The Messenger May / June 2023

From Your Pastor

Brian Lays

Dear Riversiders:

It’s hard to believe that summer is upon us again—or is it? Why do we so often marvel at how quickly time goes by? It’s as though we never quite get used to how quickly the seasons turn, so often finding ourselves alarmed that the pace at which our lives unfold.

The psalmist asks God, “Teach us to count our days, that we may gain a wise heart” (Ps 90:12). There is something wise, it seems, in having a good sense of time. Perhaps it has something to do with living in the present moment. Or perhaps it has something to do with gratitude for each day. At any rate, wisdom and a clear sense of time must be related.

This summer, we will offer a sermon series on the wisdom literature found in the Old Testament. This genre is found mostly in Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs, though some psalms fit the category as well. These books are designated “wisdom books” not just because of the frequent occurrence of the word “wisdom” within them, but because of their subject matter: they are resolutely focused on the present moment.

Wisdom literature deals with daily human experience and everyday matters of conduct. Wisdom seeks connections, patterns, and principles, which are possible only because God’s creation is “good,” that is, reliable. The sun comes up each morning. Time is allotted to each day. And that time can be used well, or it can be wasted.

But wisdom literature is not naïve about the more complicated side of daily life. The world may behave in a patterned, predictable way, but few things are 100% certain. Sometimes, we get what we don’t deserve. Sometimes we work hard, but “reap the whirlwind.” Sometimes bad things happen to good people (or good things to bad people). What, then, do we make our lives? What do we make of God?

Wisdom grows out of the collective faith experience of God’s people, and offers us principles by which to live as best we can. These books rarely get the airtime they deserve, but we are excited to give them a good read this summer!

Wherever you go and whatever you do this summer, may you remember this most basic tenant of biblical wisdom: Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge the LORD, and the LORD will make straight your paths” (Proverbs 3:5).

Grace and peace,

Pastor Brian

Congratulations, Patsy

Honorary Life Membership by the Presbyterian Women

Patsy Gaillard was presented the 2023 Honorary Life Membership by the Presbyterian Women. The Membership is given to honor a member’s faithful service to the church. Patsy was elected to serve as Moderator of the Presbyterian Women in 2019 and continued serving for 3 years through the Covid pandemic. Patsy’s faithful leadership and commitment through the pandemic disruption kept us going and Presbyterian Women emerged with renewed energy. Patsy was not able to be at the Presbyterian Women’s Annual Meeting where the award was presented, but a group of the PW went to The Windsor later that day and presented the award to her.

Front row: Patsy Gaillard and husband, Jack Gaillard

Back row (left to right); daughters, Marty Gaillard, Rachel Gaillard

Summer 2023 Dates to Rememer

June 1-15 - The Wee Three Challenge 1 (the challenges are on the back of the Wee Three)

June 5-9 - Vacation Bible School and Summer in the City

June 12-16 - Reviving Baseball in the Inner City at Murray Hill Park

June 16-30 - The Wee Three Challenge 2

June 25-30 - CROSS Missions Youth Trip in Charlotte, NC

July 1-15 - The Wee Three Challenge 3

July 2 - Summer Sizzler event at RPC

July 3 - RPC Field Trip to a Jumbo Shrimp Game, RPC has a block of tickets! $15pp.

July 8-15 - Montreat Youth Conference

July 16-31 - The Wee Three Challenge 4

July 19-23 - Montreat Middle School Youth Conference in Maryville, TN

August - The Wee Three Challenge 5

August 4 - RPC Game Night with Pizza

August 11-13 - Women’s Connection at Montreat

For more information on any of these events please go to www.rpcjax.org/calendar, check the weekly email or call the church office (904) 355-4585

The Wee Three can be picked up at worship or in the Church Office. (The challenges are on the back!) Text or email photos to (904) 274-3470 or hello@rpcjax.org

Communal Communion

By Windy Taylor

“It is also called Holy Communion because, when feeding at this implausible table, Christians believe that they are communing with the Holy One himself, his spirit enlivening their spirits, heating the blood, and gladdening the heart just the way wine, as spirits, can. They are also, of course, communing with each other. To eat any meal together is to meet at the level of our most basic need…. To eat this particular meal together is to meet at the level of our most basic humanness, which involves our need not just for food but for each other. I need you to help fill my emptiness just as you need me to help fill yours. As for the emptiness that's still left over, well, we're in it together, or it in us. Maybe it's most of what makes us human and makes us brothers and sisters.” –

Frederick Buechner

Of all the indignities imposed on us during the early days of the Covid pandemic, few were more spiritually awful than the hermetically-sealed single-serving communion kits that we dutifully peeled and consumed every month. For many denominations – Anglicans, Catholics, Greek/Eastern/Russian Orthodox, and Episcopalians – communion is a weekly occurrence, and the loss of “normal” communion during the pandemic was deeply felt among those congregations.

As we emerged from pandemic restrictions and considered how to bring back a more communal communion, I offered to make the bread for our congregation. This is the story of that bread.

When I moved to Tallahassee in 2006, my mother strongly urged me to attend Faith Presbyterian Church. The senior pastor, Tom Borland, grew up here at Riverside and attended RPDS with my mom and her twin brother. We joined Faith in part because we felt like a little piece of Riverside was there.  Tom baptized Hazel in 2014, just before his retirement from full-time ministry.

I knew that Faith Presbyterian had the most delicious communion bread, but it took many years to realize that it was made by a congregation member. The recipe had been passed down a few times and contained some esoteric instructions - for example, the baker is told to flip a sheet pan over and bake the bread on the back of the pan.

My friend Tracy was the primary bread-maker when I attended Faith, and she shared the recipe with me so I could help fill in when she was out of town. I was so nervous the first time I attempted the recipe! I put my phone on silent, barricaded the doors to the kitchen, and focused like a laser until the little squares were safely cooled and stored. I did not want to let God down with sub-standard communion bread.

My copy of the recipe is now liberally spattered with butter and hand-written notes. I cut the amount of sugar in half, adapted the recipe for the food processor, and bake the bread on a rimless cookie sheet instead of the back of a rimmed sheet pan. The letter of the recipe may have changed, but the spirit – a small, simple act of hospitality for the church family – remains the same.

Why Do We Do What We Do?

Pastor Brian Lays

Why do we do what we do? A column to answer questions about worship: Why do we recite other creeds, not just the Apostles’ Creed, after the sermon?

The Apostles’ Creed is surely the best-known confession of faith. Like the Nicene Creed, its usage is wide-spread across the Christian faith, but it is shorter than the Nicene, lending itself to memorization or study in Sunday School, and of course, recitation in worship. Many of you, like me, grew up knowing it by heart, perhaps from sheer repetition.

In worship, after the sermon, we come to the “Affirmation of Faith.” The purpose of this liturgical moment is to “confess the faith of the church.” In doing so, the “proclamation of the word” (the sermon) is, in a certain sense, tested, or measured, against the confessional documents of the church. It is here that the Apostles’ Creed often appears.

The Catholic and Orthodox traditions place greater authority in “church tradition” than most Protestant denominations do, what with our emphasis on scripture alone (sola scriptura) as the only “unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ.” However, we do not ignore church tradition altogether. In fact, our Presbyterian Church USA Book of Confessions contains twelve confessional documents to which we have collectively assigned a certain degree of authority, not equal to scripture, but of greater import than the whims or any individual preacher or teacher.

The Apostles’ Creed is one of these confessions, but it is one among many. The Book of Confessions contains confessions of the early church (the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds), confessions from the Reformation period (such as the Scots’ and Westminster Confessions), and confessions from the last century (such as the Theological Declaration of Barmen and the Brief Statement of Faith). As a whole, the Book of Confessions demonstrates that the church in every age must confess its unchanging faith in Christ in the midst of the changing circumstances and challenges of contemporary life.

While the Apostles’ Creed does a marvelous, succinct job of proclaiming the foundational tenants of Christian faith, the other creeds, confessions, and catechisms are important, too, and often contain more detailed elaboration of certain doctrines or subjects than we find in the Apostles’ Creed. (The Second Helvetic Confession, for instance, comprises 66 pages of the Book of Confessions.)

When pastors, elders, or deacons are ordained to their respective ministries, one of the vows they vows they must affirm has to do with our denomination’s confessions. They are asked, “Do you sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions of our church as authentic and reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe and do, and will you be instructed and led by those confessions as you lead the people of God?”

Those of us who write liturgy try to include words from each of the confessions at least once a year. In the end, the Apostles’ Creed still receives much more attention than, say, the Confession of 1967—and rightfully so. Still, the Affirmation of Faith in worship enables us to give all the confessions, not just the Apostles’ Creed, some important public recognition and review.

Care for the Earth / The Earth’s Care of Us

Pastor Dana Riley

On February 6th a group of RPC members gathered in the Thompson Parlor to brainstorm ways RPC could raise awareness for and be proactive in caring for the earth and our neighborhood. Seeds of ideas were sprinkled into fertile soil and life sprang forth in the form of Sunday School classes, field trips, a neighborhood trash pick up, and a creative worship service which all served to educate, illuminate, and empower people to be better stewards of our shared planet.

Since 2016, RPC has been certified as an Earth Care Congregation through the Presbyterian Church (USA), one of only 15 in the state. Being an Earth Care Congregation means moving the church and its members toward making more sustainable choices that restore and protect all of God’s children and creation.

Caring for the earth is a lifestyle choice that we integrate into all aspects of our lives. Supporting local farmers, planting native trees and shrubs in our yard, growing what we eat, sharing what we grow, and enjoying our natural world, are ways we can embrace and tend the earth from which we came and are sustained.

Earth care is ongoing, not just one day or one month out of the year. So, ride a bike, take a hike, work in the garden, pick up trash in the neighborhood, learn about the different varieties of plants and animals that are native and a necessary part of our ecosystem. We are called not only to take care of the earth, but to let the earth take care of us; to cool us, to warm us, to breathe into us, to hydrate us, to feed us, to shelter us, to heal us, to commune with us. Let us give back to the earth as the earth gives to us. May it be so!

Bibles Presented to RPC Children

For all K-5th Graders

Emily Heeg and Pastor Brian presented age-appropriate Bibles to all Kindergarten through 5th grade students in worship on Sunday May 14. These Bibles, from Riverside Presbyterian Church, are one of the ways the church demonstrates to children that they are an important part of the church community. During the presentation, children were encouraged to use their Bibles to explore God’s story and their part in God’s continuing work in this world.

If you were not able to participate on May 14 and have not heard from Emily Heeg about your child receiving a Bible, please contact emily.heeg@rpcjax.org.

Showing of At the River

Sponsored by Riverside, South Jacksonville and Palms Presbyterian

On May 10 and 11, screenings of At the River: A Memoir of Struggle and Grace in the Segregated South took place at South Jacksonville Presbyterian and at Palms Presbyterian. For each gathering, participants enjoyed a simple meal, viewed the film and participated in a question and answer session with filmmaker Carolyn Crowder. These two screening were the only two in Florida. To learn more about At the River visit www.carolyncrowder.com.

At the River: A Memoir of Struggle and Grace in the Segregated South, produced by Carolyn Crowder, documents interviews with ministers throughout the Southeast, now in their 80s and 90s, about their experiences and what it took to go against the racist currents during those hard days within their local communities and congregations.

Thanks for Dreaming!

How can we be the church in our 5 Points neighborhood?

• Get to know our neighbors!

• Support/promote local merchants by giving them our business (thank, recognize, affirm)

• Host small groups and meet in local restaurants/bars

• Organize/Promote efforts to “Keep 5 Points Clean”

• Monthly trash pick-up

• Distribute buckets with grabbers to local merchants

• Sponsor events in Riverside Park (i.e. Art in the Park)

• Blessing of the Pets

• Create partnerships with neighboring churches (RPUMC), residents, merchants, property owners, and nonprofits

• Form a group to address issues, ideas and concerns

• Transition from a gathered church to a neighborhood outreach church.

• Christmas connections

• Christmas Carols at the Corner of Park and Post (w/ RPUMC)

• Create presence at Riverside Arts Market (RAM)

• RAP garden tour

• Host/ Promote neighborhood tours

How can RPC use the grounds and building spaces to provide hospitality for our neighbors and to create more visibility in the neighborhood?

• Open the sanctuary for non-worship community events, concerts

• Outdoor concert on the corner or in parking lot

• Use of Bittinger or sanctuary basement space for:

• Pop-up artists, open mic, dances, seminars, book groups

• Host listening event to hear from local merchants, residents

• Access to parking lots on Friday and Saturday nights

• parking fees?

• Light our stained glass windows from the inside at night

• Family Life Center

• Identify and prioritize uses for space

• Basketball, volleyball, pickleball, dances, art shows, etc.

Miscellaneous

• Name and mission statement for RPC Neighborhood group

• Ensure that RPC’s relationship with 5 Points is consistent with our focus as a Matthew 25 congregation

• Explore theological/biblical basis for ministry in our community/neighborhood/city

• Create a calling card sized list of food pantries and services in the neighborhood to hand out.

• What is the geographic size and scope of 5 Points?

• Compile a list of all merchants’ names/contact information

• Determine how many and which RPC members live in the neighborhood

Results of the Outreach Committee’s Dream Session on April 30, 2023

Caring for Our Members

by Pastor Ruth Elswood

I recently came across a term that Brian McLaren used about the church of the present day and the future. He says that churches must be “schools for love,” placing “love of God, neighbor, self, and all creation at the center.” 1 Riverside’s deacons aim to be schools for love in many different ways. We have two new initiatives that clearly show that we are a “school for love,” our Care Pals initiative and our Homebound Communion program.

Every one of our members who are homebound have now been paired with a member of the congregation, or an entire Riverside family, who will write cards, make phone calls, send email messages, and visit with them. This kind of personal connection with a caring fellow church member is so very important to someone who has attended church all their lives, but can no longer be in regular physical contact with friends and church family. It is truly an expression of the love for neighbor that Jesus taught us to show one another. Thank you to those who have signed up for Care Pals. There will be another opportunity to serve in this way later in the year.

Another way Riverside is helping our homebound members to stay connected is by taking communion to those who can no longer come to church. Some of our deacons, elders and pastors are taking the bread and cup to those who request to be served at home. A short liturgy is read, an extension of the Lord’s Supper liturgy heard in church, and prayer is offered, as the elements are served. As with Care Pals, this program keeps every member connected to the life of the Riverside community, and is a warm and deeply meaningful demonstration of our love for our neighbor. 1Center for Action and Contemplation website, https://cac.org/daily-meditations/a-school-for-love-2020-01-03/

RPC Youth

May 7 was Confirmation, Senior, and Youth Sunday!

Thank you to the 23 Lunch Buddies!

What a busy Sunday for RPC’s youth! We were led in worship by our youth, welcomed our confirmands into the life of the Church at Riverside, and recognized and blessed our high school seniors. Thank you

RPC youth for all the time you all spent planning and love your poured into leading! Check out these pictures from Youth Sunday/Confirmation Sunday/Senior Sunday!

College Secret Pals

Revealed!

Thank you to all of the Secret Pals who have prayed, sent notes, care packages and more to these college students!

College Student Their Secret Pal

Jack Adams

Anna Althuis

Emmanuella Althuis

Noah Althuis

Ashton Body

Louie Body

Tilson Branch

Thomas Brumback

Caroline Cavendish

Emily Coll

J.P. Coll

Alice Creed

Chapman Davis

Coral Day

Janie Day

Mason Doherty

Anaya Dowdell

Josh Dryden

Charity Fisher

Alexis Garas

Grady Gillam

Wiley Gillam

Patrick Green

Jane Gray Hager

Reid Hampton

Betsy Dunlap

Elizabeth Jolley

Lisa Taylor

Sarah Cotchaleovitch

Norma Farnell

Pam & Ron Roberts

Cindy Parker

Mary Elizabeth Ballentine

Dave Pierson

Bookie Zeigler

Amy McGeorge

Karla Newton

Mary Elizabeth Ballentine

Stephanie Estes

Diane Tuttle

Darlene Hampton

Carol Proctor

Elizabeth Meux

Dorothy Marsh

Keely Woodall

Anne Reid Hawkins

Julie Handley

Mary Coxe

Marilyn Noon

Jim Overton

College Student Their Secret Pal

Will Harbison

Caroline Harding

Cole Heeg

Kelly Jenkins

Luke Jenkins

Quentin Lockwood

Christian Matson

Parker McEachin

Will McLaurine

Diane Milne

Dougie Milne

Ford Milne

Lainey Rose

Charlotte Rosenberg

Ben Sandlin

Jessica Shipp

Mabel Smith

Julia Swiercek

Sam Swiercek

Hollyn Taylor

Kristin Taylor

Tyler Twilley

Will Walker

Rob Overly

John Humes

Heather Campbell

Rachel Gaillard

Betsy Miller

Leigh Rosenbloom

Betsy Miller

Kathy Shuke

Debbie Grisnik

Robin Campen

Robin Campen

Neil Schoenberger

Lisa Taylor

Jean Grant-Dooley

Elisabeth Day

Virginia Zeigler

Lissa Kiser

Arden Brugger

Bud Para

Nancy Schneider

Anne Mesrobian

Cassie Buckner

Windy Taylor

Kendall Woodall Jean Grant-Dooley

Lunch Buddies and Students Celebrate

There have been 23 Lunch Buddies from RPC and elsewhere who have met once a week throughout the school year with a student at West Riverside Elementary. Through playing games and conversations, the adults develop caring relationships with their students during the half-hour lunchtime. The Lunch Buddies and students celebrated the end of the year with an ice-cream party! Next year consider joining us to make a difference in a child’s life. We are grateful to the following Lunch Buddies:

Marisol Bodero, Arden Brugger, Laura Crooks, Erin Dickey, Joe Eberly, Jean Grant-Dooley, Debbie Grisnik, Stephanie Dukes, Jan Duncan, Kae Harding, Bill Hoff, John Humes, Sarah Leuthold, Janet Novich, Ed Pratt-Dannals, Bud Para, Kathy Para, Margaret (Cindy) Parker, Mark Rosenberg, Susan Schilling, Karen Taylor, Cynthia Thompson, David Williams.