What do we do when things don’t make sense? A number of our church family have faced unimaginable grief this past year, and we have been at a loss for answers. The death of loved ones, and it feels too soon. Cancer. Chronic pain. Broken family relationships. The list...
The First Pres Nominating Committee has presented a slate of leaders to begin three-year terms of service in January 2023. Here are the nominees the congregation will elect at an Aug. 28, 2022, congregational meeting. Elders Lyle Jacobsen Raised in the Lutheran...
The Great Commission calls on us to “make disciples,” and I’ve been thinking about how to do that. In pondering this I’ve asked, Who made me a disciple and how did they do it? For me the answer to the first part of the question is many people. The same is probably...
The word “sin” in the New Testament is related to archery and means “missing the mark.” I find this understanding of sin helpful because it brings clarity to sin’s nature. You can miss by a little or you can miss by a lot, but a miss is a miss, and so a sin is a sin....
Since 2002, East Gate Ministries has provided residential and outreach programs that help young women choose life for their unborn children. East Gate is a ministry partner, and in July is our featured local-mission group. We asked Isla Weaver, president of the...
What we believe deeply impacts the way we live. For example, if I believe, like many, that all relatively decent people go to heaven, I’ll try to live a relatively decent life and vaguely hope it is good enough. On the other hand, if I believe that Jesus is the way,...
Have you noticed that nobody seems to be happy about where things are headed these days? Gas prices make us shake our heads. The cost of our groceries is making us think twice about what we buy. The "culture war" over guns, abortion and climate change seems to be more...
https://youtu.be/LNNV_uNAlNw Wael Melek, who is completing his studies at Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, recently joined First Pres as a pastoral intern. He will be completing an internship through the end of the year. We recently did a Q&A with Wael to...
Perhaps the most important question for everyone to answer is also an amazingly evangelical question. Jesus himself asks the question in Matthew 16 and in Mark 8 and Luke 9. “Who do you say that I am?” This question is so important because how we answer the...
When you see and experience all that is happening in the world, what do you feel? War in Ukraine. Political fighting at home. Gun violence. Suffering and death. What do you feel? Angry? Sad? Disappointed? Hopeless? Reading the Psalms recently, I found a new word to...