Sunday, April 11

It is the Second Sunday in Easter and we will celebrate worship in our homes via Facebook Live and YouTube. We will have Sunday School before and fellowship after worship on Zoom conference. We will post the recording of our worship service on our website. Our scripture passages are Psalm 133 and John 20:19-31. Our guest preacher, Rev. Brian Ellison, will be preaching, “When Doors Are Closed.”

Brian has served since 2012 as executive director of the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, a national organization engaging, educating and equipping congregations and councils toward an equity not yet fully realized for LGBTQIA+ people in church and society. He is also stated clerk of the Synod of Mid-America and of Heartland Presbytery and a host/contributor at KCUR, NPR in Kansas City. Brian was previously pastor of a congregation in the Kansas City area for 13 years, where he still lives with his partner, Troy, and their two dogs, the affable Charlie and the recalcitrant Willoughby

April 8, 2021

In sure and certain hope of the Resurrection through our Lord Jesus Christ, St. Andrews’ congregation extends sympathy to the family of Melissa Browning, who died this morning.Plans for a Memorial Service are underway. The Browning family would appreciate your prayers. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; they rest from their labors and their works follow them.St. Andrews Presbyterian Church

This week, on the day we call Good Friday, we remember Jesus’ death on the cross. 2,000 years after the crucifixion, the significance of the cross may, in some ways, be lost on us. The late Dr. James H. Cone, in his 2011 book, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, makes the connection between the ancient means of capital punishment and the far-too-recent means of an extra-judicial death penalty. “The lynching tree,” Cone writes, “reveals the true meaning of the cross for American Christians … The cross needs the lynching tree to remind Americans of the reality of suffering — to keep the cross from becoming a symbol of abstract, sentimental piety … yet the lynching tree also needs the cross, without which it becomes simply an abomination.”

Click here to listen to Dr. Cone talk about this in this 2017 presentation to National Capital Presbytery (38 minutes). And if you’d like to see an interview with Dr. Cone by Bill Moyers, this video (45 minutes) from 2007 shares an earlier conversation about the cross, the lynching tree, and our nation. 

Sunday, April 4 It is The Resurrection of the Lord and we will celebrate worship and communion in our homes via Facebook Live and YouTube. We will have Sunday School before and fellowship after worship on Zoom conference. We will post the recording of our worship service on our website. Rev. Camille will be preaching “Again & Again, The Sun Rises.” You are invited to have your own bread and juice with you while you watch (or as close as you can get with what you have at home), so you can share communion around a great big virtual table. Our hymns will be Christ the Lord is Risen Today and Thine is the Glory. Our scripture passages are Psalm 118:1-2, 14-21 and Mark 16:1-8. For a copy of Sunday’s bulletin, click here. Please see the calendar below for all of our Holy Week activities

One of the three focuses of the Matthew 25 vision is dismantling structural racism. In order to dismantle structural racism, we must first see racism and confess it as a sin. Much of the conversation around this focus has been dominated by anti-Black racism. Last week, in our own community, we saw anti-Asian racism rear its deadly head. Regardless of whether or not the murders in the three massage parlors last week are declared “hate crimes” and no matter what we discover about the shooter’s motive or life story, we can and should declare anti-Asian racism a sin. To learn more about the history of anti-Asian racism and the church’s response, please read this article from the Presbyterian New Service with contributions from a Korean Presbyterian pastor in Marietta and our own presbytery. 

This Sunday we will have a special offering, joining with Presbyterians worldwide in sharing God’s love with our neighbors-in-need around the world by providing relief from natural disasters, food for the hungry, and support for the poor and oppressed. There are 3 ways to give:

1. Click this link to give online: presbyterianmission.org/give-oghs
2. Text SHARING to 56512
3. Through your regular offering to St. Andrews by mail or online.Please specify One Great Hour of Sharing in the memo line of on your check, or select Mission if giving online.

It is Palm/Passion Sunday and we will celebrate worship in our homes via Facebook Live and YouTube. We will have Sunday School before and fellowship after worship on Zoom conference. We will post the recording of our worship service on our website. Rev. Camille will be preaching “Again & Again, We Draw on Courage.” Our hymns will be All Glory, Laud, and Honor! and Ride On! Ride On in Majesty!. Our scripture passages are John 12:1-19 and Psalm 31:9-16. For a copy of Sunday’s bulletin, click here.