Ash Wednesday
March 5, 2025
Imposition of Ashes at 8:30 a.m.
Renewal of Baptism at 7:00 p.m.
Sunday Bulletin - February 16
THIS IS GOD'S HOUSE - ALL ARE WELCOME
“Meeting people at their point of need, Inviting all into a dynamic relationship with Jesus”
LET US KNOW YOU WORSHIPED WITH US TODAY - If you’re a visitor, online or in person, and would like more information please feel free to fill out a card or email Pastor Cress.
INFORMATION & ANNOUNCEMENTS
Are you looking for a church home where you can make a difference for the God we serve? Where you belong and where you will be known, nurtured, challenged? We welcome you and invite you to spend some time with us.
Interested in joining Second? Find more about becoming a member here. Have a prayer request? Please let us know here.
Come, Sail Away
Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.
Find upcoming events and announcements here.
SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, February 16, 2025
St. Augustine once penned, “God does not expect us to submit our faith to [God] without reason, but the very limits of our reason make faith a necessity.” I am not sure many of us ponder if faith in God and God’s purpose for our lives is genuinely a necessity. We tend to think in more concrete terms like food, water, resources, and emotional/physical support. But faith – that tends to be a luxury afforded to moments of idle wonderments and foxhole prayers.
This Sunday we have an opportunity to open our sacred texts and hear what the Hebrews writer declares about faith. Eugene Peterson’s The Message translation of the text reads: “The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living.” I am hopeful that as we read, study, and pray together in preparation for worship, God will deepen that faith depicted in Hebrews to those early Christians who in their own right had much to fear.
There is much to fear – no doubt – but come sail away with me this Sunday with the assurances of God’s promises at our back!
Onward and upward,
Steve
Click here to view all Second Presbyterian Church videos. Find upcoming events and announcements here.
Source: sermons
Second Edition Book Club
The Second Edition Book Club meets monthly on a Sunday afternoon, generally the second Sunday. Contact Fred Schuh, Carol Howe, or Peggy Pinckney for more information.
MAY SELECTION:
Discussion on Sunday, May 18th, 2 p.m. at Peggy’s home
Flicker In the Dark by Stacy Willingham
PREVIOUS READS
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PREVIOUS READS 〰️
Sunday Bulletin - February 9
THIS IS GOD'S HOUSE - ALL ARE WELCOME
“Meeting people at their point of need, Inviting all into a dynamic relationship with Jesus”
LET US KNOW YOU WORSHIPED WITH US TODAY - If you’re a visitor, online or in person, and would like more information please feel free to fill out a card or email Pastor Cress.
INFORMATION & ANNOUNCEMENTS
Are you looking for a church home where you can make a difference for the God we serve? Where you belong and where you will be known, nurtured, challenged? We welcome you and invite you to spend some time with us.
Interested in joining Second? Find more about becoming a member here. Have a prayer request? Please let us know here.
Plain Talk
Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.
Find upcoming events and announcements here.
SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, February 9, 2025
Dear Friends in Jesus –
The Gospel writers Matthew and Luke each report significant sermons by Jesus – sermons that convey, very simply, the tenants of his ministry. The Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain speak to the topsy-turvy nature of our lives in following the way of Jesus. Conditions of poverty, grief, suffering, and insult are to be born knowing that there is plenty, joy, comfort, and favor in a life of steadfast dedication in bearing the mysteries of God.
We are stewards under orders.
What we get to do!
In anticipation,
Click here to view all Second Presbyterian Church videos. Find upcoming events and announcements here.
Source: sermons
Sunday Bulletin - February 2
THIS IS GOD'S HOUSE - ALL ARE WELCOME
“Meeting people at their point of need, Inviting all into a dynamic relationship with Jesus”
LET US KNOW YOU WORSHIPED WITH US TODAY - If you’re a visitor, online or in person, and would like more information please feel free to fill out a card or email Pastor Cress.
INFORMATION & ANNOUNCEMENTS
Are you looking for a church home where you can make a difference for the God we serve? Where you belong and where you will be known, nurtured, challenged? We welcome you and invite you to spend some time with us.
Interested in joining Second? Find more about becoming a member here. Have a prayer request? Please let us know here.
In Your Face
Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.
Find upcoming events and announcements here.
SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, February 2, 2025
Dear Friends in Jesus –
Jesus has spent thirty years in his hometown of Nazareth when he is nudged by the Spirit to strike out and join others in their pilgrimage to be baptized by his cousin John.
He emerges from the water and the heavens open. He is affirmed by a voice from heaven, then driven into the wilderness where he is challenged and tempted, emerging again forty days later battle tested – and ready to launch his work teaching and healing, offering a new message. What better place than the hometown temple! Jesus brings his defining message – that yes, he has come in fulfillment of the ancient texts, but for all the people.
Shocking, dangerous, radical love.
Come this Sunday and experience this cosmic power. Bring a friend (and some chili!)
In anticipation,
Click here to view all Second Presbyterian Church videos. Find upcoming events and announcements here.
Source: sermons
Sunday Bulletin - January 26
THIS IS GOD'S HOUSE - ALL ARE WELCOME
“Meeting people at their point of need, Inviting all into a dynamic relationship with Jesus”
LET US KNOW YOU WORSHIPED WITH US TODAY - If you’re a visitor, online or in person, and would like more information please feel free to fill out a card or email Pastor Cress.
INFORMATION & ANNOUNCEMENTS
Are you looking for a church home where you can make a difference for the God we serve? Where you belong and where you will be known, nurtured, challenged? We welcome you and invite you to spend some time with us.
Interested in joining Second? Find more about becoming a member here. Have a prayer request? Please let us know here.
What's My Line?
Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.
Find upcoming events and announcements here.
SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, January 26, 2025
Identities are interesting claims to make. Have you ever thought about all the ways we are named and identified in today’s ever-changing landscape? We have family names, personal names, social security numbers, student ID numbers, phone numbers, emails, avatars, and the list goes on and on. I remember moving from SC to Washington, DC in the late 1990’s and the personal conversations I learned from the South switched from, “Where are you from?” to the DC proper, “What do you do?” I guess in DC it was more important to know what you did for a living than to know your family lineage.
Maybe it’s true the often quoted saying, “The more things change; the more things stay the same.” In Sunday’s lectionary text from the Gospel of Luke, Jesus finds himself at the beginning of his ministry having to answer some of those same questions: “What is your purpose here? Aren’t you Joseph’s child? Who and whose are you? “
Cress is attending a funeral in New York this weekend and has asked me to preach on Sunday. We are now directly in the season of Epiphany and there is much to discern in Luke 4 as Jesus returns home to Nazareth to begin his ministry and reintroduce himself. How will we receive and respond to his message? Maybe as confused and stunned as his hometown was in the first century?
Hope to see you Sunday,
Steven
Click here to view all Second Presbyterian Church videos. Find upcoming events and announcements here.
Source: sermons
Chili-Cook Off
Sign up to enter your chili!
We need your help to make this year's chili cook-off a delicious success!
A chili cook-off hosted by the deacons will be held in the Fellowship Hall on February 2, 2025 after 10:30 a.m. worship.
2025 Chili Cook-Off Sign Up
Sunday Bulletin - January 19
THIS IS GOD'S HOUSE - ALL ARE WELCOME
“Meeting people at their point of need, Inviting all into a dynamic relationship with Jesus”
LET US KNOW YOU WORSHIPED WITH US TODAY - If you’re a visitor, online or in person, and would like more information please feel free to fill out a card or email Pastor Cress.
INFORMATION & ANNOUNCEMENTS
Are you looking for a church home where you can make a difference for the God we serve? Where you belong and where you will be known, nurtured, challenged? We welcome you and invite you to spend some time with us.
Interested in joining Second? Find more about becoming a member here. Have a prayer request? Please let us know here.
Beloved
Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.
Find upcoming events and announcements here.
SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, January 19, 2025
Dear Friends in Jesus –
"The end of nonviolent action is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the Beloved Community.”- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr
Last week we saw Jesus (whose time had come) embark on his life’s work.
His first move was to accompany others to the Jordan to his cousin John, to join the holy and the hoi polloi shoulder to shoulder in the muddy waters to be baptized.
The heavens opened, the Holy Spirit settled on him as a dove and a voice declared him beloved. He was then led (others say driven) into the wilderness where his humanity was attacked - tempted, as we are.
His spiritual conditioning proved as strong as his resilient spirit.
A lesson for today, tomorrow and the days ahead.
Though some may be tempted to gloat, or rend their garments, or recede from the tensions, disillusionment and seeming impossibility of world and national narratives, our Jesus models our struggles leading to inevitable victory for the beloved of Jesus God.
Dress warm. Remember your umbrella. Come share in the baptism of Crevon Brown, Sr. and welcome him and Tina Murphy, Patricia Toately Blake, and Susan Lovell home.
In great anticipation –
Click here to view all Second Presbyterian Church videos. Find upcoming events and announcements here.
Source: sermons
Sunday Bulletin - January 12
THIS IS GOD'S HOUSE - ALL ARE WELCOME
“Meeting people at their point of need, Inviting all into a dynamic relationship with Jesus”
LET US KNOW YOU WORSHIPED WITH US TODAY - If you’re a visitor, online or in person, and would like more information please feel free to fill out a card or email Pastor Cress.
INFORMATION & ANNOUNCEMENTS
Are you looking for a church home where you can make a difference for the God we serve? Where you belong and where you will be known, nurtured, challenged? We welcome you and invite you to spend some time with us.
Interested in joining Second? Find more about becoming a member here. Have a prayer request? Please let us know here.
He Gets It
Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.
Find upcoming events and announcements here.
SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, January 12, 2025
Dear Friends in Jesus –
The commentator Barclay writes: "For thirty years Jesus had waited in Nazareth, faithfully performing the simple duties of the home and of the carpenter's shop. All the time he [must have sensed that a task was waiting.] The success of any undertaking is determined by the wisdom with which the moment to embark is chosen. Jesus must have waited for the hour to strike, for the moment to come, for the summons to sound. And when John emerged Jesus knew that the time had arrived.”
This Sunday we engage the texts, imagine the impact on the community then and now. Why was Jesus baptized?
Invite someone you know or want to and share the mystery of God’s incarnation positioned for God’s love.
In anticipation –
Click here to view all Second Presbyterian Church videos. Find upcoming events and announcements here.
Source: sermons