First Presbyterian Church, Sterling IL

Welcome to First Presbyterian Sterling Online! Visit past services at firstonsecond.blogspot.com . Click here for an automatic playlist that plays this week's videos. (Click "Play All.") God’s People Gather *Welcome with Christina *Prelude with Amy Prelude Pondering Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals. --Martin Luther King, Jr. *Call to Worship (Romans 6, Matthew 10) with Emmett Leader: In our baptism, we are united with Christ. People: So that we may walk in newness of life! Leader: We are no longer servants of the world, People: but servants of our living Christ! Leader: We have been set free! People: And we walk in the light of the Lord! ALL: Let us worship God! *Opening Song - Morning Has Broken *Call to Confession, Prayer of Confession, and Assurance of P...

Welcome to First Presbyterian Sterling Online! Visit past services at firstonsecond.blogspot.com . Click here for an automatic playlist that plays this week's videos. (Click "Play All.") God’s People Gather *Welcome with Christina *Prelude with Amy Prelude Pondering “What kills a soul? Exhaustion, secret keeping, image management. And what brings a soul back from the dead? Honesty, connection, grace” ― Shauna Niequist, author, Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living *Call to Worship (Romans 6, Matthew 10) with Mary Jo Leader: In our baptism, we are united with Christ. People: So that we may walk in newness of life! Leader: We are no longer servants of the world, People: but servants of our living Christ! Leader: We have been set free! People: And we walk in the light of the Lord! ALL: Let us worship God! *Opening Song - Would I Have Answered When You Called *Call to Confe...

  Welcome to First Presbyterian Sterling Online! Visit past services at firstonsecond.blogspot.com. Click here for an automatic playlist that plays this week's videos. (Click "Play All.") God’s People Gather  *Welcome with Christina *Prelude with Amy Prelude Pondering “When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.” ― Paulo Coelho, The Devil and Miss Prym *Call to Worship (Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19) - with Kayla, Mike, & Brayden Leader: Let us join our words with the words of the Psalmist, as we are gathered to worship. We gather to worship in gratitude and love for God. People: Because God has heard our cries for mercy; God listens carefully to ...

Welcome to First Presbyterian Online! Visit past services at firstonsecond.blogspot.com . Click here for an automatic playlist that plays this week's videos. (Click "Play All.") God’s People Gather *Prelude with Amy Prelude Pondering Because the Christian God is not a lonely God, but rather a communion of three persons, faith leads human beings into the divine communion. One cannot, however, have a self-enclosed communion with the Triune God- a "foursome," as it were-- for the Christian God is not a private deity. Communion with this God is at once also communion with those others who have entrusted themselves in faith to the same God. Hence one and the same act of faith places a person into a new relationship both with God and with all others who stand in communion with God.” ― Miroslav Volf, After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity *Welcome with Christina *Call to Worship with Toni & Diana Leader: We a...

Welcome to First Presbyterian Online!   Visit past services at firstonsecond.blogspot.com . Click here for an automatic playlist that plays this week's videos. (Click "Play All.") God’s People Gather *Prelude with Amy - Come Now is the Time to Worship Prelude Pondering The spirit likes to dress up like this: ten fingers, ten toes, shoulders, and all the rest at night in the black branches, in the morning in the blue branches of the world. It could float, of course, but would rather plumb rough matter. Airy and shapeless thing, it needs the metaphor of the body, lime and appetite, the oceanic fluids; it needs the body’s world, instinct and imagination and the dark hug of time, sweetness and tangibility, to be understood, to be more than pure light that burns where no one is— so it enters us— in the morning shines from brute comfort like a stitch of lightning; and at night lights up the deep and wondrous drownings of the ...

Visit past services at firstonsecond.blogspot.com . Welcome to First Presbyterian Sterling Online! *Prelude with Emma Prelude Pondering “Waiting is the hardest work of hope.” —Lewis B. Smedes *Welcome with Aaron *Call to Worship with Jodi Leader: Clap your hands, all you peoples; shout to God with songs of joy. Lift up your hearts. People: We lift them to the Lord. Leader: God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet. Lift up your hearts. People: We lift them to the Lord. Leader: God is ruler over all the earth; the Lord reigns on a holy throne. Lift up your hearts. People: We lift them to the Lord. Leader: God put this power to work in Christ, raising him from the dead. Lift up your hearts. People: We lift them to the Lord. Leader: God has highly exalted him, giving him the name above all names. Lift up your hearts. People: We lift them to the Lord. Leader: Jesus Christ is Lord! Glory to God in the highest. Lift up your hearts. Peo...

Welcome to First Presbyterian Sterling Online! Visit past services at firstonsecond.blogspot.com . God’s People Gather  *Prelude with Amy Prelude Pondering There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Christ, it must follow that you are trying to obey him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because he has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of heaven is already inside you. ― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity * Call to Worship with Henry Leader: Jesus promised he would ask God to send an advocate. People: To help us and be with us forever. Leader: Jesus promised that the Spirit would be the spirit of truth. People: The world couldn’t accept it, but we know the Spirit is with us. Leader: Jes...