October 10, 2020
September 6, 2020
August 30, 2020
August 23, 2020
August 16, 2020
August 9, 2020
August 2, 2020
July 26, 2020
July 19, 2020
July 12, 2020
July 5, 2020
Video of this week’s sermon.
June 28, 2020
Video of this week’s liturgy and sermon
June 21, 2020
Video of this week’s liturgy and sermon.
June 14, 2020
June 7, 2020
May 31, 2020
May 24, 2020
May 17, 2020
May 10, 2020
May 3, 2020
April 26, 2020
Liturgy (pdf) for April 26, 2020
April 19, 2020
Liturgy (pdf) for April 19, 2020
April 12, 2020 – Easter Sunday
Liturgy (pdf) for April 12, 2020
April 9, 2020 – Maundy Thursday
April 5, 2020 – A Death As Large As Life
Liturgy (pdf) for April 5, 2020
March 29, 2020 – Hope For Uncertain Times
March 22, 2020 – Healing and Belonging
Here is this week’s liturgy (pdf).
March 15, 2020 – Presbyterian Women: Mission Giving at FPC
(Linda Jackson, Leah Lewis, Diana Morriss)
March 8, 2020 – Reflections on Birth and Change
Feb. 23, 2020 – Radiant Silence
Feb. 16, 2020 – You Are God’s Field: How We Grow
Feb. 9, 2020 – Spoiler Alert: Faith Is Fairly Unspectacular
Feb. 2, 2020 – Always Traveling, Seldom Arriving
Jan. 26, 2020 – This Beautiful Mess: Finding Delight When Life Is Ugly
Jan. 19, 2020 – Religion 2.0: Making the Shift to a New Kind of Faith
Jan. 12, 2020 – New Year’s Resolutions? Don’t Bother!
Jan. 5, 2020 – Becoming Better Leaders
Dec. 22, 2019 – Grace and Peace and Nothing Else
Dec. 15, 2019 – Less Fear
Dec. 1, 2019 – The Art of Subtraction
Nov. 17, 2019 – Testimonies: This Is Still Good News
Nov. 10, 2019 – Generosity
Oct. 27, 2019
How To Live Without Regrets
Oct. 20, 2019
How to Move Forward with Persistence
Oct. 13, 2019
How to Belong to a Place
Sept. 22, 2019
Staying on the Path
Sept. 15, 2019
Losing the Path
Sept. 8, 2019
Choosing the Path
Sept. 1, 2019
Finding Balance
Aug. 25, 2019
Aug. 18, 2019
Gut Renovation: Why Starting Life From Scratch Is Such Difficult Work
Aug. 11, 2019
Aug. 4, 2019 – Pechone Stepps, Guest Preacher
July 28, 2019
What Just Happened? Reflections on 25 Years of Marriage
July 14, 2019
July 7, 2019
June 23, 2019
How To Pay Attention To Your Life
June 9, 2019
Listening For God When Life Is Noisy
May 26, 2019
May 19, 2019
Worship As Imaginative Exercise
May 12, 2019
Worship, Desire, and Enjoyment
May 5, 2019
On “Thrones” and Other Problems With Worship
April 28, 2019
April 21, 2019 (Easter)
April 14, 2019
April 7, 2019
Jesus’ Death, Part 2: The Fragrance of Love
March 31, 2019
Jesus’ Death, Part 1: The Richness of the Way God Loves Us
March 24, 2019
A Dying Life (Part 2: Called to Wisdom & Flourishing)
March 10, 2019
A Dying Life (Part 1: Being Born)
February 24, 2019
We Believe in the Resurrection of the Dead . . . Wait . . . Do We?
February 17, 2019
An Old Church Doing New Things
February 3, 2019
January 20, 2019
January 13, 2019
Baptized Into An Unfolding Life
January 6, 2019
When All the World Is Persuaded to Rejoice
December 16, 2018
December 9, 2018
December 2, 2018
The Doorway Into Wonder – Jared Witt
November 25, 2018
The Final, Last Supper That Never Ends – Jared Witt
November 18, 2018
Faithful Gratefulness – Laura Agee
November 11, 2018
Infectious Gratitude/Contagious Generosity – Jared Witt
November 4, 2018
Praise the Lord, O My Soul – Jared Witt
October 28, 2018
More Than a Feeling – Laura Agee
October 21, 2018
October 7, 2018
Wholeness: Dealing with Grief – Jared Witt
September 30, 2018
Wholeness: Dealing with Anger – Jared Witt
September 23, 2018
Wholeness: Dealing With Depression – Jared Witt
September 16, 2018
Wholeness: Dealing with Stress and Anxiety – Jared Witt
September 9, 2018
The Call to Wholeness – Jared Witt
September 2, 2018
August 19, 2018
Ask For Whatever You Want – Jared Witt
AUGUST 12, 2018
Hanging Between Heaven and Earth – Jared Witt
August 5, 2018
The High Cost of What We Do in Secret – Jared Witt
July 29, 2018
Reflections on Men, Women, Shame & Desire – Jared Witt
July 22, 2018
July 15, 2018
David, Dancing, and Despised – Jared Witt
July 8, 2018
Permission to Dream – Jared Witt
June 17, 2018
All of us Leading and Following – Jared Witt
June 10, 2018
The Grass Isn’t Always Greener – Laura Agee
June 3, 2018
Listening for God in a Noisy Life – Jared Witt
May 27, 2018
May 20, 2018
Surviving Adolescence – Jared Witt
May 13, 2018
May 6, 2018
April 15, 2018
Ghosts, Flesh, & Fish – Jared Witt
April 21, 2018
Banquets Without Borders – Jared Witt
April 1, 2018
March 25, 2018
The Lord Needs It – Jared Witt
March 18, 2018
The Covenant of Belonging – Diana Morriss
March 11, 2018
Traveling and Telling Stories – Jared Witt
March 4, 2018
Covenant: Enjoying Life Together – Laura Agee
February 25, 2018
Covenant: Adventures into the Uncomfortable Unknown – Jared Witt
February 18, 2018
Imaging the Image – Jared Witt
February 4, 2018
Baptized Bodies in Training – Jared Witt
January 28, 2018
The Ethics of Eating – Jared Witt
january 21, 2018
Baptism: The End of the Quest for Perfection – Jared Witt
January 14, 2018
Honoring God With Our Bodies – Jared Witt
January 7, 2018
Baptism, Bodies, and Masculinity – Jared Witt
December 31, 2017
The Word Became Flesh…Now What? – Jared Witt
December 24, 2017
Is Your Christmas The Right Size? – Jared Witt
December 10, 2017
Holy Fire, Ordinary Mystics – Jared Witt
December 3, 2017
November 26, 2017
Avoiding Dead Ends: Indifference – Jared Witt
November 19, 2017
Avoiding Dead Ends: Sloth – Jane Campbell
November 12, 2017
Avoiding Dead Ends: Distractions – Jared Witt
November 5, 2017
Avoiding Dead Ends: Hypocrisy – Laura Agee
October 1, 2017
The Blessing of Our Mistakes – Jared Witt
October 8, 2017
Get Going or Get Out of the Way – Jared Witt
October 15, 2017
How to Behave at a Party – Laura Agee
October 22, 2017
Living with Ambiguity – Jared Witt
October 29, 2017
Love God and Do As You Please – Jared Witt
September 10, 2017
How to Deal with Conflict – Jared Witt
September 17, 2017
September 24, 2017
How to Avoid Comparing Yourself to Others – Jared Witt
September 3, 2017
Follow The Leader – Jared Witt
August 27, 2017
Who Do You Say I Am? – Jared Witt
August 20, 2017
In Praise of Tenacity – Jared Witt
August 13, 2017
You of Little Faith – Jared Witt
Summer 2017
Charles and Melissa Johnson – July 30, 2017
What Do PCUSA Mission Workers in Zambia DO?
Ezekiel Series (July 2017) – Laura Agee
Who’s To Judge?
Hope For All
Worship Renewed
Day Camp Celebration and Stories – July 2, 2017
John Calvin Living Waters For the World – June 25, 2017
Bill Pollock, Craig Campbell, and Leah Lewis – June 18, 2017
John Hill – June 11, 2017
The History and Architecture of the First Presbyterian Church of Fort Scott
Jane Campbell – June 4, 2017
The Holy Spirit: The Great Translator
May 14, 2017
Sabbatical Preview and You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby – Jared Witt
May 7, 2017
What is a Sabbatical? – Jared Witt
Bring a Friend Sunday – April 30, 2017
April 23, 2017
Why (and How) We Invite Our Friends – Jared Witt
Easter sunday – April 16, 2017
Cynicism, Sentimentality, Hope – Jared Witt
You Are Accepted – Lent 2017
The season of Lent is a sober time of preparation before the riotous joy of Easter. It’s a time to ask ourselves hard questions about areas of our lives where we need renewal or a fresh start. Our Scripture readings on Sundays during Lent invite us to accompany Jesus as he travels toward his own great suffering. At times even we ourselves might be surprised that we are following the crucified Jesus, carrying our own crosses in his shadow. But we do so because we have been accepted by God.
God meets us where we are and accepts us as we are. Of course, God doesn’t leave us there. God’s gracious and welcoming acceptance of us deepens over time and takes on different colors through our lives. Like the copper on our building, our baptisms attain a beautiful, weathered patina with age.
Some of us need to turn a new leaf. Some of us need to find strength in our weariness. Some of us need to repent of unhealthy habits. Some of us need a reminder that there is joy in the journey. Some of us are scattered and need the ability to focus. All these opportunity for renewal are standard goals for the Lenten season. And they have been for people of faith for thousands of years.
So what will your Lenten season look like? How can you take advantage of this sacred window of time to reconnect with God and with others? I want to invite you to make our gathered worship a priority for yourself and your family. If this is your church home, the community in which you live out your gratitude for God’s blessings, then you will need to rearrange your life so that weekly worship is a clear value and priority.
But What About My Desires? – Jared Witt
But What About My Doubt? – Jared Witt
But What About My Shame? – Laura Agee
But What About My Disabilities? – Jared Witt
But What About My Sickness? – Jared Witt
What if Everything Is Prayer? – February 2017
“Pray all the time.” (I Thessalonians 5:17)
“Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.” (Matthew 22:37).
These two passages of Scripture – here translated in the fresh language of Eugene Peterson’s The Message – will provide the foundation for our February sermon series.
We’re asking you to entertain a provocative, challenging, and potentially life-changing question: “What if EVERYTHING is prayer?” What if your whole life is a kind of prayer? What if everything you do all day is a kind of praying (including sleeping)? What if you can gather up all the different parts of your life and offer them to God? What if all the different things we feel – joy, depression, pleasure, sadness, affection, frustration – what if all of that can become a prayer?
The goal of the sermon series is simple. We want to become people who “pray all the time.” And this means that we will have to get rid of the assumption that prayer is a quiet mumbling towards God. Most of us don’t feel very good at that kind of praying. Moreover, you can’t do that “all the time.” But what if dancing, walking, and playing sports are prayer? What if singing, humming, listening to music and playing an instrument is prayer? What if drawing, painting, and building things is prayer? What if your body and imagination are just as important as your mind? Who knows what kinds of praying will open up to us on the other side of this question?
Can We Really Pray All The Time? – Jared Witt
What’s the Point of Praying? – Jared Witt
What if Everything is Silent? – Laura Agee
Mistaken Identity: Why Life Works Better When We Know Who We Are – January 2017
We begin this new year with a call to discover anew who we really are. Much of the time, we walk through life with a distorted view of who we are. We might struggle with pride and selfishness (call this “too much self”). We might struggle with cowardice and passivity (call this “too little self”).
Join us as we help each other sort out and sift through the possibilities that lay in front of us. Our Scripture readings offer a renewed vision of who we are. I am powerful. I am chosen. I am free. I am responsible. Life works better when I know who I am.
I Am Powerful – Stephanie Witt speaking for Jared Witt
I Am Chosen – Jared Witt
I Am Free – Jared Witt
I Am Responsible – Jared Witt
Naming God – Advent 2016
Wonderful Counselor – Jared Witt
Strength of God – Jared Witt
Christmas Cantata
Champion of Peace – Jared Witt
November 20, 2016
Rethinking Church: A Fresh Vision of Church in the 21st Century – October/November 2016
1001 New Worshiping Communities – Jared Witt
The Church and New Expressions of Spirituality – Jared Witt
How We Gather – Jared Witt
Life in the Wind: Exploring the Work of the Holy Spirit – September/October 2016
The Spirit of Freedom – Jared Witt
The Spirit, The Bond of Love – Jared Witt
The Spirit of the Future – Laura Agee
The Spirit’s Gifts – Jared Witt