Editor's Note: this article is written by Jennifer Burke, a Ruling Elder from the Cobden congregation. Cobden is one of several congregations located near the Route 13 corridor that are in regular conversations about Shared Ministries.

Shared Ministries? What…oh, you mean Small Church Ministries. Well, yes, small churches are certainly an important part of our shared ministries but they are not the only churches that can or should be involved in sharing ministries. Shared Ministries is an amazing opportunity to come together as a church family to share Christ with each other and then to take the joy we feel from gathering together in His name and carry it out into God’s world to be God’s light. It is a time to come together, ask questions, and to learn from each other.

Let me back up and tell you a little bit about myself. I was raised in the Presbyterian Church and, although I have in the past and continue to participate in services in other churches that are not Presbyterian (i.e. shared ministries), I am Presbyterian…reformed and always reforming. This has shaped how I view God and our church. To me this means working together, lifting each other up, communicating, and being life-long learners.

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The 224 ^th  General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) convenes on June 20, 2020, ends June 27, 2020 and will be held in Baltimore, MD. The Committee on Representation is now accepting applications for GA Commissioners and Young Adult Advisory Delegates until noon on September 24, 2019. 

Commissioners/Alternates and YAAD/Alternate will be elected at the November 21, 2019 Stated Meeting of the Presbytery of Southeastern Illinois.

All Session Records must be read prior to the November 21, 2019 Presbytery meeting. These events are held in regional locations, but you may attend one in another region if that day is better for you.

 

CLERKS - If none of these dates work for you, then send your moderator to the reading with the records of another member of Session or a previous clerk.

Almost every day, we hear on the radio or read in the newspaper about another member of our community who is living their life with problems from drug or alcohol abuse. The problem is so widespread and we wonder, "What can be done? Is there something we can do?" Maybe there is.

On Sunday, May 5, 2019 at 9:30 A.M., First Presbyterian Church in Effingham will be hosting a group of young men from the program "Teen Challenge" (teenchallengeUSA.org). They will share their testimony and transformation by having Christ in their lives.

Read more about the program, including how to RSVP for lunch, by clicking the link below.

For use at Presbytery gatherings/meetings. Authored by Rev. Bill McLean, Presbyter for Congregational Care.

II Corinthians 3:4-11 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

 

Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Surely we do not need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you, do we? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all; and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

 

Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

 

Now if the ministry of death, chiseled in letters on stone tablets, came in glory so that the people of Israel could not gaze at Moses’ face because of the glory of his face, a glory now set aside, how much more will the ministry of the Spirit come in glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, much more does the ministry of justification abound in glory! Indeed, what once had glory has lost its glory because of the greater glory; for if what was set aside came through glory, much more has the permanent come in glory!

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(Click on church name for church website; click on address for Google map)

Thursday, June 6th - First Presbyterian Church, Tilden

721 Butler St, Tilden, IL 62292

Thursday, August 29 - First Presbyterian Church, Taylorville ,

116 E. Franklin St., Taylorville, IL

Thursday, November 21 - First Presbyterian Church, Effingham

600 W. Temple St., Effingham, IL