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Newsletter of First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta
SUNDAY Schedule Sunday, October 21 Children’s Sabbath • Prayer breakfast for Homeless persons - 6:30 am, Fifield Hall • Communion Service 8:15 am, Winship Chapel
• The Mustard Seed Bookstore - 9:00 am - 1:00 pm • Worship Service - 9:00 am, Sanctuary • Cherub Choir - 9:30 am, Rm 222 • Youth Choir - 9:30 am, Rm 223 • Sunday School for all ages - 10:05 am • Worship Service - 11:15 am, Sanctuary • Fall Festival – 12:15 pm, Back Parking Lot
Sunday, October 28 Reformation Sunday • Prayer breakfast for Homeless persons - 6:30 am, Fifield Hall • Communion Service 8:15 am, Winship Chapel
• The Mustard Seed Bookstore - 9:00 am - 1:00 pm • Worship Service - 9:00 am, Sanctuary • Cherub Choir - 9:30 am, Rm 222 • Youth Choir - 9:30 am, Rm 223 • Sunday School for all ages - 10:05 am • Worship Service - 11:15 am, Sanctuary • Fellowship Hour - 12:15 pm, Reception room
October 21 & 28, 2012 Christ at the Center
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or several w e e k s n o w, t h e Elementary kids and I have been preparing f o r C h i l d r e n’ s Sabbath, and I have learned so much from them October 21 - along the way. Children’s sabbath One night at LOGOS while we were working on planning the service, we took a little break and I challenged the 4th and 5th graders to put together a rug for the Temple. The rug came in tiles that had to be pieced together, and another adult and I spent our morning trying to figure it out, and couldn’t! The kids found a perfect pattern in less than four minutes – I was amazed, and humbled! As we discussed their process and their success, they had some really clever ideas about why kids are sometimes able to see things with more clarity than we are. Our ideas about faith and God can get muddled in the details of day to day living, and our concept of truth can get stretched and pulled in every different direction by the conflicting messages we find in our culture. Thankfully, we have been called to have a childlike faith by a Savior who teaches that the most important thing is to love Him with all our heart, being, mind and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:30-31). How nonchalantly we stray from this simplicity. We make our faith experience about details that have little to do with actually following Jesus. October 21st is Children’s Sabbath. We will join congregations around the world in setting aside a day to remember what it truly means to be God’s child. The children of First Pres will help lead us in worship and we will hear from them how powerful a simple faith can really be.
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n this season of politics much of the debate has centered on financial issues: the economy, government debt, the housing market, corporate and individual tax rates. The truth is that money matters, October 28 doesn’t it? And as Craig Goodrich to preach individuals, much as we would like not to admit it, money has great meaning in our own lives. For most of us, I suspect, it is a source of security as well as a source for worry: “Will we have enough?” So it strikes us as strange when we read the apostle Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth in which he describes the grace of God granted to the churches in Macedonia; “for during a severe ordeal of affliction, their abundant joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity.” These believers were eager not to acquire more money but to give it. In fact, Paul says they were “begging us earnestly for the privilege of sharing in this ministry to the saints.” (2nd Corinthians 8:1-4). And why? At the heart of their eagerness was the good news of Jesus Christ, who, Paul says, by his own “generous act” in laying down his life “became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.” As we begin this Stewardship Season, we come to the letter “G” as we focus on what it means to have “WINGS” in our theme from Isaiah 40:31: “Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” The “G” in our WINGS is for “Giving,” but it also could be for “Generosity” and for “Grace,” because these words all belong together. What about you? Do you know that God in Jesus Christ has generously given you grace? Come to worship this Sunday. The sermon is entitled “Grace to Give.” And may God give us wings to soar! Faithfully, Craig