Church of Tonawanda
From The Pastor
Tuesday, June 30 2026​
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NEWS FOR THE PEWS
FROM THE PASTOR​
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Dear Friends,
This week, News for the Pews comes early! Today is Judy’s last day of work, and Kelsey’s summer class ends on Thursday. She’ll be in the office regular hours beginning July 7. (Actually, she’ll be in the building most days, since she’s also working 15 hours a week at the CCG resource center over the summer months.)
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What changes are you facing this summer?
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Here at church, we’re facing a happy answer to prayer that will make us busier than usual in summer. Today we received news that our grant proposal for this year has been approved! We’ve again been awarded a $25,000 grant for our project. The proposal we submitted is a continuation of our previous grant project. The 2024 project was called “God’s Story/Our Story,” and we explored new ways to share Bible stories in worship, then segued into learning to tell our own faith stories in worship and in our community. The 2026 project begins tomorrow and runs 12 months (July 2026-June 2027). We’re calling it “God’s Song/Our Song,” and we intend to learn new ways to sing God’s story as we find it in scripture. Again, we’ll pair learning God’s songs with learning to create our own songs of personal faith. Our proposal includes a goal of writing 6 worship songs, and hosting events with Christian musicians.
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How will you support this endeavor? Reach out and let me know if you can help with event planning, music leadership, catering, grant budgeting and reporting, advertising, social media, audio tech… there’s something everyone can do to help!
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Would you like prayer? I’m happy to meet with you at home or at church and lift you and your family up in prayer. God wants to hear from us, and God wants us to support one another. Reach out, or join me for Prayer Covenant on Tuesday.
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Join FPCT for worship this Sunday, July 5, 2026, at 10:30am in person and livestreamed on Facebook. We’re following the Psalms this summer as we read David Taylor’s Open and Unafraid: The Psalms as a Guide to Life. This Sunday our sermon title is “God is Good.” Scriptures this week include Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67; Psalm 145:8-14; and Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30. 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
Summer Book Club: Open and Unafraid: The Psalms as a Guide to Life, by David Taylor
Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 of our Summer Book Study talk about Psalms as prayer and as poetry.
Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 4:
In the psalms we find words from God, we find words about God, and we find words to God. And all these words are the very words you and I need to pray well. All such words teach us how to talk to God and are, as such, a grammar for talking with God.4 In Bonhoeffer’s words: “It is not our prayers that interpret the Psalms but the Psalms that interpret our prayers.”5 Said otherwise, in putting the words of the psalms on our lips, we enter into a school of prayer. In such a school we become students, and we never stop being students of such prayers, learning how to talk to God and with God.[1]
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The psalms teach us how to pray as Jesus himself prayed. On the one hand, to pray with Jesus in this way is to pray with the one who, as the True Human, enables all faithful prayers. In praying this way, we are reassured that God attends to every aspect of our humanity. He sees and loves us. All aspects of our life, “all its changes, its ups and downs, its failures and recoveries,” … are carried up in Jesus’ own prayers and faithfully offered by the Spirit to the Father.[2]
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David Taylor invites us to reflect on several questions like this one, #5 on page 39:
When have you felt that God answered your prayers? When have you felt that God did not answer them? How might the psalms echo your experience and help you feel that you’re not alone?[3]
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In Chapter 5, Taylor reminds us that the poetry is the point of the prayers in the psalms. For support, he quotes C. S. Lewis:
“As C. S. Lewis reminds us: Most emphatically the Psalms must be read as poems; as lyrics, with all the licenses and all the formalities, the hyperboles, the emotional rather than logical connections, which are proper to lyric poetry. . . . Otherwise we shall miss what is in them and think we see what is not.”[4]
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In the chapter conclusion, Taylor states:
Poetry is a native language of God and of the people of God. It is a mother tongue of the Word Incarnate on whose lips the psalmist’s words came naturally. And it is the medium of art by which the Author of Scripture, the Holy Spirit, instructs us to address God by way of the prayers and praises of the psalms.[5]
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Here are two exercises you might like to try as you explore the psalms as poetry:
Read Psalm 8 or 148 in a paraphrase version of the Bible, like The Voice, The Living Bible, or The Message, which captures the poetic feel of the psalm. Read it several times. Meditate on it. Pray through it. Consider memorizing a portion of it to carry in your heart as a way to maintain a lively conversation with God throughout the day.
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​Read Psalm 19 in The Message. First silently, then out loud. How does the psalm feel different when you read it out loud?[6]
As you continue to read this book on your own and discuss it together in one of our gatherings, I’d love to hear your answers to some of the author’s questions for reflection. Will you share your thoughts with us? Next week, I’ll write about chapter 6, the theme of ???. Please send me your thoughts to include in next week’s News for the Pews. Or share in worship during our Faith Story Moment.
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Prayer Covenant Group
Our next weekly 20-minute prayer gathering is held on Tuesday, July 7, 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.
Thursday Night Book Club and Knit-along
Thursday at 5:30 join us for knitting and a discussion on Chapter 4 of our summer book club, Open and Unafraid. If you’d like to join us via zoom, use this link. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83046037168?pwd=pSsR7bVnC2aeU9aoFPUikBtZA9qZip.1
Sunday Morning Book Club
Gather with us Sunday mornings at 9:30 in the Parlor, where we’ll be tackling Chapter 5 this coming Sunday. The Thursday gatherings are a second opportunity to discuss the same chapter. Feel free to attend one or both.
Office Admin Opening
Our Office Administrator Judy Winters is retiring at the end of June, with June 30 as her last work day. She plans to continue being active as a deacon and worship team leader, but enjoy more time with her family and her hobbies. We wish her well!
Kelsey Burns will cover her position for the summer months of July and August, and we’ll be seeking to fill the position permanently in the Fall.
This job is a 15-hour per week job at $18/hr. If you know anyone interested reach out to Pastor Rebecca to learn more about duties, hours, and skills required.
Volunteers Needed
Have you checked the sign-up sheets on the bulletin board lately? There you can find an easy way to add your name to one of our regular weekly volunteer needs, from opening the buildings for a few hours during the Bocce Ball season, to Sunday morning service opportunities. How will you share of your time this summer?
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Session Shorts: May 11, 2026
Pastor Rebecca provided a summary of Pastoral care visits, worship services and gatherings. She reported that approval for the God’s Song, Our Song grant was still awaited.
Finance stated April income was $12,256. Expenses were $17,092, resulting in a monthly deficit of $4,836.
Property reported that no excavation was necessary for lead pipe abatement as our lines meet the code. Also, the inquiry regarding a church renting space in our building was rejected.
Christian Ed noted that the last day of Sunday School would be June 7, the same day as the picnic.
HR Ministry proposed hiring Kelsey Burns as temporary administrative assistant. Session approved at $18 per hour for up to 15 hours a week effective July 1. Billy and Mike will work on identifying candidates for a permanent position starting September 1.
Questions about our work? Ask a Session member!
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[1] Taylor, W. David O.. Open and Unafraid: The Psalms as a Guide to Life (p. 39). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.
[2] Ibid., (p. 47).
[3] Ibid., (p. 49).
[4] Ibid., (p. 54).
[5] Ibid., (p. 63.
[6] Ibid., (p. 65).
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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:
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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