WHAT’S HAPPENING AT FPC
Worship
Sunday, April 30th
This Sunday, the children will be helping to lead us in worship!
On our journey through the Gospel of John, we'll be covering the second half of chapter 4, which brings the story of the Samaritan woman at the well to a conclusion with her spreading the good news of the gospel to her community, which in turn welcomes Jesus to stay with them for two days. We will then turn our attention to a second "sign" that John gives us - Jesus is back in Cana in Galilee where he heals the son of a royal official without ever seeing or touching him.
Worship
Sunday, April 23rd
This week we turn our attention to John chapter 4 and Jesus' encounter with a Samaritan woman at a well. We'll spend some time comparing and contrasting how this story serves as a counterpart to the previous dialogue and teaching between Jesus and Nicodemus..
Worship
Sunday, April 16th
Now that Lent, Holy Week, and Resurrection Sunday are behind us and we find ourselves in the season of Easter, we'll return to our journey through the Gospel of John. If you'll recall, we left off half way through the 3rd chapter where Jesus had a long, and mainly positive, interaction with a pharisee named Nicodemus. Now, John the Evangelist abruptly turns our attention back to John the Baptist and a discussion among his disciples about purification. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Resurrection Sunday Worship Service April 9, at 10 am
Today, we celebrate the culminating event of our faith - Resurrection. In the words of the angel speaking to the two Marys' on that first Easter morning, "He is risen, just as he said." We'll look at what the resurrection can mean for us and the life of the church as we seek to live as resurrection people in the world.
Palm Sunday
April 2, 2023 at 10 am
This Sunday concludes our journey through a number of metaphors Paul uses to describe how God works our salvation through the cross of Christ. This last week of Lent, we’ll be looking at God’s paradoxical victory through the cross on Palm Sunday – the day we remember Jesus’ triumphal entrance into Jerusalem. The juxtaposition of Victory and Palm Sunday is fitting for in a few short days, the victory will be won through what looks like defeat..
March 26, 2023 Worship
In our scriptures, the cross is seen as making atonement (when we are made “at one” with God) by breaking down barriers between God and humanity – barriers of sin, guilt, and enmity. The apostle Paul hones in on a particular consequence of when those barriers are removed, namely that we are now a part of God’s family. This week, we’ll look at the image of “adoption” as a consequence of the cross and a metaphor for salvation.
Vespers Service
Tonight, Wednesday, March 8th at 7 pm. This is a meditative service with candles, music, and prayer.
Worship, Sunday March 19th at 10 am
While the sacrificial system of the Hebrew Bible is far removed from our experience, there are too many references to our being saved by the blood of Jesus not to explore the meaning of the Cross with this image in mind. So, we’ll be immersing ourselves into the sacrificial system of the Jewish temple and how it is that the blood of Christ is thought to wash us clean.
Worship, Sunday March 12th at 10 am
The different images and metaphors scripture uses to try and make sense of the work of Jesus on the Cross which we call Atonement all stem from different experiences of the holy. This week, we’ll view the cross through the lens of God’s working for our Redemption – that is, being set free from slavery.
Worship, Sunday, March 5th at 10 am
This week, we continue looking at different images and metaphors scripture uses to try and make sense of the work of Jesus on the Cross/Atonement (at-one-ment). This week, the images we’ll be exploring deal less with the sin problem in judicial terms of “guilt/not guilty” and more with how God has Reconciled a divided humanity with one another and with God.
FPC’s Lenten Study Wednesday, March 8th
There are two (2) sessions of the Lenten Study each Wednesday, beginning tomorrow, March 1st.
The 1st begins at 4 pm and conclude at 5 pm.
There will be a meal of soup and bread for both sessions beginning at 5:00 pm.
The 2nd begins at 5:30 pm and concludes at 6:30 pm.
The same materials will be presented at both sessions.
Trinity Presbyterian has requested an estimate of the number of people attending, what session they will attend and if they will partake of the meal.
Please send an email to office@fpcogden.org with the following information: the session you plan (hope) to attend and if you will be there for the meal.
February 26, 2023 Worship Service
This season of Lent we will explore “the mystery of the cross” – the theological word we use for this is “Atonement”. The great sweep of scripture builds different pictures or metaphors for what actually happened on the cross, and the church over the last 2000 years continues to plumb the depths of these various metaphors to make sense of what happens in Atonement. During the next six weeks of Lent, we will explore six different ways of looking at how God acted to accomplish our salvation through the saving death and resurrection of Jesus.
February 19th Worship Service
…as we continue the conversation in John 3 between Jesus and Nicodemus, the Pharisee who is seeking Jesus, but has trouble understanding and believing in what he's being told. We'll be covering verses 11-21 in particular, which contain some of the most widely known words in scripture: "for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but have eternal life." Because this is so well known, we'll take a close look at what's going on in this statement, in the context of the broader discussion Jesus and Nicodemus are having.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/live/Ee9cqti2AF4?feature=share
Please join us for Worship,
Sunday, February 19th at 10 am
…as we continue the conversation in John 3 between Jesus and Nicodemus, the Pharisee who is seeking Jesus, but has trouble understanding and believing in what he's being told. We'll be covering verses 11-21 in particular, which contain some of the most widely known words in scripture: "for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but have eternal life." Because this is so well known, we'll take a close look at what's going on in this statement, in the context of the broader discussion Jesus and Nicodemus are having.
Sunday, February 12th Worship begins at 10:00 am
We get to one of the more well-known stories in the entirety of the New Testament - the encounter between the Pharisee Nicodemus (Yes, that's right - he was a Pharisee!) and Jesus at night. This is the context within which the famous John 3:16 is found. We'll look at what Nicodemus was asking, and how Jesus responded. Sunday's worship guide is attached.
Worship service will be live on our YouTube channel (simply copy the link into your browser:) https://youtube.com/live/mpzcrovt1B8?feature=share
Worship guide for this week: https:// https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qKH1SaeKdGERgd-9lZ0nN5ilP3HIRdc_/view?usp=sharing
Worship Sunday 5th: The next scene after the story of the first sign that Jesus gives at wedding in Cana, is another "sign" of sorts. Because in John's Gospel, Jesus makes several trips to Jerusalem, John has the cleansing of the temple early in Jesus' career - which is what we find in the second half of chapter 2. We'll explore the meaning of this prophetic sign/act that Jesus gives, deepening our identification of Jesus with the place where God's presence dwells most fully.
Sunday, February 5, 2023 Worship link: https:https://youtube.com/live/VovFodyhVqc?feature=share
Please copy and paste the url to your browser.
Sunday, January 29, 2023 Worship Service - This week, we enter into the second chapter of John's Gospel, where we encounter the first of Jesus' 7 "signs" which he performs. This is the story we know of as the wedding at Cana. We'll delve into what it is that John is trying to communicate through this miracle story of the (one could say prodigal) provision of wine to keep the party going.
VESPERS is Wednesday, January 25, 2023 at 7:00 pm in the Sanctuary. This is a meditative service with candles, music, and prayer. Hope you can join us.
Sunday, January 22, 2023 Worship Service - Guest preacher, Bob Nakaoka, an exploration of John 1:35-51”
January 15, 2023 Worship at 10 am with Coffee Fellowship following
As we continue through the first chapter of the Gospel of John, we turn our attention to John the Baptist, who shows up at the beginning of all four Gospels. This week we'll delve into the back and forth between John and the religious authorities from Jerusalem as they ask him what the heck he was doing out in the wilderness baptizing good faithful Jews "for the forgiveness of their sins" who knew better where supposed to go to have their sins remitted.
Did you know that you can access First Presbyterian Church of Ogden worship services as a podcast?
Podcasts on Spotify and Amazon Music via the websites or apps. Search for First Presbyterian Church Ogden Podcast
Spotify Website: https://open.spotify.com
Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com
First Presbyterian Church of Ogden Worship is now available as a podcast!
Happy 103rd Anniversary Troop 4, Ogden Utah!!
January 8, 2023 “Scout Sunday” Worship at 10 am with Coffee Fellowship following
The prologue to John's Gospel is one of the most theologically dense pieces of writing in the entirety of scripture. It's also one of the most poetic and mystical pieces of the New Testament. We'll look at how John is making use of his Hebrew scriptures to draw us into a new understanding of what it is that God is up to in Jesus, and what that means for our relationship to the God revealed in Jesus.
January 1, 2023 Sunday Worship at 10 am
We'll spend most of 2023 in the Gospel according to John, taking a couple breaks here and there. That means that we'll start the year off by turning to what is often called "the prologue to John's Gospel", John 1:1-18, which is one of the most theologically dense pieces of Christology (the study of the person and nature of Jesus) in the New Testament. This text, serendipitously is associate with Christmas as well as new beginnings (due to the first line's echoing of the first line of Genesis: "in the beginning..."), which make it rather appropriate for the 1st Sunday in Christmas/New Year's Day.
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Blue Christmas Service
Please join us in the sanctuary at 7:00 pm on Wednesday, December 21st for our Blue Christmas service.
BLUE CHRISTMAS SERVICE
The season of Christmas can be a time of great anticipation, nostalgia, joy and love. But for some, it can be a difficult season that reminds us of loss, pain, or the ways that life can go sideways. Heightened by the advertising of our culture, there is a definite Christmas ideal that includes neatly iced gingerbread houses, smiling children, and an excessive amount of neatly wrapped packages. These standards and the church’s sometimes solitary focus on joy can make the holidays an isolating time for anyone who can not muster happiness or meet the criteria.
To honor the complex emotional experience of this season, we will hold a Blue Christmas service the Wednesday before Christmas. A Blue Christmas service is an invitation for anyone who wants to acknowledge their pain and set their burdens down for a time in the midst of a community that can hold space for the sadness that so often accompanies this season.
Family Friendly Christmas Eve Candlelight Service
December 24th at 6:00 pm
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Join us as we sing carols with children and youth
helping to tell the story of the birth of Jesus
in an unrehearsed, partici-play style pageant.
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