Image: Outgoing Lead Presbyter for Transformation Ryan Landino hands off a symbolic baton, sealed with the presbytery's 2020 Vision Statement listing its guiding aspirations, to the new Moderator-Elect Rev. Katie Styrt (First, Milan).

GOOD NEWS
from the
Presbytery of Great Rivers
  
We are called to share Christ's love by partnering in service, 
uniting in worship, and risking in ministry.

December 17, 2021
As this pandemic moves into its second Christmas, we urge all congregations to revisit your safety and mitigation plans so you and your community can be safe. Please see our COVID-19 website tab on our website for helpful resources by clicking HERE.
Click here for the 2021 Rotating Prayer List.
(Please let us know if you see any mistakes that we overlook so we can update our prayer list!)



On December 2nd, we had received word of the tragic death of Carla Mavis. Carla was one of the founders and leaders of the Covenant Gathering, a volunteer remnant of the old synod school that created community for the presbyteries of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan. Her loss is felt heavily by members of our presbytery. May we please keep her family and friends in our prayers as they grieve her loss. Obituary can be found HERE.
Please note that this will be our last 2021 Newsletter. From the Staff and Leadership of Great Rivers Presbytery, Advent blessings to you and a very Merry Christmas to all!
Introducing our Bridge Presbyter John Rickard!

Please receive this message from John Rickard!

"Greetings to the saints in the Presbytery of Great Rivers-

Your search committee for a Bridge Presbyter has asked me to serve in that position beginning in January. I am honored to have been asked and to walk with you in this transition from one Presbytery leader to the next. I look forward to learning more about each of you and Presbytery over the next several months, praying that I may serve you well.

A little about me: I retired from the position of General Presbyter/ Stated Clerk in your neighbor Presbytery, Blackhawk in March 2020 after serving there for eighteen years. Before that I have served as the General Presbyter for North Alabama Presbytery, Interim Executive Presbyter in the Presbyteries of the James and Tropical Florida, and as pastor in a church in Chicago Presbytery. My theological training, both Master of Divinity and Doctor of Ministry, is from McCormick Theological Seminary. My doctoral work focused on the organization of a Presbytery.

I have been married to Debby for 46 years. We live in Byron, IL. Where I also serve as Mayor of the city. We have four children, two of whom graduated from Bradley, and 6 grandchildren.

Again, I am honored to have to opportunity to serve you for the next few months.


God’s peace and blessings upon you and PGR.


John Rickard"

John Rickard will be starting in January and his email will be jrickard@greatriverspby.org. Until his email goes live you can also be in touch with office@greatriverspby.org.
Friendly Reminder from the Personnel Committee

Christmas is a time for all of us to gather with friends and families to know the joy and blessing of Christ’s birth into our hectic and troubled world. With that in mind it is the policy of Great Rivers to give our staff the week between Christmas and New Years as a time of holiday respite. We, therefore, want to remind you that your emails and phone questions during that period will be answered as we re-engage on that first Monday of 2022!  In the case of emergency, know that you may call Rev. Chip Roland, Chaplain at OSF Peoria (pictured top right), 309-253-6459, who can offer any needed pastoral presence and assistance during that time. Be safe and be well! Wishing you a wonderful, blessed Christmas!

~The Personnel Committee
Attention: Clerks of Session - It’s Annual Statistics time!

​REMEMBER! 
  • This is the time to go through your membership rolls.
  • Reduction of membership directly affects your per capita.
  • Packets will be mailed to your churches soon.
  • Included will be the General Assembly report from your last data entered
  • Churches can enter their own statistics online.
  • The portal opened on 12/3/21​.


However please determine your final 2021 numbers before submitting your numbers.
February 2/17/22 (Thursday) --  Last day entry option will be available to churches.

Please remember to send a completed remittance form when submitting any check to the presbytery. This will ensure your funds are directed as you intended. If your contact information has changed please us know. It allows us to reach you easier if there is a question.
Great Rivers Presbytery in the News!: First Springfield's Community Outreach

A special shoutout to Rev. Susan Philips (First Springfield) for her NPR Illinois 91.9 UIS interview with Vanessa Ferguson on "Reverend Susan Phillips uses worldwide experiences to shape ministry | Community Voices". Hear Rev. Susan Phillips draw on her intercultural experiences to talk with NPR Illinois about faith and the many facets of ministry of First Presbyterian Church of Springfield with the wider community. Worth listening for the full sixteen minutes!

Check out the interview by cling the link HERE.
Spotlight on Ministry: Christmas Open House, Gloria Dei Presbyterian Church

Every year, Gloria Dei Presbyterian Church in Rock Island hosts a Christmas Open House in the beginning of December that displays entire rooms full of Nativity Scenes from around the world. Curated by Rev. Drew Nagle, the collection has over 300 different Nativity Scenes in a variety of different forms, colors, and sizes. Pastor Drew speaks to the importance of the theology that is communicated by our Nativity Scenes, and the importance of having the most expansive understanding of the nearness of the incarnation as possible.

Gloria Dei hosts four different worship services that include immigrant communities that speak three different languages.
Looking for Terms of Call Renewal Form?


(We now have a fillable Terms of Call Renewal form that you can fill out and email to Committee on Ministry Chair Kathy Whitson at kathiewhitson_16.3@aol.com)
Hymnals Available!

Knox Presbyterian Church is looking for a new home for their Celebration Hymnal collection. If any of our churches are interested or know of other organizations that might find them useful, please contact Pastor Paula Carmichael at (231) 288-6870 or Mike Orr at 217-546-6274. Or email: Paula Carmichael carfamily9@outlook.com 
Mike Orr mikeorr1@comcast.net 
Final Encouragements from Your Lead Presbyter for Transformation

Good people of Great Rivers Presbytery,
 
I am so grateful for the notes, the kind words, and the gifts of moments of appreciation and farewell—all these help an outgoing spiritual leader find closure in their work, and helps everyone turn a new page into a new chapter. I am so grateful for you.

For my last address to you, I wanted to take a moment to leave behind some final encouragements, some "Ryanisms," friendly reminders and advice as you continue to strive and thrive in ministry together, many of which you heard during my address at the November assembly:
 
1.  First, "everything will be fine. And if it’s not, it’s still gonna be fine.” (If I got a dollar for every time I shared that, we could have funded our presbytery for the next ten thousand years.) Never forget: you are stronger than you know.
 
2.  There is a difference between “new” and “new to us”. One learning of mine was that the pandemic didn’t *really* present a challenge to our presbytery that was inherently different than any challenge the Church of Jesus Christ has faced before—what the pandemic really did was amplify everything that was already there, and expedite futures we were already heading to. What have we learned about ourselves since March of 2020?
 
3.  Continue to practice being able to separate the person from the position. For example, there is a difference between saying “Ryan’s job" and "the job of a Lead Presbyter." This helps prevent us from letting one person become too enmeshed in the system, and being clear about that will help us honor the roles we are supposed to fulfill. Moses' father-in-law has a great lesson for Moses about that, but it's a lesson for the whole community to reinforce, not just the leader.

4.  One of the coolest things I ever heard at a General Assembly: “you cultivate what you celebrate.” So celebrate generously and wisely. Celebrate partnership, relationship, solidarity, justice, and creativity.

5.  If you cant find an answer to your question there’s a 97% chance it’s already in the COM handbook/manual of operations or in the Book of Order. Both are on the web.

6.  Never forget that one of our ordination vows is that we will serve the church not only with energy, love and intelligence (all of which you have in abundance), but also IMAGINATION. So for every “no,” be ready with at least two “yes’s.”

7.  Speaking of which, know your "why." Be able to articulate why we do what we do. We can't keep the church together by habit, but can with purpose, a purpose already given to us, but one we need to interpret clearly. Naturally, we all want to be involved in things that we know will make a difference. Because we take the work of the presbytery for granted because it's always been there, we have forgotten how to name the importance of our work. Let's practice that.


8 Pay your per capita. The Presbytery is a community, like all of Paul's churches we read about in the New Testament. No church--or person--ever "made it" by going it alone. All need outside support, intervention, and encouragement. The value of the connections that strengthen those bonds are hard to fully itemize with an invoice. I always say that SOMEONE had to pay the postage to get Paul's letters out that would become the New Testament! The per capita system was created so no one church would pay or more less in the life of the community than was right for their size. Not paying capita is like refusing to buy groceries for your own household.
  
9 Continue discerning the difference between an adaptive challenge and technical challenge. If you don’t know the difference, this is a really good thing to learn. Some challenges are both technical and adaptive—it’s all about bringing the right tool to the right job, and is most effective I’ve found in keeping our wheels from spinning and keeping us moving in the same direction.

10  Track where anxiety is coming from. Anxiety is like electricity. It will flow through all of us until it stops when it reaches someone who is grounded. Ask, where does this anxiety come from? Where it is being generated? Why? A city engineer who was a member of a small immigrant church once told me the most brilliant insight ever when hearing how many people were against something in the church: "yeah, but how many families?" He could challenge his session on this because he knew how powerfully anxiety can commandeer an entire system. Because of the way our news-cycles work and our access to them, anxiety flows from all directions. Hospital chaplaincy teaches pastors to try to be the least anxious presence in the room. Keep up your spiritual disciplines that help keep you grounded.

11. Keep the 2020 Vision Statement in front of everything you are doing. Use it for committee meetings, assembly planning, and session strategizing. Budget cuts yes. But vision first. As I learned from Bill Strawbridge, our Treasurer, “We cannot downsize ourselves to greatness.” But we can lean into the things where we are effective, and let go of the areas where we are less so. Use our 2020 Vision will guide us—it’s your own voice!

12. I commend to you Rev. Bill Carl’s four s’s for cultivating healthy group leading spaces: "no secrets, no surprises, no sabotage, and lots of support." These are great guidelines for the healthy functioning of any group. Actually, here's an article you can share with your session about it.

Finally, the work of transformation was NEVER intended for one person alone, even if as your "Lead Presbyter for Transformation" you gave me the coolest job title i have ever had or will ever gave again. The work of transformation belongs to us all. I bless that work to you now. To all of you. I charge EACH of you to be Presbyters for Transformation.  
 
As today is my last day, I will be shutting down my phone and email with the trust that Personnel, Synod, and our new Bridge Presbytery can take it from there.

Thank you all for blessing me on my new adventure as Presbytery Leader of Giddings-Lovejoy—it has been an honor to serve you these last four years, and this has been a wonderful ministry home for me the last seven.

Merry Christmas!
 
Ryan

(P.S. Thank you for all your COVID precautions--they save lives, and protect immunocompromised people like me! Stay safe!)
United Church of Woodhull's choir wants to share music with you! 

We have been cleaning out our music supply and would like to offer these first come, first served. We ask only that you either pay for shipping or arrange pick-up. Pick-up can happen at our place or we can arrange to meet you in the middle if you will be driving in our direction. For those details contact Cheyanna Losey at 309-299-4790 or cheyannalosey@gmail.com.  

Here is what we have available:
Still looking for Alternative, Online Worship?
(PLEASE LET US KNOW IF ANYTHING HAS CHANGED!)
 
Here are several possibilities for connecting to different worship spaces around the presbytery. This is a listing of the last Sunday's offerings of different churches providing worship. Please let us know if there have been any changes so we can keep our list updated!


  • Alexis-Norwood Presbyterian Church, Commissioned Pastor Gary Denise Pullen, 10:30 am on Facebook live, on his personal page.

  • Bartonville-Trinity Presbyterian Church has on-line worship on Facebook page and Their Website



  • Bloomington-St Luke Union Church, Rev. Andy Gifford, Sunday at 10:30am in person, and Facebook live Sunday at 10:30 am and posted to YouTube Each Monday morning.






  • Elmwood-First Presbyterian Church, Rev. Marla Bauler, worship led by Zoom (link can be obtained by pastor), then posted afterwards to Facebook.

  • Farmington-First Presbyterian Church, Rev. Andy Sonneborn, 10:30 am by Facebook live.

  • Galesburg-First Presbyterian Church, Rev. Kay Daniel, 10 am by Facebook live


  • Jacksonville-First Presbyterian Church, Rev. Jonathan Warren, 10 am by Facebook live.

  • Leroy-First United Presbyterian Church, recorded YouTube videos of their services posted later on their Facebook page.

  • Lincoln-First Presbyterian Church of Lincoln, 10:00 am by Facebook live (older recorded sermons also on church website)





  • Peoria-First Federated Church, streaming and video on their Facebook





  • Rio-Rio Presbyterian Church, Rio (and Sunbeam Presbyterian Church of Aledo), Rev. Maura McGrath-Nagle, 9:00 am by Facebook live.

  • Rock Island-Gloria Dei Presbyterian Church, Rev. Drew Nagle, 10:30 am, by Facebook live, and posted afterwards.



  • Springfield-First Presbyterian Church, Rev. Susan Phillips, www.LincolnsChurch.org has links for Sunday 10:30 live worship and Wednesday 5:30 service.

  • Springfield-Hope Presbyterian Church, Rev. Chuck Goodman, 9:30 am by Facebook live


  • Springfield-Third-Presbyterian Church, We are continuing with our radio broadcast on Sundays from 9-9:30am. This is broadcast on Sportsradio1450 (1450 AM or 92.3 FM). We have returned to In-person Worship on Sundays, beginning at 10am. Our In-person Worship Service is also recorded and posted on Mondays on our Facebook page (Third-Presbyterian Church).

  • Springfield-Westminster Presbyterian Church, Rev. Blythe Kieffer, Rev. Christian Choi, 10 am worship streamed online, www.wpcspi.org


  • Woodhull-United Church, Rev. Cheyanna Losey, is still posting services on YouTube and will continue them for sure into August. YouTube videos of their services posted on Facebook page.

FRIENDLY REMINDER TO NOT FORGET TO MAKE SPACE FOR THE SPIRITUAL PRACTICE OF GIVING OUR TITHES AND OFFERINGS!
Get Connected!

Be sure to encourage your congregations, sessions, and even your church newsletter editorial staff and volunteers to be sure to sign up for our presbytery newsletter and follow our Facebook page so you don't miss out on what is going on in our community of churches!

Have you liked our "Presbytery of Great Rivers" Facebook page?
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