Second Presbyterian Church
May 29, 2020
While we are not able to worship together in person, we are worshiping together virtually! Join us on Sunday morning at 11:00 a.m. for worship by clicking the tab above, or clicking on the "Sunday Live stream" button on the home page of our website,  www.2ndpres.org .

Also - if you click the blue button above you will be able to download the worship order so you can follow along at home!
Following the Assurance of God's Love, we will pass the peace by texting one another. Choose a fellow church member, family member, friend, relative, or loved one, have their number ready to go, and send them a text that says, “May the peace of Christ be with you!"
Join us after Worship for a Virtual Coffee Hour!

Beginning this Sunday, May 31 st , we will be having a virtual coffee hour immediately following worship. A Zoom link will be sent out in the same email with the worship link on Sunday morning. Following worship just click the link to join your brothers and sisters from 2 nd  Presbyterian for a time of fellowship. It’s BYOC and there’s no meeting agenda, no Bible study – just hanging out together and chatting about worship, life, whatever! You can stay and visit as long as you like, or leave after just saying hey. We hope this will be a good way to have virtual fellowship until we can have the real thing.
Do you or any of your family members need a mask for wearing out and about?

Jan Barber has been making and passing out masks and is willing to make YOU one too!

Please contact her at 765-0437 or  jbarber@2ndpres.org   to put in your request. 

Let her know how many adults and/or small children sizes you need and arrangements will be made for delivery. Colors and styles may vary depending on fabric available. 
The knitting and crocheting team made nests and pouches to be sent to Australia for the rehabilitation of animals caught in the fires that raged in many parts of that country. Pam Maples crocheted a pouch for a large Joey. The nests ( that look like hats upside down) are used to help rehab baby birds. Not pictured but also sent were smaller pouches and cotton liners. Thanks to this team for caring for the injured!
We have a beautiful Euphorbia this spring because
of pruning by volunteer at the Work Day in December! We are thankful for our volunteers!
If you would like to have a hard copy of the May-June edition of The Upper Room Devotional, please contact Sandra Butler (by phone: 865-584-4397 or by email: sandyb446@comcast.net) to make arrangements so that you can get yours! 
Hello, church friends. I am Liz Peebles your traveling book lady during this social distancing period. I don’t know about you, but I am tired of being at home. I am offering to fill book/media wants and deliver them to your homes (porch) and pick them back up when you are finished. I can social distance in my car. I will be wiping the books and media down with alcohol before you receive them and after I retrieve them. 
 
Here is a taste of what our church library has to offer. In the DVD category I suggest the original PBS Anne of Green Gables, Faith Like Potatoes (a story of love and hope), I Can Only Imagine, Chariots of Fire, God’s Not Dead, Woodlawn The True Story, The Hiding Place (the story of a family that fought the Nazi madness with the only weapon they had – love), Heaven is for Real, Where the Red Fern Grows I & II, Fireproof, the PBS production of Our Town, featuring Paul Newman, Won’t You be my Neighbor, Grandma Gatewood’s Walk, Christy, Luther starring Joseph Fiennes, Gospels of Matthew and John enacted using the exact words from our Bible, also Acts Parts 1&2 also enacted using the exact words of the Bible. I also have several Veggie Tales.
 
Some books of light interest: The Maise Dobbs mysteries (9 books), Out to Pasture but Not Over the Hill by Effie Wilder, The Cherry Holler trilogy by Adrianna Trigiani (features Knoxville), Snapshot by Lis Wiehl based on real events and a photo taken by Lis’ own G-man father, Saint Maybe by Anne Tyler, books by Patricia Sprinkle (highly recommended), Alexander McCall Smith’s series centering around a dog (Corduroy) and other fun characters.
 
On a more serious note are The Collaborator of Bethlehem by former Middle East bureau chief Matt Rees and The Trial by Robert Whitlow. Becoming Mrs. Lewis is a novel about the wife of C. S. Lewis. There is a fun read about the Von Trapp family and also a devotional by Maria Von Trapp.
 
If you have any other requests, I will try to fill it. The library has a wonderful selection of children’s books. Just let me know a special interest.

In addition to books from the library , I have books not yet entered into the system. There is a complete set of Alan Furst’s books about ordinary people in different parts of Europe during World War II. Neal has donated these and they are excellent reading for both men and women.

Other donated books of interest are The Runaway Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini, Rainwater by Sandra Brown, Somebody Loves You by Helen Steiner Rice in an easy to read edition, two Sister Mary Helen mysteries, A Man Called Ove by Fredrik, Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts, and The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman.

Neal and I watched again “Chariots of Fire,” a movie about the 1924 Olympics and two outstanding runners from Britain, one a Christian and the other a Jew. The music by Vangelis, winner of the Academy Award for best sound track, is so exciting. The movie won Best Movie back in its day.

Remember, I will keep these books clean. Please contact Liz directly at 865-247-4503 or 865-660-9597 .
Join Matt Casey this week for the Faith, Science, and the Future class by phone conference on Sunday morning! 

The Irish 'Pay It Forward' to the Navajo and Hopi

The Navajo Nation has been hard hit by the coronavirus, with its infection rate now being higher than New York City's. Those operating the Navajo and Hopi Families Covid-19 Relief Fund were recently surprised by the number of donations arriving from people in Ireland, but when the whole story is told, we can see it's an example of the "Pay it forward" principle that is a meme in our culture today. While Christianity cannot be reduced to just this principle, "Pay it forward" is one place where Christianity and culture have some overlap. So for this installment of The Wired Word, we will explore the biblical connections to that concept.

THIS INVITATION IS OPEN TO ANYONE WHO WOULD LIKE TO PARTICIPATE! 

Instructions to access the class are below:   
 
Start time:  9:30 a.m.
 
Phone number to call:  712-775-8972 . Callers are asked to enter a conference code – it is  179021 .
 
Please be advised that this is a long distance call , for any who might be using a home phone with long distance charges. 
We update our blog several times a week during our hiatus from in-person activities. It may be a devotion, an interesting story, something uplifting, something silly, or anything else that we think might be helpful. You will continue to get an email alerting you whenever a new blog post is uploaded.

The address is  2ndpresknox.blogpsot.com  - or you can just click the link next to the picture above. 
We are continuing our Wednesday night Bible study on Wednesday evenings at 6:00 p.m., via Zoom. 

We are currently studying the Bible itself. So far we have studied when and why the books of the Bible were written, how they came to be in the Bible and what books didn't make it, types of literature in Scripture, and the themes of the Bible. This week we will look at how understanding the context helps us to be more faithful interpreters of Scripture.

We send out an email each week with a link to join on Wednesday nights. We also record the study and post it to our website each week, along with a PDF of the PowerPoint, for those who can't join us live. All of these studies are currently available under the "Publications" tab on the home page of our website.

This is a great way for all of us to check in with one another, share joys and concerns and other prayer requests, join in Bible study, and have discussion together. 

We hope that you will plan on joining us on Wednesday nights at 6:00 p.m.
AN UPDATE FROM UKIRK.   

Things look very different for us and we know they look very different for your churches too but we are all making the best of it. Ministry doesn't stop just because we can't gather in person, if anything it is needed even more so. 
UKirk has been gathering twice a week on Zoom. On Tuesdays we have a virtual coffee hour for everyone to talk freely and just catch up. On Thursdays we meet virtually for theology talks where students can submit questions and then we discuss them as a community. On Wednesdays we have been and will continue to live stream our worship services through the end of April. We chose live stream instead of pre-recording worship because we like the idea of worshipping right then with our community even if from a distance. In addition to all of this we are sending daily devotions to our students in our group message, in order to give them a little bit of hope and security during this anxious time. Each of our interns are writing a devotion once a week as well as both staff members.
 
Classes are all online for our students and some classes have proven to be even harder this way than in person. Our students are working hard during this strange and frustrating time. We are planning some fun activities through Zoom like we would usually plan our exam breakers for exam week. We are trying to bring as much normalcy to our students as possible.
 
We thank you for your continued support and prayers for our ministry and our students.
Just a friendly reminder that even though we are not in the office, we are still working from home and our regular working hours are Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Thank you so much!
With the recent passing of Nettie Downen, several folks have asked for her daughters addresses. So here is their contact information for anyone who may be interested in reaching out to them as they grieve the loss of their mother.

Donna Downen
209 Whitefield Lane
Maryville, TN 37804
865-320-4151

Jenny (Wallace) Downen Greene
415 Center St
Hershey, PA 17003
717-579-4786
Prayer List:

Please keep the Downen Family, the Callaway family, Ed Carver, Patricia and Geoffrey Kennedy, Frances Johnson, Mary Johnson, Bonnie Beals, Joe Beals, Brice Gilmer, Betty McCollum, Emily Rose, Dee Snyder, and Jennifer Levy-Tatum in your prayers. 
 
Please contact the Church Office (523.2189 or ajohnson@2ndpres.org) with prayer concerns to be listed in the weekly email or bulletin.