Who We Are, Where We Are Going
OUR PLACE IN THE WORLD-WIDE CHURCH MIGHT BE DESCRIBED…
With terms like “Ecumenical,” “Protestant,” “Reformed,” or “Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.” To state it theologically with more local flavor, we are a group of Christians who believe that God is telling a story through the people and ministries of First Presbyterian Church Edwardsville. The story begins about 200 years ago, when FPCE was the first faith community established in our town, with modest but fascinating ties to famous Americans like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Elijah Parish Lovejoy. In the history written since its founding, you will find the names of many Edwardsville Presbyterians deeply involved in service to our community and its people, providing leadership in education, medicine, business, law, and politics. Presbyterians have provided energy to major movements of their time, such as the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, and the expansion of civil rights. Today, you still find Presbyterians providing leadership and support during times of controversy, and working toward mutual understanding and full inclusion of all those whom God places within our sphere of relationships and care.
Our Mission and Vision
If you’re here long enough, then you’ll eventually grow familiar with an affirmation that is a pretty good statement of our essence.
It begins, “First Presbyterian Church believes that it is to be Christ for the world today ….” This is our most basic mission statement, reflecting what you might call an “incarnational” theology. When we say it, we mean that since Jesus isn’t physically present today, we are meant to be the body of Christ. Together, we are responsible to speak and act as Jesus would speak and act, serving as Christ’s ambassadors in the world around us.
The next part says “... praising God and proclaiming God’s amazing grace; growing in the knowledge of God and God’s ways; demonstrating love for God and one another; reaching out to others with healing and service…” This section is an expanded statement of mission. Its four parts reflect the four areas we emphasize in living out our mission.
First, we spend a lot of time and energy in our worship and music ministries, primarily on Sundays, but also at other special times throughout the year, because devotion to God is the foundation from which all Christian living springs.
Second, Christian education of children and youth has long been a primary emphasis of this congregation, and you will find many skilled and nurturing educators.
Third, an emphasis on mutual caregiving is lived out through several small groups, and a deacons’ ministry of flower delivery and visitation to the ill and homebound.
Fourth, we place a high value on service to our community and beyond. Presbyterians typically do not seek praise for their community service, but you will find them deeply involved in many civic and social service organizations. At the root of their service is the faith that inspires it.
The final part says, “so that our community and the whole world may be drawn to Christ and increase in peace and justice through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.” This may be described as our organization’s vision statement. We Presbyterian Christians seek to fulfill our mission in the Christian hope that God is using us to open up a new and better future, characterized by fuller and truer peace and justice for God’s earth, its people, and all those creatures that inhabit it.
Pastor’s Introduction
Our Windows
DELUGE, COVENANT AND THE RAINBOW
Genesis 9:8-16
God said to Noah... "I now establish my covenant with you and all your offspring to come... Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood... And this is the sign of the covenant... I have placed my bow in the clouds... When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow appears...; I will see it and remember the eternal covenant between me and every living being."
The symbols in this window depict two scenes from the Genesis Flood story: the Deluge and the first Covenant between God and Mankind. Dominating the window is the large Rainbow, connecting the realm of God, represented by the disc of the Sun above, with the realm of Mankind, represented by the clouds, rain, Ark, and the turbulent flood below. Immediately underneath the Rainbow appears the outline of a black war-bow, its curve following that of the lower edge of the Rainbow. This is the "bow" that God first places in the sky to show that his anger has subsided, whereupon it is transformed into the good omen of the Rainbow as the sign of the Covenant. There emerges between the Rainbow and the Ark the outline of a large human-like figure--neck, shoulders, torso, and curved arms (the two black arcs on either side of the clouds of the Deluge, as if sustaining it); while above, the disc of the Sun is surmounted by another rainbow (with colors reversed), suggesting a nimbus around the head of God. Thus the entire world presents in the background an omnipotent God, author of both the judgment of Deluge and the blessing and promise of Covenant.
GOD ANSWERS JOB
Job 1:18-19; 31:35,37; 40:6-8
"Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking in the eldest brother's house, when suddenly a whirlwind swept across from the desert and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people and killed them."... (Job said): "Let the Almighty state his case against me!... The words of Job are ended." Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind: "Brace yourself and stand up like a man; I will ask questions, and you shall answer. Dare you deny that I am just or put me in the wrong that you may be right?"
The symbols in this window are simple and direct. The wide gold radiance, at the top, descends, focuses itself by narrowing, and then resolves itself into a whirlwind or storm, represented, above Job's head, by the elliptical structure resembling a modern diagram of the center of a cyclone. Storms are often associated with manifestations of God in the Old Testament. The hand, also a symbol of God, but now in a form mankind can recognize, delivers God's message to a perplexed and astonished and soon-to-be-enlightened Job
THE COVENANT WITH MOSES
Exodus 24:15-17, 31:8
Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain... And on the seventh day the LORD called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud. Now the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a devouring fire... And he gave to Moses, when he had made an end of speaking with him upon Mount Sinai, the two tables of the testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.
The symbols in this window include, at the top, the clouds with which God often surrounds himself when he communicates with mankind; and below, the stylized red flames which depict the burning intensity of the divine presence. Out of the fire, at the bottom, the very hands of God proffer to the receiving hands of Moses the two stone tablets on which are inscribed the Ten Commandments. By long-standing tradition, the Roman numerals numbering the ten directives are themselves divided into two groups: One through four, and five through ten. The first group summarizes obligations to God, the second, obligations to fellow human beings, by which a just society may be established.
THE BAPTISM OF JESUS BY JOHN THE BAPTIST
John 1:29,33
John the Baptist exclaimed, "Look! Here is the Lamb of God... The one who sent me to baptize with water told me, 'When you see the Spirit descend and rest on someone, he is the one who is to baptize with the Holy Spirit.'"
The principal symbols include a Lamb with nimbus, couched on an open Bible behind which a Cross carried the Banner of Victory, and two streams of water, which descend from above and produce a swirling pool under the central figure.
THE PARABLE OF THE SOWED SEED
Luke 8:5-8a
A farmer went out to sow his seed; as he did, some of it fell along the footpath and was trampled over, and the birds of the sky gobbled it up. Some other seed fell on rocky soil, and when it sprouted, it dried up because it had no moisture. Some other seed fell amid thorn bushes, and when they grew up together, the thorns choked them off. Still other seed fell into good ground, and when it sprouted, it yielded fruit a hundredfold.
The principal symbols in this window display at the top the right hand of the sower, who sows seed at large. No Gospel makes clear whether this hand is to be understood as the hand of the Father, of Jesus, or of any representative sower. Some of the seed falls at random on a path leading downward from the fingers of the sower's hand, where a bird swallows it up. Below, center, some seeds spring up in rocky soil, where they cannot be sustained and therefore droop; while below, right, the seeds that fall amid thorns are choked and die. But below, left, the seeds that fall into good soil sprout, grow tall, and produce abundant fruit.
PAUL’S CALL
Acts 9:3-6
When on his journey he drew near to Damascus, he was suddenly surrounded with a blaze of light from heaven, and falling down he heard a voice say to him: "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" He said: "Who are you, Lord?" He answered: "I am Jesus, whom you persecute. But get up and go into the city, and you will there be told what you are to do."
The design of this window includes the Road to Damascus, drably winding into the distance laterally, on which is perpendicularly superimposed an aureole bearing the Greek letters Chi and Rho (the first two letters of Christos or "Christ"), which radiates the blinding light of divine intervention on the astonished and terrified Saul at the bottom of the window.
“THE BEGINNING” CIRCLE WINDOW
John 1:2-3
“He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”
Genesis 1:1-31
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night….And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters…. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.”
“The Beginning” window proclaims that God in Christ shaped the beginning of the universe. First, recognize the Chi-Rho symbol in the window: formed from the Greek letter “chi,” which looks like a slightly rotated letter “x,” and the “rho,” which looks like a letter “p.” These are the first two letters in the Greek “Christos,” which we translate as “Christ.” See the way the Chi-Rho divides the circle into 4 quadrants. Look at the upper left quadrant, which echoes elements in the “Deluge, Covenant, and Rainbow” window. Look at the sun, and the aura that surrounds it. If you count the whitish spikes of light that emanate from the sun, you will count 18. Then, look at the upper right quadrant, which echoes elements of the “Parable of the Sowed Seed” window. Look at what you might imagine as stars next to a crescent moon, or seed falling from the hand of God. If you very carefully count the whitish dots, including the smallest ones, you will count 19. If you put the “18” in the upper-left quadrant together with the “19” in the upper-right quadrant, then you get “1819,” the year in which 1st Presbyterian Church Edwardsville was established at a worship service on March 17. Today, March 18, 2018, represents the beginning of the congregation’s 200th year. After 199 years of ministry, after 133 years at the Kansas St. campus, following nearly a year in temporary quarters, wandering in the wilderness, God has granted FPCE the gift of new beginning.