Welcome to Holy Week! We pray that as you journey through this unprecedented time you are still able to worship, reflect and celebrate this week. Our staff is thinking of you and the different ways in which we can be church at this time. Various groups will meet via zoom and communicate throughout the week to find ways to observe Holy Week at home. We will be providing a devotion and resources for Maundy Thursday We will celebrate on Saturday by placing the Flowering Cross on the steps of the church for you to fill with flowers, but also encourage you to celebrate with the beauty that surrounds you wherever you are, even if you do not come to the church. Sunday we will give thanks and all praise in worship as we celebrate Easter with an online service at 11:00 am. Check our website and social media accounts for more information throughout the week.
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We really enjoyed seeing all of your pictures on Palm Sunday and hope that you will allow us to "Join Together" again in celebration for Easter Sunday. Send us pictures of you celebrating with the beauty that surrounds you. You can:
Flower the Cross on the front steps of FPCG between 9:00 am and 2:00 pm Saturday
Send pictures of the flowers in your yard or home.
Send us pictures of artwork or items that help remind you of the glory of Easter.
Be Creative
Send images to
Maggie Wentzky
by Saturday at 4:00 pm and we will include them in worship.
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Thank you so much for joining us on Sunday for our celebration of Palm/Passion Sunday. It was such a delight to see all of your pictures and have everyone "together" in some way. Please click the picture to see all of the photos and videos we collected of your worship and palms.
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A
Message from Dr. Pete Peery
Dear Congregation,
It is painful not being able to lay eyes upon you. But it was a day of joy on Palm/Passion Sunday to see so many of you in pictures celebrating with palms and having your place of worship at home prepared for communion. God is good and God is staying with us — abiding with us — in these very hard days. “I will not leave you orphaned . . .” Jesus tells us in John’s Gospel. Your participation in the life of the church, even in these electronically remote ways, is testimony to your faith that this is true. Thank you.
Your Session met on Sunday, April 5, and took a precautionary step aimed at assuring support for the church staff in their work of undergirding the congregation in this time when there is uncertainty about the future financial status of the church. The Session authorized applying for a “Paycheck Protection” loan under the terms of the recently passed Federal law known as the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES). There is absolutely no guarantee that this loan will be granted. However, if it is, it will be a loan, managed by a local bank, CountyBank. It will be for 2.5 times the monthly payroll of the church, approximately $105,000. It is fully forgivable if the church uses it only for payroll expenses and utilities and no employees of the church are laid off during the next two months.
You have been very faithful in fulfilling your pledges and making gifts to the church. That means that as we have entered this time of economic disruption the church’s...
click here to keep reading
.
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A Message from Dr. Al Masters
Pete, thank you for your leadership in crisis—having served several churches as Interim myself, I know this was not in the job description—you are clearly God’s person for this time in this place.
Listening to the Session’s comments around the CARES decision reminds me of the spirit and Spirit’s presence in this congregation that I have experienced this year and in years past. You are a people of excellence in terms of giftedness and compassion.
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KEEPING CONNECTED
Thanks to phone calls, emails, texts, Facetime, Zoom meetings, and online worship, we remain connected to one another in new and creative ways. In an effort to keep in touch with each other, church staff will begin hosting “FPPG Zoom Connections” via Zoom twice a week. FPCG Zoom Connections will be opportunities to see faces, share joys and concerns, and pray together.
These Zoom gatherings will take place on Tuesdays at 6:30 pm and Thursdays at 10 am. Information for Zoom login can be found on the Coronavirus Response Page on the church website,
www.fpcgreer.org
. Our first FPCG Zoom Connections will be this Thursday at 10 am, the Zoom link information is listed below. If you are unfamiliar with Zoom or would like more information, you are invited to call or email Maggie or Whitney and they will walk through a Zoom tutorial with you.
Topic: FPCG Zoom Connections
Time: Apr 9, 2020 10:00 AM
Join Zoom Meeting:
Meeting ID: 284 432 366
Password: 656159
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This past week we started an FPC Greer Facebook group where members can connect, share pictures and post things that are inspiring them at this time. If you have not joined the group yet and are a member at FPCG please join us at
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2583172228608215
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Our youth have been gathering twice a week via Zoom to see each other’s faces, study the Gospel of Luke, and offer our prayer request.
Berry, Victoria, and several of our adult youth advisors meet with the middle school youth at 4pm every Sunday and Wednesday, and our high school youth at 5pm every Sunday and Wednesday. Our youth are doing remarkably well, given the difficulty of our current situation. To some degree, “sheltering in place” has allowed many of our families to slow down from the otherwise hectic pace of school, sports, music, and various extracurricular activities over-filling their days. Many of our families are taking walks together, planting gardens, sitting down to family meals way more often than we did a month ago. We have been trying to lift up ways to see this strange time as an opportunity to intentionally invest our time, rather than rushing from one “required” activity to the next.
Of course, there are many additional stressors and all our families are under tremendous pressure in this uncertain time. Berry has started having parent-only Zoom gatherings on Sunday afternoons in order to support our parents and provide a space to connect, share best practices, and acknowledge that it is normal to feel overwhelmed given these circumstances.
While we would all prefer to be meeting in person, in some ways our Zoom meetings allow us to see more of our youth more of the time! We have between 7-11 middle school youth and advisors on our Zoom meetings twice a week, and an additional 9-12 high school youth and advisors on Zoom twice a week. And … we’re reading and studying Scripture together! With all the extra time available to our youth, we have committed to reading the whole Gospel of Luke together before June. We’re reading about a chapter a day and discussing it twice a week via Zoom.
If any congregation member would like to join our youth and advisors and Al Masters in reading the Gospel of Luke, please do (we’re only on chapter 6 as of Palm Sunday).
We ask that you continue to hold our youth and their families in your prayers, especially our Seniors who are missing many anticipated Senior year celebrations.
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Join Maggie for
Sunday School
, Sundays @ 10:00 am. An email will be sent to elementary parents and Sunday School teachers with details. If anyone else would like to join us please let Maggie know.
Be on the look out in your emails this week for activities and resources to
celebrate Holy Week
with your children.
We would like to collect
videos of bell ringers
. If you go to flower the cross on Saturday take a video clip of your children ringing the bell that will be on the church steps 11 times and we will incorporate it into a worship service. If you do not make it to the church, ring what you have at home and send a video to
Maggie
or to
this link
.
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Update from the PNC
Our Pastor Nominating Committee continues to meet via Zoom on a regular basis. While the number of resumes they have received dropped off some at the start of the social distancing effort, they have received over 40 applications that they are currently reviewing.
The Committee requests your prayers as they continue to work through this process. Please feel free to reach out to Rudy Painter if you have any recommendations.
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First Presbyterian Church Greer will pay tribute to our fallen faith family members on Memorial Sunday 24 May during both services. Bill Koehler is collecting the names and stories of our church members. The criteria are; killed during war, died later as the result of injuries, disease, or suicide since World War I. Bill's contact information is
[email protected]
or 864-238-2106
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We've heard from several of you that you are doing your part to help with the fight against CO-VID 19 by making masks! Great work. Here is an
article from the Greer Citizen
that features our own Becky Schafer!
Our Mission Outreach Ministry Team will meet this week. Look for information in the next newsletter about other ways that we can be supporting our community.
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Click on the picture above to see FPCG's recent photos.
Send us pictures of the ways in which you are connecting to your FPCG Family remotely.
Maggie Wentzky
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Joys & Concerns of FPC Family
Bruce Baker
Jay Crim
George Crowe
Jamie Hall
Thad McCord
Becci Stedry
Jim Stringer
“Just a note to the church family to say Thank You for the calls, cards and prayers on the loss of my mother. It has helped so much with dealing with my grief, especially in times of this pandemic. ” - Pat West
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Calendar of Events
April 6
1:30 Care of the Congregation
April 7
6:30 Mission Outreach Ministry Team Meeting
April 8
4:00 Middle School Gathering via Zoom
5:00 High School Gathering via Zoom
6:30 Choir Virtual Meeting
7:30 Handbell Virtual Meeting
April 9
Maundy Thursday
10:00 FPCG Zoom Connections
April 10
April 11
Flowering Cross on front steps
April 12
Easter
10:00 Elementary Sunday School via Zoom
11:00 Worship Online
4:00 Middle School Youth Zoom
5:00 High School Youth Zoom
April 13
April 14
6:30 pm FPCG Zoom Connections
April 15
4:00 Middle School Youth Zoom
5:00 High School Youth Zoom
6:30 Choir Zoom
7:30 Handbell Zoom
April 16
April 17
April 18
April 19
10:00 Elementary Sunday School via Zoom
11:00 Online Worship
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