Thursday, March 12, 2026​

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NEWS FOR THE PEWS                                                           

 

FROM THE PASTOR

Dear Friends,

Have you seen the articles popping up just about everywhere touting “analog hobbies,” sometimes called “grandma hobbies”? Fortune magazine recently published an article featuring this headline: “It feels like a video game, but in real life”: Gen Z’s love of analog “grandma” hobbies jump from Pokemon to bird-watching, scrolling to needlepoint.”

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It happened to me, too. Sure, I grew up with analog hobbies of my own, but as digital hobbies grew up around me, I adopted many of them, too. My recent knitting kick has brought me into communities where people gather regularly to craft together—knitting, crochet, quilting—making something with your hands, while chatting, getting help with a complicated pattern, creating items to donate, drinking coffee, and lots of laughter!

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I watched a YouTuber talk about knitting as an act of resistance against big tech. Because all of the minutes you spend knitting and purling, checking your gauge, picking up stitches, and selecting the right yarn—those are minutes you aren’t doom scrolling through google, social media, amazon. And when I am online in my spare time, a lot more of it is taken up by searching knitting patterns and watching YouTube videos that show me complicated new techniques, or even remind me of basic ones. The Vloggers I watch open up knitting styles and personal home lives of crafters around the world.

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What if we used this opportunity to connect across generations? After all, many of us have analog skills we can share with digital natives (and maybe they can help us with our technology, too!). Consider coming out to participate in one or more of our new church mid-week spaces. Bring knitting, if you like! Maybe someone younger would like your help with an analog activity.

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Do you need anything? Need a home visit? Want home communion? Or would you like to get out of the house for a visit, book club, craft and chat, or simply share coffee? Give me a call—I’d love to get together.

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Join FPCT for worship this Sunday, March 15, 2026, at 10:30am in person and livestreamed on Facebook. How are we grounded in our faith? How are we growing in our faith? With “Lifted to Healing,” we continue the Lenten Grounded and Growing series from Reformed Worship. Scriptures this week include Numbers 21:4–9; Psalm 130; Ephesians 2:1–10; and John 3:14–21. Join us to pray together, hear stories from scripture, and find your home, here at First Presbyterian Church of Tonawanda.

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See you soon,

Pastor Rebecca

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Prayer Covenant Group

Our next weekly 20-minute prayer gathering is held on Tuesday, Mar. 17, at 10:00 am in the Chapel. We gather in silence as music plays, entering the chapel when we are ready to pray. We are invited to light a candle and use the praying in color materials as you wish. This service will also be hosted on zoom using this link:

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This year, Reformed Worship, published by Calvin Theological Seminary, offers us a year-long worship series called Grounded & Growing. This series offers us resources for worship throughout the year with a theme that converges with our own theme of Growing in Faith Together, and our adoption of the image of a tree planted by water, from Psalm 1:3 and Jeremiah 17:7-8.

Joyce Borger offers this reflection in her introduction to this week’s Grounded and Growing theme:

“The Lenten road is not an easy one. It runs through wilderness and weariness, through confession and costly trust. But at some point in the journey, something unexpected happens. The season pauses to let hope show its full face.

“The people of Israel are worn out by the desert, tired of wandering, tired of manna, tired of trusting. They are inveterate complainers (just like us). They are stubbornly rebellious (like us). And they suffer the consequences of their own impatience. Still —in the midst of their trouble—God makes a way of healing: a lifted sign. This is a mercy they did not earn and could not manage or manipulate.

“Then Jesus reaches back into that old story and says, That is what my life will be like—lifted up, given away, offered for the healing of the world. The Son of Man will be raised not first in glory, but in suffering, and through that suffering, life will come.

“And Paul is clear: we are not saved by our effort or our moral muscle. We are saved by grace: a gift. This is what it means to be grounded and growing in the middle of Lent—to remember that even here, in the dry places, God is still at work, coaxing life out of hard soil and bringing green shoots out of ground we thought was spent. Today is a day to lift our eyes, to take heart, and to trust again in the healing mercy of God.”

During our Lenten journey through the wilderness we will pray, 

Holy God, ground us in your grace.
Grow us in your love.
Lead us in your way.[1]

 

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This year, Reformed Worship, published by Calvin Theological Seminary, offers us a year-long worship series called Grounded & Growing. This series offers us resources for worship throughout the year with a theme that converges with our own theme of Growing in Faith Together, and our adoption of the image of a tree planted by water, from Psalm 1:3 and Jeremiah 17:7-8.

Joyce Borger offers this reflection in her introduction to this week’s Grounded and Growing theme:

“The Lenten road is not an easy one. It runs through wilderness and weariness, through confession and costly trust. But at some point in the journey, something unexpected happens. The season pauses to let hope show its full face.

“The people of Israel are worn out by the desert, tired of wandering, tired of manna, tired of trusting. They are inveterate complainers (just like us). They are stubbornly rebellious (like us). And they suffer the consequences of their own impatience. Still —in the midst of their trouble—God makes a way of healing: a lifted sign. This is a mercy they did not earn and could not manage or manipulate.

“Then Jesus reaches back into that old story and says, That is what my life will be like—lifted up, given away, offered for the healing of the world. The Son of Man will be raised not first in glory, but in suffering, and through that suffering, life will come.

“And Paul is clear: we are not saved by our effort or our moral muscle. We are saved by grace: a gift. This is what it means to be grounded and growing in the middle of Lent—to remember that even here, in the dry places, God is still at work, coaxing life out of hard soil and bringing green shoots out of ground we thought was spent. Today is a day to lift our eyes, to take heart, and to trust again in the healing mercy of God.”

During our Lenten journey through the wilderness we will pray, 

Holy God, ground us in your grace.
Grow us in your love.
Lead us in your way.[1]

 

​

This year, Reformed Worship, published by Calvin Theological Seminary, offers us a year-long worship series called Grounded & Growing. This series offers us resources for worship throughout the year with a theme that converges with our own theme of Growing in Faith Together, and our adoption of the image of a tree planted by water, from Psalm 1:3 and Jeremiah 17:7-8.

Joyce Borger offers this reflection in her introduction to this week’s Grounded and Growing theme:

“The Lenten road is not an easy one. It runs through wilderness and weariness, through confession and costly trust. But at some point in the journey, something unexpected happens. The season pauses to let hope show its full face.

“The people of Israel are worn out by the desert, tired of wandering, tired of manna, tired of trusting. They are inveterate complainers (just like us). They are stubbornly rebellious (like us). And they suffer the consequences of their own impatience. Still —in the midst of their trouble—God makes a way of healing: a lifted sign. This is a mercy they did not earn and could not manage or manipulate.

“Then Jesus reaches back into that old story and says, That is what my life will be like—lifted up, given away, offered for the healing of the world. The Son of Man will be raised not first in glory, but in suffering, and through that suffering, life will come.

“And Paul is clear: we are not saved by our effort or our moral muscle. We are saved by grace: a gift. This is what it means to be grounded and growing in the middle of Lent—to remember that even here, in the dry places, God is still at work, coaxing life out of hard soil and bringing green shoots out of ground we thought was spent. Today is a day to lift our eyes, to take heart, and to trust again in the healing mercy of God.”

During our Lenten journey through the wilderness we will pray, 

Holy God, ground us in your grace.
Grow us in your love.
Lead us in your way.[1]

 

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This year, Reformed Worship, published by Calvin Theological Seminary, offers us a year-long worship series called Grounded & Growing. This series offers us resources for worship throughout the year with a theme that converges with our own theme of Growing in Faith Together, and our adoption of the image of a tree planted by water, from Psalm 1:3 and Jeremiah 17:7-8.

A flourishing faith is one that is both deeply rooted and reaching outward—grounded in scripture and growing in understanding. Colossians 2:6–7 says, “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness” (NIV).

Throughout the year, we will dwell in this theme of grounded and growing. We started in Advent when we saw the shoot from the stump, a promise of future flourishing. Epiphany brought the promise of a branch grafted onto that stump.

Now we find ourselves in Lent where we follow Christ into the wilderness. The wilderness can be a scary, desolate space. In scripture, it is a place of testing and preparation for living the life to which we have been called. Those who survive the wilderness are those who are grounded in Christ, receiving nourishment through him, and continuing to grow in his ways. This process of growth often includes a time of refinement, branches need to be pruned and become ashes. What is diseased is cut down but yet the promise of Easter is that out of the ashes and decay life will arise. 

In Lent we confront death and decay, the ashes of burnt branches and trees, making way for new life. During our Lenten journey through the wilderness we will pray, 

Holy God, ground us in your grace.
Grow us in your love.
Lead us in your way.

 

​

This year, Reformed Worship, published by Calvin Theological Seminary, offers us a year-long worship series called Grounded & Growing. This series offers us resources for worship throughout the year with a theme that converges with our own theme of Growing in Faith Together, and our adoption of the image of a tree planted by water, from Psalm 1:3 and Jeremiah 17:7-8.

A flourishing faith is one that is both deeply rooted and reaching outward—grounded in scripture and growing in understanding. Colossians 2:6–7 says, “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness” (NIV).

Throughout the year, we will dwell in this theme of grounded and growing. We started in Advent when we saw the shoot from the stump, a promise of future flourishing. Epiphany brought the promise of a branch grafted onto that stump.

Now we find ourselves in Lent where we follow Christ into the wilderness. The wilderness can be a scary, desolate space. In scripture, it is a place of testing and preparation for living the life to which we have been called. Those who survive the wilderness are those who are grounded in Christ, receiving nourishment through him, and continuing to grow in his ways. This process of growth often includes a time of refinement, branches need to be pruned and become ashes. What is diseased is cut down but yet the promise of Easter is that out of the ashes and decay life will arise. 

In Lent we confront death and decay, the ashes of burnt branches and trees, making way for new life. During our Lenten journey through the wilderness we will pray, 

Holy God, ground us in your grace.
Grow us in your love.
Lead us in your way.

 

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This year, Reformed Worship, published by Calvin Theological Seminary, offers us a year-long worship series called Grounded & Growing. This series offers us resources for worship throughout the year with a theme that converges with our own theme of Growing in Faith Together, and our adoption of the image of a tree planted by water, from Psalm 1:3 and Jeremiah 17:7-8.

A flourishing faith is one that is both deeply rooted and reaching outward—grounded in scripture and growing in understanding. Colossians 2:6–7 says, “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness” (NIV).

Throughout the year, we will dwell in this theme of grounded and growing. We started in Advent when we saw the shoot from the stump, a promise of future flourishing. Epiphany brought the promise of a branch grafted onto that stump.

Now we find ourselves in Lent where we follow Christ into the wilderness. The wilderness can be a scary, desolate space. In scripture, it is a place of testing and preparation for living the life to which we have been called. Those who survive the wilderness are those who are grounded in Christ, receiving nourishment through him, and continuing to grow in his ways. This process of growth often includes a time of refinement, branches need to be pruned and become ashes. What is diseased is cut down but yet the promise of Easter is that out of the ashes and decay life will arise. 

In Lent we confront death and decay, the ashes of burnt branches and trees, making way for new life. During our Lenten journey through the wilderness we will pray, 

Holy God, ground us in your grace.
Grow us in your love.
Lead us in your way.

 

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This year, Reformed Worship, published by Calvin Theological Seminary, offers us a year-long worship series called Grounded & Growing. This series offers us resources for worship throughout the year with a theme that converges with our own theme of Growing in Faith Together, and our adoption of the image of a tree planted by water, from Psalm 1:3 and Jeremiah 17:7-8.

A flourishing faith is one that is both deeply rooted and reaching outward—grounded in scripture and growing in understanding. Colossians 2:6–7 says, “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness” (NIV).

Throughout the year, we will dwell in this theme of grounded and growing. We started in Advent when we saw the shoot from the stump, a promise of future flourishing. Epiphany brought the promise of a branch grafted onto that stump.

Now we find ourselves in Lent where we follow Christ into the wilderness. The wilderness can be a scary, desolate space. In scripture, it is a place of testing and preparation for living the life to which we have been called. Those who survive the wilderness are those who are grounded in Christ, receiving nourishment through him, and continuing to grow in his ways. This process of growth often includes a time of refinement, branches need to be pruned and become ashes. What is diseased is cut down but yet the promise of Easter is that out of the ashes and decay life will arise. 

In Lent we confront death and decay, the ashes of burnt branches and trees, making way for new life. During our Lenten journey through the wilderness we will pray, 

Holy God, ground us in your grace.
Grow us in your love.
Lead us in your way.

 

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