3/6/2025 FPC E-News

First Presbyterian Church

March 6, 2025 E-News

Upcoming Service for the Lord's Day

1st Sunday in Lent

Sunday, March 9, 2025 ~ 10:30 a.m.

Preacher: Rev. Leslie Roper

Sermon: "The One with the Unexpected Good Guy"

Scripture Lessons:

Psalm 15 and Luke 10:25-37

A Note from Pastor Leslie

One day as a teenager, heartbroken, I’m sure, from what seemed like a life-ending break-up, I declared that I should just become a nun. Overheard by one of my mom’s dear friends, who actually had been a nun before marrying and becoming a teacher, I was quickly assured that there were better ways around boy troubles than cloistering! If I had ended up in a monastic order, I hope that I would have been a nun like Sister Joan Chittister. While others focus on the sacrificial aspects of Lent, what it is of which we must deprive ourselves, Sister Chittister sees Lent differently:

Lent is the opportunity to change what we ought to change but have not…Lent is about becoming, doing and changing whatever it is that is blocking the fullness of life in us right now… Lent is a summons to live anew…Lent is the time to let life in again, to rebuild the worlds we’ve allowed to go sterile, to “fast and weep and mourn” for the goods we’ve foregone. If our own lives are not to die from lack of nourishment, we must sacrifice the pride or the sloth or the listlessness that blocks us from beginning again. Then, as Joel (2:12-18) promises, God will have pity on us and pour into our hearts the life we know down deep that we are lacking.

As I read those words, I am challenged (and, to be honest, convicted) to ask myself what it is that is blocking the fullness of life in me right now. It is pretty easy for me to say that it isn’t chocolate that needs to leave my life right now (though the scales might argue that cheese and crackers should go!!). But maybe it is resentment, boiling up when things don’t go the way I would wish. Maybe it is anger that is clutched tight to my heart over the comment that someone else. What, too, are the worlds we’ve allowed to go sterile? Maybe it is time set aside for devotion and study and prayer. Or maybe it is finding the good in others or, the sometimes even more challenging, finding the good in ourselves. What might it look like for each of us to take this season of Lent to sacrifice the pride, the sloth, the listlessness that blocks us from beginning again? And, if we could, how much more glorious might our Easter celebration become?

So welcome to Lent, friends. Take this season to spend some time on yourself, finding out just what you need to clear out of your days so that your life might know fullness. Explore what you need to cultivate in your hours, so that your days will bring about rejuvenation and, dare we say, resurrection. ‘Tis the season, after all!

Sunday, March 2, 2025

Worship Service

Sermon: "Changed for Good"

Ash Wednesday, March 5, 2025

Worship Service

Sermon: "No Turning Back"

Daylight Savings Begins This Sunday, March 9

Don't forget to move your clocks ahead 1-hour before going to bed this Saturday, March 8.

Lenten Friends

During Lent in the gospel of Luke, we walk with Jesus all the way from Capernaum to Jerusalem, where the events of Good Friday and Easter Sunday take place. This year, as we journey with Jesus, we are going to pay a little extra attention to the cast of supporting characters that we meet along the way. Some of them will be old friends, but we will possibly see them in a different light. Some may be new friends that we will meet along the way. All of them, though, will have something to teach us. So, come journey with Jesus and his cast of supporting characters as we walk our Lenten journey.

PW Coordinating Team Meeting

The PW Coordinating Team meeting scheduled for Monday, March 10, has been cancelled. The next meeting will be Monday, April 7, following the Lenten Worship and Lunch here at FPC.

3rd Annual Lenten Worship and Lunch Series

Each Monday in Lent, you are invited to gather as a Hot Springs faith community as we center worship around Jesus’ “I am” statements. We will begin at 12:05 p.m. each Monday in the host sanctuary with a brief time of worship followed by a light lunch and fellowship. This Monday, March 10, the host church is Westminster Presbyterian (3819 Central Ave) with the Rev. J. J. Galloway preaching.

Church Office Schedule

The Church Office will close at 12:00 noon on Friday, March 14. Please plan ahead.

The Muses Project

The Muses Project opens its 2025 Season with “Celtic Spring” on Friday, March 14, at 7:00 p.m. at the Woodlands Auditorium in Hot Springs Village. They will also have performances at the Muses Cultural Arts Center (428 Orange Street, Hot Springs) on March 15 and 16 at 3:00 p.m.

Celtic Women Inspired~ Features the Muses mesmerizing Troupe of singers, dancers, instrumentalists and Harp/Flute duo, "Chaski". A breathtaking blend of traditional and contemporary Irish, Scottish and English ballads, upbeat folk songs and inspiring sacred selections, sure to lift spirits and bring joy to hearts!

Tickets are only $35 and can be purchased here or call 501-609-9811. Come for the music and stay for the MAGIC!

Birthday Sunday - March 16

Birthday Sunday is where we honor our members and friends celebrating birthdays in the month of March. Following worship, we invite members, friends and guests to the Fellowship Hall for Birthday Cake. Please join us!

Family Night Supper

Last night we had breakfast for supper! Pancakes, sausage, bacon, biscuits, pastries, and a homemade King cake....It was all so good. Following breakfast we headed to the Sactuary for a very moving Ash Wednesday service.

Music Notes from Ian Aipperspach

During the seasons of Lent and Easter, we often sing hymns that we don’t always sing year-round, much like our Advent and Christmas carols, so I asked if I could write a little about the history and meaning of a hymn each week.

At last night's Ash Wednesday service, we opened with “What Wondrous Love Is This,” a hymn that first appeared during the Second Great Awakening in the early 1800’s. The text is by the most famous writer of texts and music – Anonymous (although some sources suggest the author was Alexander Means, a Methodist minister from Georgia). Its music is even a bit more spurious as the tune is taken from the English folk song tradition – “The Ballad of Captain Kidd.” Throughout history, sacred texts have often been paired with pre-existing tunes due to the familiarity of the latter and the lack of tunes printed in hymn books (did you know this is why we list the hymn tune in the bulletin and traditionally it is written in ALL CAPS?). It was first printed with both text and tune in the shape note hymnal, The Southern Harmony in 1840. However, it was not until 1966 that the hymn began appearing in mainline denominational hymnals. Your challenge is to see if it is in the old red hymnal!

Set in the Dorian mode, a scale built off of the second scale degree (it feels like it wants to be minor, but not quite) with its text a beautiful reminder of God’s gift of salvation, “What Wondrous Love” helps us to focus on who we are and whose we are.

This Sunday, March 16, we sing “Lord, Who Throughout These Forty Days” as both a verbal and aural reminder of our penitential journey. Written by Claudia Frances Hernaman, it takes us through Christ’s wilderness journey with a final acclamation of asking the Lord to abide with us always. Mrs. Hernaman wrote over 150 hymns and translated many from Latin, mainly for children to sing,including this one which was first published in The Child’s Book of Praise in 1873. The tune first appeared in the 1562 publication The Whole Book of Psalmes and was originally meant to accompany Psalm 132. Its present form, found in our hymnal, dates from the 1850’s with the first association of ST. FLAVIAN (a nod to an Archbishop of Constantinople from the 400’s) is from an Episcopal hymnal dating to 1898. It is written in common meter with each phrase alternating eight syllables and six syllables respectively. As you sing the hymn on Sunday, I encourage you to reflect on Mrs. Hernman’s purpose as written in the preface to The Child’s Book of Praise: “Our aim should be to accustom our little ones to look upon the Incarnate life of our dear Lord as the great model of their own lives, and to see each event of it a fact in which they have themselves to take a part, rather than a beautiful story of a long past time in which they have no personal interest.”

Who Knows?

These two pictures are hanging in the church parlor. Do you know anything about them? How long have they been there? Where did they come from?

If you have the answers, email them to office@firstpreshotsprings.org and we will post the updates in next week's newsletter.

First Presbyterian Newsletter

Every week we send out an updated church news email. If you would like to be added to the email list, please contact the church office, (501) 624-5646. Alternatively, if you or someone you know would like to receive a paper copy, please call the office.

The 2025 Flower Board is available to sign up to donate Sunday flowers!

Located on the wall by the 2 large closets in the Fellowship Hall, pick your date, add your name and special dedication. If you do not wish to write it on the board, or if space does not allow, please call, email or visit the office. You may do this at any time well in advance of your day. Cost is $38.50

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Thank you!

God Bless You on Your

Special Day!

Share your birthday blessings with our graduating Seniors! Each month on the 3rd Sunday, we celebrate church members' birthdays and ask those celebrating this month to make a donation in honor of their birthday to our scholarship fund. Thank you for supporting our graduating seniors!