:26-40
Nov 14 Acts 9 (Paul’s conversion)
Nov 21 Acts 10:9-23
Those concerns are still with us, right?
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus Christ, the one whose Spirit calls us, equips us, and sends us into the world as his ambassadors. Being ambassadors—being Christ’s witnesses in the world—will be our focus this Sunday as we complete the story of Stephen.
It’s our way of commemorating Reformation Sunday.
In the 16th-century Reformation, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and Cranmer led a religious and political revolt that gave us what we call Protestantism. Note that right there in the name of our branch of Christianity is the word “protest”. Protest was what drove those early reformers—a sense of protest that the church was too tied to politics, and that it had lost the true message of the Jesus story.
Those concerns are still with us, right?
As we journey through the Book of Acts together this fall, we’re being reminded of how the church lived in its earliest days. They communicated their faith without fear, which is saying something with the Roman Empire in control of their country. They shared what they had with each other and their community, and they started a movement that continues to this day. We should all notice that the early Christians focused on caring for people and sharing the message of Jesus. Nowhere in the early days of the church did they even dream about having any political power over other people. I’m guessing we should learn something from that.
Acts is a good part of the Bible to reflect on during Stewardship Season. We’re hearing from a wide range of ministries at First Pres as a way of inspiring each other to give and to partner in the work we’re doing together. I learned some new things on Sunday about the history of service to the hungry in this congregation. Maybe that was true for you, too. We’ll hear more as we go along.
Our church is building on the work of other Christian sisters and brothers, a line that goes back to the early church, passes through the Reformation, right up until the present day. The Book of Acts is teaching us new ways to be the church, even in its 2000 year-old stories. During this season, as we talk about how to accomplish the work we’re doing together, I hope our message series is inspiring you to even more service and generosity.
In the meantime, this Sunday we’ll see what we can learn about being faithful disciples and witnesses from Stephen’s death. See you on Sunday, one way or another.
Blessings in Christ,
Pastor John
PS: The passages for upcoming Sundays are below.
October
31 Acts 7:54-8:1a Reformation Sunday
November
7 Acts 8:26-40
What do we do?
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus Messiah, God’s gift of grace and love and sacrifice, the one who makes us whole and free again. Praise God!
I mentioned on Sunday that I’m aware of our sense of loss in not being able to gather and fellowship like we used to. I feel that, too. Just having you all hum during our closing hymn on Sunday was very moving to me—I miss your voices!
On Monday I was reminded of other wounds we bear from this past year and a half. I presided at the burial of two long-term members of First Pres—John and Katie Evans. They passed away last year about three weeks apart, and only now were the family permitted to gather and say goodbye. One of the grandchildren talked about being robbed of some precious time with her grandparents because of the COVID restrictions.
That one got me. Most of you know that I lost my dad last year, and we still haven’t been able to get the extended family together for a service. I do feel robbed—of time and final conversations, and even now of being able to celebrate his life with the people who loved him.
We’re all carrying a version of this sense of loss. What do we do?
Answers come in unlikely places sometimes. Just this past Sunday, as I was getting ready to come to church, I was watching Fareed Zakaria’s program on CNN. He paused at the end for a final reflection, where he talked about how his practical responses to COVID were thrown sideways by the death of his mother, 8000 miles away in India. He spoke of the grief of watching her funeral on his laptop, and grieving so much for the loss of his mom, and his inability to be there for the service. You can watch the segment here.
His advice to all of us is to spend as much time on our personal and spiritual life, as we do to our physical life and our battle against threats like COVID. It was a wise and perceptive reflection, and I was moved by his words.
We continue to live under the restrictions imposed by the COVID pandemic. We continue to be robbed of opportunities for connection by the need to keep ourselves and each other safe. We continue to feel this sense of loss. We’ll be remembering those whom we have lost in the past year at our Kirkin’ service on October 24th.
In March of 2020 when this all started, I wrote in one of my first Midweek Reflections that we could redeem this time apart by focusing on prayer and maybe even a little Bible study on our own. We could deepen our spiritual life in meaningful ways while we were kept from filling our time in other ways. I think it’s still true (and not just because a guy on CNN agrees!). I think we still have opportunities to draw closer to God and even to each other while limiting some of our contact and behavior.
I hope you’ll still seize this opportunity, that you can turn these limits into a time of growth and understanding. Give that gift to yourself, and to this church.
In the meantime, stay safe and healthy. Blessings to you,
Pastor John
PS: The passages for upcoming Sundays are below.
October
17 Acts 6:1-7
24 Acts 7:1-53 Kirkin’ Sunday
31 Acts 7:54-8:1a Reformation Sunday
November
7 Acts 8:26-40
history of American Evangelicals
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
Grace and peace to you in the name of the risen Christ, whose life we follow as a model for our own, and whose sacrifice we claim as our source of Shalom.
This week’s reflection comes in the form of an invitation. Tomorrow evening (Thursday) at 7pm I’ll be resuming our evening study with ten sessions on the history of American Evangelicals. You’ve heard a lot about evangelicals in the last 5-6 years, and very little of it has been good. I want to also say that not all of it has been true, either, and so that’s why I want for us to spend some time looking at the history of evangelicalism, the good, the bad, and the, well, ugly.
If your understanding of American evangelicalism is limited to Westboro Baptist, recent electoral politics, and the preachers you see on TV, then this class is for you.
What was originally at the heart of the evangelical movement in America? It can be summed up in a hymn—one that we’ve sung here at First Pres.
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus' blood and righteousness
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
But wholly lean on Jesus' name.
On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand.
Sounds like your garden variety Christianity, right? That’s the issue that we’ll wrestle with as we look at the lives and achievements of evangelicals, along with some of their mistakes and failures. It’s an interesting history, and whether you know it or not, it’s part of our history.
One thing we’ll be talking about tomorrow evening is the definition of evangelicalism developed by British historian David Bebington. (Full disclosure here: David was my doctoral advisor and remains a dear friend.) Bebbington set aside some of the cultural practices of evangelicals, and listed four characteristics that all evangelical groups and individuals carry. Please excuse the jargon—we’re going to talk about the plain meaning of these ideas in the class. Here is what is known (in jargonese) as the Bebbington Quadrilateral.
Biblicism: the belief in the divine inspiration of the Bible.
Conversionism: the belief that a person “converts” or comes to faith in Christ.
Activism: the call to share the faith so that others can convert.
Crucicentrism: the belief that the Cross is the defining event of our faith.
All of these deserve some explanation, and that’s how we’ll begin tomorrow night. I promise it will be lively and interesting, and that you’ll come away with a better understanding of our shared faith, and how that faith has been altered and distorted in the name of political power.
Join in for the first session, and see if it might interest you. See you at 7pm tomorrow!
Here are the Zoom details:
A History of American Evangelicals
Thursdays at 7pm
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84267847288
Blessings,
Pastor John
PS: The next passage for the Bible in Community groups is Acts 4:32-37. I’ll be preaching on that text on October 10th.
for the least of these
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus the Messiah, the one who loves us and calls us to love others.
By now you’ve heard that First Pres has joined with the Matthew 25 coalition of Presbyterian churches. We’re entering a season of commitment to explore ways that we can live into the words of the King in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats.
‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
There’s a reason this parable is so important to us. It teaches us, in story form, that God sees our love for others as a measurement of how much we love God. That’s tough to hear. I don’t love everyone I see—I don’t even love everyone I know most of the time. But this parable is meant to be an encouragement—it’s meant to be an inspiration and a challenge to see the image of God in every person we see. It’s an invitation to living according the values of the Kingdom of God.
The three emphases of the Matthew 25 Project remind us to take care of each other in our churches, but also to have eyes for the suffering of others, and to do something about it. We’re looking forward to growing into that challenge over the next year. You can read more about it here.
In the meantime, we’re moving into the season of making choices about the ministries we plan to accomplish together. That’s really the heart of what we call
The Stewardship Season—it’s a time when we prayerfully consider what God is doing in our congregation, and in our community through our congregation, and commit to supporting it with our finances, our time, and our prayers.
Over the next few months we’ll be engaging in a little Show and Tell. We’ll highlight ministries of the church, invite people who have been blessed by them to tell some of their stories, and ask you to pledge your support so that we can continue and grow our work together.
I’m looking forward to this part of the year!
For now, though, let me invite you to read the Parable of the Sheep and Goats in Matthew 25 a few times for yourself. Allow it to inspire and challenge you, and never to shame you. It’s meant to call us out of our complacency and into humble action. Let it do that for you.
May God bless you and keep you,
Pastor John
Everyone Has a Story
(The following is a message I gave at the American Church in London on the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. With the 20th anniversary coming up, I wanted to share it again. Pastor John)
Everyone has a story.
When I was growing up my parents used to talk about where they were when John F. Kennedy was killed. I remember where I was when the Challenger space shuttle exploded and crashed. It was the way my grandparents remembered Pearl Harbor or VE-Day. All of those tragic, historic moments become markers that stay with us—they become a part of the way we see the world around us. They shape how we think about everything that happens after that moment.
Everyone has a story.
This past week, as we’ve come up to the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, people have been sharing their stories of where they were and what they were doing—of people they knew who had been lost or who had suffered losses.
One of my closest friends from childhood is a flight attendant for American Airlines. She has a terrifying story to tell.
Some of my colleagues who are pastors in New York or New Jersey or Connecticut remember the tragic funerals that filled their calendars and broke the hearts of their congregations.
For months after the attacks, The New York Times ran a series of biographical sketches called “Portraits of Grief”, telling a little of the stories of almost 2000 of the victims who died that day—from bankers to busboys, from soldiers to security guards, from police officers to transit workers to those 343 firefighters who ran into the Towers and never came back. The stories gave faces and names to the numbers we heard on the news. It was essential reading.
Over the past few weeks the Los Angeles Times has been collecting short articles that highlight the impact of that day on people’s memories now.
I was working for Fuller Seminary in California at the time of the attacks, and I had been in New York on a fundraising trip about a week and a half before. Most of us on the West Coast were sleeping when the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center—it was 5:45am in California. Many of us who woke up to the news at 6 saw the second plane crash a few minutes later. My son was not quite a year and a half old that day. I wondered what kind of world he was going to grow up in.
Everyone has a story.
Acts 1:1-8
1 In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. 3 After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. 4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
6 Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Our text from the first chapter of Acts is a story that comes right at the end of Jesus’ ministry and before the birth of the church—for those of you who follow these things, this passage falls just before the Ascension and Pentecost, the giving of the Holy Spirit. The disciples are in the presence of the risen Christ, still trying to figure out what exactly happened over the last month or so. Everything was going so well, then it all went catastrophically wrong, and then Jesus emerged from the tomb and you get the idea that the disciples were just trying to keep up.
Jesus is trying to prepare them for what was coming next, but the disciples didn’t understand what he was talking about. Did you catch that question they asked while Jesus was telling them what to expect? Jesus has lived with them and taught them and demonstrated his love by serving people and healing diseases and casting out demons and dying on the cross—he did all of that to show that the values of his Kingdom are different from those of the world. And after all that they ask him: “So are you going to restore Israel to power now already?”
You have to think that Jesus groans here, wishing they could understand what he was telling them, but he presses on and says: “Once the Holy Spirit comes to empower you, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and all over the world.”
In so many words Jesus told them: You have a new story to tell, and I want you to tell it everywhere.
What was the story?
The first part of that story is that God came in the first place, that he took on human form. At Christmas when we sing about “Emmanuel,” we’re celebrating the mystery of “God with us,” of God coming to reconcile us to himself.
The second part of our story is the message that Jesus came to share. More than anything else he talked about the Kingdom of God. In his sermons and parables and his confrontations with religious and political power, Jesus described a world with values that went against the grain—of generosity and forgiveness, of grace and love for enemies.
But most importantly our story tells of the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross—of his taking on our sin and punishment so that we could come freely into the presence of God.
When Jesus told his disciples to “be my witnesses,” this is the story he wanted them to tell.
Being a witness in Jewish tradition was a very important thing. Only with two witnesses could a case be presented in court. Being an honest witness was so important that it becomes one of the Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against anyone.”
To be a witness was to testify, along with others, to the love and grace and sacrifice and redemption available through Jesus Christ.
The essence of the gospel is this: Through the life and ministry of Jesus we have seen what the world can look like when it operates according to the values of the Kingdom of God. Through the sacrifice of Jesus the Messiah we receive the good news that all people in all places can be reconciled to God.
So God’s already done the heavy-lifting. God has already done the work. The call on each one of our lives needs to be crystal clear: It isn’t to save the world. It’s to tell the story of the one who already has.
If that’s the story we’re meant to tell, then what does that mean for us today, as we gather to remember a horrible day and the impact it’s had on our lives?
First, it means that our lives aren’t trapped or limited by our memories of what happened 10 years ago. The gospel story is there to keep our fear and our anger in check—we have to keep from lashing out in revenge against people Christ came to redeem and to reconcile to himself.
Second, that new story means this: In the upside-down values of the Kingdom of God, our story of the September 11th attacks can become a catalyst for more forgiveness, not less. More work in the area of peacemaking, not less. More acts of gospel-sharing grace that tell the story of Jesus Christ in a meaningful, life-changing way.
But most importantly, to be a witness to the story of Jesus Christ is a daring, world-changing act of hope in a world that doesn’t have much of it right now. It’s an act of hope wrapped in the faith that announces to the world that Christ has come, Christ has risen, and Christ is coming again to make all things new.
How does all of that happen? That’s what we’re meant to discover together as the family of God, the Body of Christ, this local church. That’s why we’re going to spend the next few months here talking about what it means to love our neighbors, even if our neighbors are our enemies. That’s an act of hope.
We tend to think of hope as something elusive—something we can’t really find on our own. Sometimes we think of hope as something that happens to us beyond our control.
But Christian hope is active—it’s rooted in God’s faithfulness to his promises in the past. Christian hope is a discipline—we practice it daily so that we can get better at it—so that it can be more than simply hoping for a good parking place, or hoping you get into the right school.
One great theologian wrote that Christian “Faith hopes in order to know what it believes.”
To be Christ’s witnesses in this world is to be people of hope, people who hope so that we can know God’s story is true. And so we can go out and be his witnesses with that new story here in London, all around this country, and to the ends of the earth.
Let’s pray together.
____________________________________________________
An Update About Public Worship at First Pres SLO
We will continue with in-person worship, with a renewed emphasis on our guidelines for safe gatherings (see below).
We will monitor the COVID situation on a weekly basis, seeking guidance from healthcare professionals and reviewing statistics and other scientific indicators. We may choose at any time to suspend in-person worship and return to Zoom gatherings.
We advise anyone at medium or high risk to stay home and worship with us via the livestream. (To be clear: this includes the elderly, people with compromised immune systems, and those who have traveled outside the area. Use your best judgment.)
We are requiring the staff to be tested monthly for COVID exposure.
We will communicate clearly and often about our deliberations and decisions.
____
A word about our guidelines for in-person worship.
By attending in-person worship you are agreeing to abide by these guidelines.
We are trusting that everyone who attends our Sunday service is fully vaccinated—please do not come if you are not vaccinated. And while we are glad to see full compliance with the proper wearing of masks, we are concerned about the lack of social distancing in the Sanctuary. Remember, please keep at least 3 feet between each household. This is an essential part of our layered strategy for prevention in our public gatherings. I will be instructing the ushers to remind you about distancing as you enter the building.
Here are the specific guidelines for public worship.
Everyone is expected to abide by them:
Only vaccinated people will attend church in person.
The sanctuary is open at about 50% capacity (about 100 people).
Reservations will not be taken at first, but may be needed eventually.
All people will enter through the Courtyard.
All people will wear masks properly when indoors.
We will require distances between households of at least 3 feet.
We will not be singing or saying unison prayers or creeds.
We cannot allow hugging or other physical contact on church grounds.
We will not be serving food or drinks until advised differently.
A few comments here. First, if you’re not feeling well, please stay home.
Second, if these guidelines feel too restrictive to you, please address your personal liberty concerns to me or to a member of session, and NOT one of the ushers on Sunday morning. Finally, remember that this is good news! We’ve waited a long time to be together again, and we’re going to do it with caution and care and joy.
What is the gospel?
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
Grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, whose heart we know because of the life and ministry of Jesus the Messiah.
A few weeks ago I mentioned the Great Ends of the Church, a Presbyterian expression of who we are as the Body of Christ. If you missed it, here they are:
The Great Ends of the Church
The proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind.
The shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God.
The maintenance of divine worship.
The preservation of the truth.
The promotion of social righteousness.
The exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world.
I want to look at that first one today. What does it mean to proclaim the gospel “for the salvation of humankind”? At one level we are a part of a faith that believes that all salvation comes from Jesus Christ—that only through Christ’s saving work are we folded into God’s Kingdom. But…there’s a lot of healthy questioning about how that works, and doesn’t. It’s enough for us to believe that however we are invited into eternal life, from whatever faith, it is God’s work in Christ that makes it happen.
But what about all of this proclaiming of the gospel in the meantime? I think this is the key for us as we grow into our lives as true Jesus-followers—as Christians. What is that gospel?
Robert Guelich was my New Testament professor in seminary. He was an expert in the Gospel of Mark, and in a lecture he defined the Christian gospel this way:
“The ‘gospel’ then is the message that God acted in and through Jesus Messiah, God’s anointed one, to effect God’s promise of shalom, salvation, God’s reign.”
The good news we’re called to proclaim is that God has acted—that God has done something to restore the world to the way it was meant to be. Notice that the gospel isn’t about who receives it. The good news isn’t about who benefits. The gospel of Jesus is about the one who offers it—it’s about what God has done to show love and mercy and grace to all of creation.
We can get behind that, right?
Too much of the way Christianity is communicated talks about who’s in and who’s out. To be blunt, that kind of talk is way above our paygrade. Our job is to talk about the offer, not about who does or doesn’t accept it.
What a relief. And what a challenge.
Over these next months we’re going to talk a lot (a lot) about what it means to be the church. I’ll be preaching in the Book of Acts, we’ll be growing into our shared work as a Matthew 25 congregation (more on that soon), and we’ll be preparing for Advent by reflecting on who we’re called to be as the First Presbyterian Church of San Luis Obispo.
Through all of that we’ll remember that it is an essential part of our identity and purpose to proclaim “the gospel for the salvation of humankind”. It’s a holy task and calling. It’s why God offers the Holy Spirit to help us get it done. It is not just a part of what we do, it’s an essential piece of who we are, both individually and together.
Blessings to you in your own journey of faith. Stay safe and healthy.
Pastor John
——————————————————————————————————
An Update About Public Worship at First Pres SLO
· We will continue with in-person worship, with a renewed emphasis on our guidelines for safe gatherings (see below).
· We will monitor the COVID situation on a weekly basis, seeking guidance from healthcare professionals and reviewing statistics and other scientific indicators. We may choose at any time to suspend in-person worship and return to Zoom gatherings.
· We advise anyone at medium or high risk to stay home and worship with us via the livestream (to be clear, this includes the elderly, people with compromised immune systems, and those who have traveled outside the area).
· We are requiring the staff to be tested monthly for COVID exposure.
· We will communicate clearly and often about our deliberations and decisions.
A word about our guidelines for in-person worship. We are trusting that everyone who attends our Sunday service is fully vaccinated—please do not come if you are not vaccinated. And while we are glad to see full compliance with the proper wearing of masks, we are concerned about the lack of social distancing in the Sanctuary. Remember, please keep at least 3 feet between each household. This is an essential part of our layered strategy for prevention in our public gatherings. I will be instructing the ushers to remind you about distancing as you enter the building.
Here are the guidelines for public worship:
· Only vaccinated people will attend church in person.
· The sanctuary is open at about 50% capacity (about 100 people).
· Reservations will not be taken at first, but may be needed eventually.
· All people will enter through the Courtyard.
· All people will wear masks properly when indoors.
· We will require distances between households of at least 3 feet.
· We will not be singing or saying unison prayers or creeds.
· We cannot allow hugging or other physical contact on church grounds.
· We will not be serving food or drinks until advised differently.
A few comments here. First, if you’re not feeling well, please stay home. Second, if these guidelines feel too restrictive to you, please address your personal liberty concerns to me or to a member of session, and NOT one of the ushers on Sunday morning. Finally, remember that this is good news! We’ve waited a long time to be together again, and we’re going to do it with caution and care and joy.
what can we do?
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
Grace and peace to you in the name of God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is this God who came in the form of Jesus of Nazareth to show us how to live, and to give us a glimpse into the divine heart. Isn’t that amazing?
August has shaken us from our focus on our own problems and crises. The earthquake and suffering in Haiti breaks our hearts. The chaos and sense of failure in Afghanistan makes us feel ashamed. Both disasters feed a sense of helplessness—what can we do?
It’s important to remember that neither of these events happened suddenly, not even the earthquake. Haiti is an unstable place not because Haitians are innately unstable, but because the history of Spanish and French abuse, followed by years of corrupt leadership, leave it weak and defenseless in the face of natural disasters.
Afghanistan is an ongoing tragedy of which our country is just one part. Nations with grand ambition keep trying to conquer it, only to fail. Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and now the United States all tried to tame this complicated place, and that’s just in the last century or so.
In other words, the problems of today have roots in the decisions and mistakes and even the sins of yesterday. While we pray and offer assistance today, it’s equally important to make and support good decision-making in our leaders so that we aren’t faced with new preventable problems in the future (the unpreventable ones will be bad enough!). All of this applies to church life, too. Setting aside the unpreventable things, we can all do better to make healthier decisions now, so that we avoid predictable problems later.
For today, though, we can look for the groups who are doing good work on the ground, and support them. International Rescue Committee is doing solid work in Afghanistan, and our own Presbyterian Disaster Assistance teams are working hard to serve the people of Haiti. Money isn’t always the solution, but supporting good organizations in times like these might just be the best and most we can do.
In other news…
I’ll be announcing a new message series for the fall in the next week or two. We’ll be restarting the Bible in Community groups, an opportunity to reflect on sermon texts ahead of time. Let us know if you’re interested in joining or starting a group!
I’m teaching a new midweek class on Thursday, September 30th. It’s a New Theological Seminary of the West course called “A History of American Evangelicals”. The first hour will be streamed live on YouTube and available to First Pres SLO. The second two hours will move to Zoom for the degree students and auditors. You can find more information here.
We have a new person joining our First Pres staff. More details coming next week!
Stay tuned for more details about our fall ministries. In the meantime, stay safe and healthy!
Blessings in Christ,
Pastor John
the church rolls on
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus Christ, the one who came and loved and showed us some of what God is like.
And so another strange summer comes to an end… Restrictions and guidelines, spikes in infections and a continuing need to be careful. I know that most of us are thinking (or saying out loud) “enough already”. Know that I and the rest of our ministry team share your frustration and impatience—we’re in this together, even if we have to keep varying degrees of distance.
As I said on Sunday, we are watching the new infection rates closely. We’re not changing anything just yet, but I want all of us to create a little mental space for the possibility that we may have to close again and go back to worshipping together on Zoom. It’s not what we want, and it’s not what we hope for, but it is a real possibility and we don’t do anyone any favors to pretend that it’s not. We will communicate clearly and promptly when and if there are decisions we have to take.
In the meantime, the ministry of the church rolls on. We have a baptism this Sunday, there are new people coming to the church who connected with us during the pandemic, and we’re still working to serve you and our community as the people of God at First Pres.
We just finished our Wednesday evening class on the Creeds of the Faith. We started with the question that Jesus asks his disciples in Matthew 16: “Who do you say that I am?” We looked at the ancient creeds to see how early Christians defined our faith and helped us understand who Christ is and what the Trinity means. We jumped ahead after that to look at what the modern creeds and confessions teach us about how we’re meant to live as Christ-followers in our own culture and society. If you missed it, all of the sessions were recorded and are available on the church website.
We’re looking ahead to a new church year. When it’s safe we’ll get to have social events and classes and a church choir. Soon we’ll be announcing a new addition to our staff (stay tuned). We will continue to worship together with our safety guidelines (see below), and also through our livestream and recorded options. We are serving Christ faithfully as a church, even as we keep each other safe from illness.
Please continue to pray for our church as we navigate the challenges in front of us. Let us know how we’re doing (really), and know that our main goal is to glorify God in our service to you.
Blessings to you all. Stay safe and healthy,
Pastor John
Here are the guidelines for reopening for public worship:
· Only vaccinated people will attend church in person.
· The sanctuary is open at about 50% capacity (about 100 people).
· Reservations will not be taken at first, but may be needed eventually.
· All people will enter through the Courtyard.
· All people will wear masks properly when indoors.
· We will continue to require distances between households of at least 3 feet.
· We will not be singing.
· We cannot allow hugging or other physical contact on church grounds.
· We will not be serving food or drinks until advised differently.
A few comments here. First, if you’re not feeling well, please stay home. Second, if these guidelines feel too restrictive to you, please address your personal liberty concerns to me or to a member of session, and NOT one of the ushers on Sunday morning. Finally, remember that this is good news! We’ve waited a long time to be together again, and we’re going to do it with caution and care and joy.
For those of you who will be watching from home, we’ve changed from the Zoom program to our own page on a program called YouTube. An email will be sent out each Friday with the bulletin and a link where you can tune in on Sunday morning to watch the service. I would recommend clicking the link a little early, just to make sure you can see what you’re supposed to be seeing. If something happens to the live link, the service will be recorded and available in the early afternoon on our regular YouTube page. We are moving our Zoom fellowship for online viewers to 3pm on Sunday afternoons. Instructions for all of this will be in the Friday email.
The Great Ends of the Church
Grace and peace to you in the name of God, the one we know as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
As we look ahead, knowing that new variants and other things might throw some roadblocks in our way, it’s good for us to reflect a bit on who we’re called to be in our church.
You know that I talk a lot about what it means to be the church. Each January I preach on four expressions of the church: fellowship, worship, discipleship and mission. Our own denominational tradition has another way of talking about this—we call in The Great Ends of the Church.
Over the next few months I’ll pick one of these and talk about it in my Midweek letter. For now, here they are:
The Great Ends of the Church
The proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind
The shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God
The maintenance of divine worship
The preservation of the truth
The promotion of social righteousness
The exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world
Notice how the whole person is represented here. Of course we focus on social justice and basic human needs, but we never forget the spiritual transformation offered in the gospel. All of that is reflected in these six statements.
All of that will be reflected in the work we do together over the coming year.
That’s exciting, right? We’ll share the gospel message as we work for justice and provide what we can to the community around us. As we do all of that, we’ll be a scale model of the Kingdom of Heaven, which was Jesus’ favorite topic during his earthly ministry.
Keep these with you. Whether you’re in leadership or not, you have a part to play in helping us all live into this roadmap for service and witness. I’m looking forward to seeing how this unfolds in our life and work together. Stay tuned!
Blessings to you,
Pastor John
Here are the guidelines for reopening for public worship:
· Only vaccinated people will attend church in person.
· The sanctuary is open at about 50% capacity (about 100 people).
· Reservations will not be taken at first, but may be needed eventually.
· All people will enter through the Courtyard.
· All people will wear masks properly when indoors.
· We will continue to require distances between households of at least 3 feet.
· We will not be singing.
· We cannot allow hugging or other physical contact on church grounds.
· We will not be serving food or drinks until advised differently.
A few comments here. First, if you’re not feeling well, please stay home. Second, if these guidelines feel too restrictive to you, please address your personal liberty concerns to me or to a member of session, and NOT one of the ushers on Sunday morning. Finally, remember that this is good news! We’ve waited a long time to be together again, and we’re going to do it with caution and care and joy.
For those of you who will be watching from home, we’re changing from the Zoom program to our own page on a program called YouTube. An email will be sent out each Friday with the bulletin and a link where you can tune in on Sunday morning to watch the service. I would recommend clicking the link a little early, just to make sure you can see what you’re supposed to be seeing. If something happens to the live link, the service will be recorded and available in the early afternoon on our regular YouTube page. For now there will be a time of Zoom fellowship for livestream viewers immediately following the service. Instructions for all of this will be in the Friday email.
something to be planted or harvested
Grace and peace to you, each one of you. We are all the people of God, holy and dearly loved, and we are in this journey together.
We continue to work on what it means to be open for public worship again, and to offer three ways to participate. The in-person service has been going well. Our slightly streamlined order is creating a good flow as we worship together. The music and liturgists have been wonderful, and it’s been great to see faces again, even with masks! The livestream is fine tuning issues of volume and balance, and that has made the recording of the service better, too. We value your feedback, and we’re working each week to make the necessary improvements to what we do.
As we get our worship ducks in a row (I’ve never written that sentence before), it’s good to remind ourselves that there is more to coming back together as a church than just the worship service.
In the Roman Catholic calendar, this past Tuesday was the Feast of Blessed Pierre Faber. Pierre was a companion of St Ignatius of Loyola, a theologian who was the founder of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits). Faber was a gentle person, often in contrast to his friends who were harsher toward people they disagreed with, and he was known for teaching about the value in each person as a child of God.
In one of his writings, Peter Faber said this:
“…everywhere there is good to be done, everywhere there is something to be planted or harvested.”
I wonder if that isn’t a near-perfect word for us as we think about what it means to be the First Presbyterian Church of San Luis Obispo. We’ll resume some of the work we were doing before the COVID pandemic—it feels good to have meetings and make plans and see familiar faces again. But there are countless new things we can accomplish, too—big things and small things, each extending the love of God to each other and to our community.
“…everywhere there is good to be done, everywhere there is something to be planted or harvested.”
As we think about what lies ahead, let me encourage you to look for places where you can do some good, or where you can either plant seed or realize some fruit of a ministry already in place. There is so much we can do—so many ways to share Christ’s love that don’t need a plan or a meeting or a budget. All of it is important—all of it matters.
My focus is on building up our staff and working to provide space and order for worship together. Pray for us as we continue this work, and pray for yourself, that you can find your own place in the ministry of this church. There’s a lot of good to be done, and plenty of room for you to be a part of it.
Blessings to you. Stay safe and healthy.
Pastor John
Here are the guidelines for reopening for public worship:
· Only vaccinated people will attend church in person.
· The sanctuary is open at about 50% capacity (about 100 people).
· Reservations will not be taken at first, but may be needed eventually.
· All people will enter through the Courtyard.
· All people will wear masks properly when indoors.
· We will continue to require distances between households of at least 3 feet.
· We will not be singing.
· We cannot allow hugging or other physical contact on church grounds.
· We will not be serving food or drinks until advised differently.
A few comments here. First, if you’re not feeling well, please stay home. Second, if these guidelines feel too restrictive to you, please address your personal liberty concerns to me or to a member of session, and NOT one of the ushers on Sunday morning. Finally, remember that this is good news! We’ve waited a long time to be together again, and we’re going to do it with caution and care and joy.
For those of you who will be watching from home, we’re changing from the Zoom program to our own page on a program called YouTube. An email will be sent out each Friday with the bulletin and a link where you can tune in on Sunday morning to watch the service. I would recommend clicking the link a little early, just to make sure you can see what you’re supposed to be seeing. If something happens to the live link, the service will be recorded and available in the early afternoon on our regular YouTube page. There will be a time of Zoom fellowship for livestream viewers immediately following the service. Instructions for all of this will be in the Friday email.
caution and care and joy
It all begins with an idea.
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus the Messiah, the one who has always been with us, whether we’re social distancing or joining together for worship in our Sanctuary.
Our first in-person service since March 2020 is behind us now, it was so good to see all of those masked faces listening to the music, joining silently in prayer, and hearing God’s word read and proclaimed. It was a big step for us, and our team is enjoying what went well, and working hard to make improvements where it didn’t.
We’re aware that there were some volume issues for a few of you who were watching at home, and we’re looking into how the different devices manage sound. We’re also continuing to make sure the sound in the Sanctuary is what it should be. There was a glitch in our wifi at the church that prevented the post-service fellowship on Zoom from working, and I’m sorry about that. We’re doing everything we can to make sure it works this Sunday.
But on the other side of the ledger, that first service was even better than we’d hoped.
So we’ll come together again this Sunday, and add the Lord’s Table to the service. In addition to the precautions already in place (see below), here’s how we’ll do Communion. There will be two stations up front, each staffed by two people who will be masked and have protective gloves on. The congregation will be invited up row by row to receive the bread and a small cup, which you’ll take back to your seat. You’ll take the bread in your own time, to signify your personal journey of faith in Christ. We’ll all take the cup together as a sign of our unity in Christ. For those who can’t come forward, we will bring the bread and the cup to you.
As for the rest of the service, we’ll continue to exercise caution and care as we pledge to keep you and our staff safe. We ask that you do the same.
Here are the guidelines for reopening for public worship:
· Only vaccinated people will attend church in person.
· The sanctuary is open at about 50% capacity (about 100 people).
· Reservations will not be taken at first, but may be needed eventually.
· All people will enter through the Courtyard.
· All people will wear masks properly when indoors.
· We will continue to require distances between households of at least 3 feet.
· We will not be singing.
· We cannot allow hugging or other physical contact on church grounds.
· We will not be serving food or drinks until advised differently.
A few comments here. First, if you’re not feeling well, please stay home. Second, if these guidelines feel too restrictive to you, please address your personal liberty concerns to me or to a member of session, and NOT one of the ushers on Sunday morning. Finally, remember that this is good news! We’ve waited a long time to be together again, and we’re going to do it with caution and care and joy.
For those of you who will be watching from home, we’re changing from the Zoom program to our own page on a program called YouTube. An email will be sent out on Friday with the bulletin and a link where you can tune in on Sunday morning to watch the service. I would recommend clicking the link at 945am or so, just to make sure you can see what you’re supposed to be seeing. If something happens to the live link, the service will be recorded and available in the early afternoon. There will be a time of Zoom fellowship for livestream viewers immediately following the service. Instructions for all of this will be in the Friday email.
Remember to pray for our congregation and staff. We’ll see you one way or the other this Sunday as we worship and look at the example of Deborah and Jael.
Blessings to you,
Pastor John
interesting times
It all begins with an idea.
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus Christ, the one who loves us and forgives us, the one who restores us and calls us into service.
There’s an old saying that goes like this: “May you live in interesting times.” Actually, calling it a “saying” doesn’t quite do it justice. It’s meant to be a curse—“interesting times” are often filled with uncertainty and disruption and crisis.
Sort of like the last year and a half, right?
We’ve watched a pandemic unfold in front of our eyes, and seen what can happen when medical science gets used for political purposes. We’ve seen the limits of personal liberty—when a virus is spreading it simply doesn’t work for everyone to do whatever they want. And now we’re seeing new versions of the COVID virus escape the effects of the early vaccines and put more people at risk.
I could use some less interesting times, please.
In the midst of all of this, we’re going to reopen for in-person worship this Sunday at 10am. I’m looking forward to seeing people in the Sanctuary, and I’m enjoying the sensation of feeling slightly nervous about standing in front of you all—it’s been a while since I felt that! We’re opening as COVID infections are on the rise again, so we are going to be very careful about what we do.
We are going to exercise caution and care as we pledge to keep you and our staff safe. We ask that you do the same.
Here are the guidelines for reopening for public worship:
· Only vaccinated people will attend church in person.
· The sanctuary is open at 50% capacity (that’s 100 people, including staff).
· Reservations will not be taken at first, but may be needed eventually.
· All people will enter through the Courtyard.
· All people will wear masks properly when indoors.
· We will continue to require distances between households of at least 3 feet.
· We will not be singing.
· We cannot allow hugging or other physical contact on church grounds.
· We will not be serving food or drinks until advised differently.
A few comments here. First, if you’re not feeling well, please stay home. Second,
if these guidelines feel too restrictive to you, please address your personal liberty concerns to me or to a member of session, and NOT one of the ushers on Sunday morning. Finally, remember that this is good news! We’ve waited a long time to be together again, and we’re going to do it with caution and care and joy.
For those of you who will be watching from home, we’re changing from the Zoom program to our own page on a program called YouTube. An email will be sent out on Friday with the bulletin and a link where you can tune in on Sunday morning to watch the service. I would recommend clicking the link at 9:45am or so, just to make sure you can see what you’re supposed to be seeing. If something happens to the live link, the service will be recorded and available in the early afternoon. There will be a time of Zoom fellowship for livestream viewers immediately following the service. All of this will be in the Friday email.
One last comment. I know this feels like a lot of rules and limits and restrictions.
That’s because it is. All of it is designed to keep you and our ministry team safe in these uncertain times—these interesting times.
The blessing that God taught to Aaron in Numbers seems appropriate here:
“The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”
May that be true for all of us as we cautiously come together again. Keep the staff and ushers in your prayers this week, and one way or another we’ll see you on Sunday.
Blessings in Christ,
Pastor John
looking forward
It all begins with an idea.
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus the Messiah, the one who came and loved and served so that we might know the heart of God. Wow—what a thing to be able to say!
We are in the homestretch of our process of reopening for face-to-face worship and ministry. It’s been a long season of protective distancing and vaccinations and viral tests—most of us will be happy if we never have to hear the word “COVID” again.
But we know that’s not the way the world is working.
As we prepare for reopening, we are aware that there are several new strains of the virus that are causing spikes in infections around the country and in our state. As I write this I’m aware that three people in our own SLO County have died from COVID in the past week. We continue to be concerned.
With all of that in mind, we look forward to opening again at 10am on Sunday July 25th. The service will be broadcast live on YouTube, and also available in recorded form on that same platform. There will be a time of fellowship on Zoom immediately following the service, for those who view the livestream.
We are going to exercise caution and care as we pledge to keep you and our staff safe. We ask that you do the same.
Here are the guidelines for reopening for public worship:
· Only vaccinated people will attend church in person.
· The sanctuary is open at 50% capacity (that’s 100 people, including staff).
· Reservations will not be taken at first, but may be needed eventually.
· All people will enter through the Courtyard.
· All people will wear masks properly when indoors.
· We will continue to require distances between households of at least 3 feet.
· We will not be singing.
· We cannot allow hugging or other physical contact on church grounds.
· We will not be serving food or drinks until advised differently.
A few comments here. First, if you’re not feeling well, please stay home. Second, if these guidelines feel too restrictive to you, please address your concerns to me or to a member of session, and NOT one of the ushers on Sunday morning. Finally, remember that this is good news! We’ve waited a long time to be together again, and we’re going to do it with caution and care and joy.
More details will come. Please stay tuned to the letters and other communications we send out. Until then, stay safe and healthy!
Blessings,
Pastor John