A Sunday morning Advent program will be held from  December 8 - 22 @ 9:45 AM, in the Whitefield Room (on the basement level). In this three-week class, the Rev. Barbara Chaapel will lead us in discussing the book Learning to Walk in the Dark, by Episcopal priest and author Barbara Brown Taylor. The book will be available to participants who register for the class, although reading it is not required for participation. Please register here, or contact the  church office to register and reserve a copy of the book.

A three-week Bible study will be offered on Wednesdays from 12:15-12:45 PM, on December 4, 11, and 18. This study will be held exclusively online, via zoom. It will be led by Rev. Laura Colee and Dr. Baron Mullis, and will focus on Advent texts. The study is intended to help fit Advent reflection into a busy holiday schedule, so we will start on time and end on time. Please register online to receive the zoom link. You may also register by calling the church office (215-567-0532).

As part of the Advent season, our families with young children will have the opportunity to participate in some fun Christmas-inspired activities and service projects! Children ages 2-to-10 years old are invited to join us from 9:50-10:30 am in the back of Old Buttonwood Hall for our special Advent activities. Here are the activities we have planned in December:

• December 1 - Advent Wreath Making and Christmas Tree Decorating

• December 8 - Christmas Card Making

• December 15 - Christmas Cookie Decorating

• December 22 - Christmas Ornament Making
  Note: We will be handing out wrapped Christmas books to our kids this day. Please let us know if you cannot attend the Celebration service on 12/22 and we will mail them the books to you.

• December 29 — No Sunday School this week

On Sundays in November, a series on end-of-life issues will address issues of stewardship during that season.

• The November 10 session will focus on estate planning, with estate planning attorney Nego Pile.

• The November 17 session will address end-of-life heath care decision-making and support for caregivers. This session will be led by Dr. Scott Halpern, the John M. Eisenberg Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Medical Ethics and Health Policy, at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.

• The November 24 session will be led by Rev. Matthew Arlyck, our Minister for Congregational Care, and will focus on end-of-life spiritual connections.

Each session will be held at 12:30 p.m. in the MacColl Room. 

The Adult Christian Education Committee is sponsoring a four-week Lenten Bible study on Wednesdays, February 28 through March 20, from 12:15-12:45 PM. The series will be held exclusively online, via Zoom.

Led by Dr. Mullis and Rev. Colee, the study will be based on the Gospel of Mark, from which this year’s Easter Sunday scripture will be taken.  Over four weeks, we will look at key passages that prepare us for Holy Week.  No prior reading is necessary, and while the study will build over time, each week can be taken as a stand-alone study.

Please register to receive the zoom link. You may also register by calling the church office (215-567-0532).

You Will Know Them by Their Fruits: Christianity, Democracy, and Our Present Crisis

As a follow-up to our Conversations Worth Having seminar with Dr. Brian Blount, Adult Christian Education is sponsoring a three-week program which will continue and expand on the conversation of Christian Nationalism.

On Sundays February 25, March 3, and March 10, Dr. Heath Carter, Professor of American Christianity at Princeton Theological Seminary, will address how questions about the future of U.S. democracy—indeed, whether democracy in this country has a future—have come to the fore of public life in recent years. In this series, he will explore the significant part that Christians have played in the making of our present crisis and whether there is anything in our past that we can hold on to as we seek to contribute to a better future.

Sessions will be held in the MacColl room beginning at 12:30 p.m. Sandwiches will be provided. 

Remote attendance will be available via Zoom for those who are not able to attend in-person. Click below to register or call the church office (215-567-0532) to receive the Zoom link. (Those attending in person do not need to register!)

The series schedule is as follows:

• February 25: Deep in the Soil:
  A look at the deeper roots of what scholars and journalists alike have taken to calling white Christian nationalism. 

• March 3: Seeds of Possibility
  A brief history of now, with attention to some of the surprising contingencies, unexpected breakthroughs, and roads not (yet) traveled that are also part of the story.

• March 10: Cultivating Hope
  An opportunity to reflect together on what it might mean to move forward in faith.

A three week Bible study will be offered on Wednesdays from 12:15-12:45 PM, on November 29, December 6, and December 13. This study will be held exclusively online, via zoom. It will be led by Rev. Laura Colee and Dr. Baron Mullis, and will focus on Advent texts. The study is intended to help fit Advent reflection into a busy holiday schedule, so we will start on time and end on time. Please register online to receive the zoom link. You may also register by calling the church office (215-567-0532).

During Advent this year the Adult Education Committee will offer a special program on interpreting our dreams, led by the Rev. Susan Teegen, a colleague of Barbara Chaapel and a minister and counselor who lives and practices in Delaware County. The four sessions will be held on Sunday mornings November 26, December 3, December 10, and December 17 from 9:30 to 10:45 am.

Rev. Teegen holds a Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary and has certifications in Gestalt coaching and counseling, and clinical pastoral education. She is experienced in exploring the wisdom and inspiration of dreams as a spiritual practice. She believes that God is accessible to us through our dreams, and that they offer us insight and guidance for our lives of faith and in support of our wholeness.

The class welcomes those new to dream work and those who seek to deepen their practice; it will be limited to between eight and ten participants and those who register are strongly urged to plan to attend all sessions. Register online or by calling the church office (215-567-0532). The sessions will be held in the Whitefield Room on the lower level of the church.

Please join the Christian Education Lenten book discussion on Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC by Frederick Buechner. This hybrid class meets in the MacColl Room and via Zoom after church on 5 Sundays (February 26, March 5, 12, 19, and 26). Join our moderators Barbara Chaapel, Baron Mullis, and Ken Ross, to explore such topics as faith and doubt and the real meaning of common theological terms such as agnosticism, love, and sin. We’ll have the opportunity to share responses and enrich each other’s spiritual journeys.

Copies of the book are available at the church office, although reading it in advance is not necessary.

Please join us in-person in the MacColl Room or remotely via Zoom. For remote attendance, please register below or call the church office.

A Class for the Season of Advent

Advent, which begins the church’s liturgical year, is the season that anticipates and awaits the coming of Christ into the world.

To help us experience the hope of Advent together, First Church will offer a series of four online classes led by our parish associate, the Rev. Barbara Chaapel, on Wednesdays November 30 through December 21 from 5 to 6 PM.

The theme of the series, “Beginning in Darkness,” recognizes that the world Jesus was born into centuries ago as well as the world Christ enters today, can be a very dark place. We all know the darkness of tribal politics, environmental degradation, racial injustice, human suffering brought by war, poverty, and disease. The Christ of Advent does not turn away from such darkness, but is born in the midst of its reality, in a country fraught with crime and corruption, in a stable in the dark of night. The hope and light of the world begins in darkness.

Each class will present scripture, poetry, and a story from the news to help us reflect on darkness, and on the seeds of light within it that are awaiting birth. There will be time for reflection on the texts, sharing, silence, and prayer. In the final class, in December 21, we will experience the winter solstice together, the longest and darkest night of the year, when the sun itself stands still, waiting.

3 Wednesdays @ 7:30 PM via zoom
April 27, May 4, and May 11

In celebration of Earth Day 2022, our climate change book club features Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World by Katharine Hayhoe. Classes begin April 27 and continue May 4, and 11. 

Katharine Hayhoe knows how to navigate all sides of the conversation on our changing planet. A Canadian climate scientist living in Texas, she negotiates distrust of data, indifference to imminent threats, and resistance to proposed solutions with ease. Over the past fifteen years Hayhoe has found that the most important thing we can do to address climate change is talk about it—and she wants to teach you how.

In Saving Us, Hayhoe argues that when it comes to changing hearts and minds, facts are only one part of the equation. We need to find shared values to connect our unique identities to collective action. This is not another doomsday narrative about a planet on fire. It is a multilayered look at science, faith, and human psychology, from an icon in her field—recently named chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy.

Drawing on interdisciplinary research and personal stories, Hayhoe shows that small conversations can have astonishing results. Saving Us leaves us with the tools to open a dialogue with your loved ones about how we all can play a role in pushing forward for change.

The 3-part series, led by FPC member Doug O'Malley, will be held on Wednesdays, at 7:30 via Zoom. The book will be discussed in the first two sessions, with the concluding class on May 11 featuring a video talk by Katharine Hayhoe. Copies of the book are available at no charge upon registration; please register below or by calling the church office (215-567-0532). Attendees will benefit from this series even if they have not had the chance to read the book.