Join us as we celebrate the start of a new school year with a fun day at the pool! Kristi Drennan is again our host. Get in on the fun on Saturday, August 15, from 11:00am until the last one leaves. Don't forget to bring: Sunscreen Towel Life jacket, if needed Come ready for swimming, food, and lots of fun with friends. We can’t wait to see everyone there! For directions, contact the church office.

The focus of the League of Questioneers is to be able to construct good questions of the Bible. We're like engineers of questions: we're questioneers. We've been asking question since we got started and found that a lot of the questions orbited around prediction, prophecy, and predestination. Since then, we've been tracing Bible stories about prediction, prophets, and prophecy in roughly canonical order (the stories come in books-of-the-Bible order). It has been fascinati

Next up for the adult Sunday School study is "Honoring God's Diversity." God calls us to honor diversity that God has created in our world by diving deep beyond just accepting diversity. When we recognize and celebrate the different gifts, abilities, and voices in all creation, we honor the diversity in the world that God has created. God embraces our differences as God created all in the image of God’s own diversity. Honoring God’s diversity helps us see those who are margin

In the Sunday sermons in July we've been looking at the kingdom parables. The whole of Matthew Chapter 13 is sometimes called the Kingdom Discourse. On the last Sunday in July we hit a whole bunch of the shorter kingdom parables--the leftovers after several weeks covering the longer ones one parable at a time. Among these are the parable of the Mustard Seed and the parable of the Yeast. In the sermon I said that the mustard seed was an idiom that meant the smallest possib

Did you know there is a group of people who deliver meals to members of our congregation in need throughout the year? Our team of caring cooks are themselves in need of various kinds of food storage and cooking containers. Let's support this appreciated ministry by donating these supplies via the narthex collection box. Please donate NEW and UNUSED paper or plastic containers of various sizes, oven-ready aluminum foil tins, and insulated sacks with handles to carry the food.

August is an exciting month for our choir, and we can’t wait to share what we have in store! We begin August with our full choir leading music at the communion service on August 2. We are especially thrilled to be accompanied by Libby Patton on the flute—we are so excited to have her join us for this special service! As always, we love highlighting the diverse talents in our community. If you would like to share a musical gift—vocal or instrumental—please reach out to our Mus

The first three lessons in the teaching literature I use in Children's Worship are based on the 23rd Psalm and the Good Shepherd from John 10. The kids enjoy reenacting the lessons using the wooden figures, rocks and a plastic wolf but I wanted them to have a deeper understanding of the 23rd Psalm. I selected some of, in my opinion, the more meaningful verses and changed the wording into words and phrases they would understand. I wrote it on our whiteboard using a different

I’m sure many of you have questions about the water abatement project in our basement. For many years our basement has had issues with flooding. Several years ago the Session created a plan to solve this problem. The plan consists of three phases. The first phase was coating the outside basement walls and grading the grounds to carry water away from the building. This phase was completed a couple of years ago. Phase two is installing a drainage system in the basement floo

Our choir reconvenes Wednesday at 5:30pm to prepare for Communion Sunday on August 2. Come have fun singing and preparing to be part of our worship time together. All skill levels welcome.

Learn about the Operation Christmas Child shoebox ministry of Samaritan's Purse by hearing the personal story of special guest Christy Mardini, a one-time shoebox recipient. This presentation will be at 6:00pm Thursday, July 23, at Beaty Baptist Church, 32090 Airline Road, Pauls Valley. Refreshments will be served.

"Cool" adventures await our kids thanks to the arrival of Vacation Bible School. This five-night exploration is a combined effort by First United Methodist Church, First Christian Church and First Presbyterian Church. The event happens at the Methodist church, 401 N. Willow St. Your kids and grandkids -- pre-k through rising 6th grade, are invited to join the fun. Pre-registration is not needed. Contact Mary Gowing to help as a volunteer. Vacation Bible School runs from Sunda

On Sunday, July 12, the adult Sunday School will start to explore joy as a part of our "Following Jesus." What is joy? What do scriptures say about it in various times and among various people of God? How can it be adopted into our modern lives? And like ice cream, are there 31 flavors of joy? Come see how joy can become more prevalent in your own life. Sunday School starts at 9:50am every Sunday. Peggy Patton leads the group and there's a different discussion leader every

There are a couple of things in my life that I've long been fascinated by. Of course, if you've gotten to know me, you won't be surprised that these are weird, abstract things. One of them is the mystery of consciousness. What is going on in our brain, physically? How does that produce self-awareness, perception, understanding, creativity? Another is the gap between people. Whence language and how do we communicate? What is the nature of all those emotions that happen b

A new school year should begin with excitement, confidence, and the tools students need to succeed. But for many families and teachers, school supplies can create added stress before the first day even begins. Our emphasis for the July Narthex Box is to collect school supplies as we join our efforts with First United Bank's campaign. Please donate a backpack, a pack of pencils, a notebook. Whatever would be helpful in the typical day of a student's life. Take a walk down the

In general, the focus of the League of Questioneers is to learn approaches to Bible study that empower us to ask good questions of the Bible. We started with a dash through the story of the Bible. This gives us narrative "pegs" on which to hang the rest of our inquiry. Then we explored layers and layers of tools scholars and exegetes use to try to draw meaning out of the text of the Bible. We looked at the study of the physical fragments of papyrus copies of the Bible; we

It doesn't take much of an online search to find videos of pet owners enticing their pets to respond to music that they play or sing. Most often, a pet dog will start howling while the human is playing the piano or singing while strumming the guitar. Perhaps even more captivating is the variety of animals that become interested. There's a video of lions coming next to the wall of thick glass and making eye contact. There's one with a few parrots who light on the guitar player

First Presbyterian, First Christian, and First United Methodist Churches of Pauls Valley present Vacation Bible School Sunday, July 12, through Thursday, July 16, 5:30pm for dinner, VBS from 6:00pm to 8:00pm at the First United Methodist Church. Your kids and grandkids, pre-k through rising 6th grade, are invited to join the fun. You are invited to volunteer too! Contact Mary Gowing to help. Registration info coming soon.

Way back in 2023, we celebrated the 100-year anniversary of the building we worship in today. Those people, our spiritual ancestors and, in many cases, our literal ancestors had faith in our community grounded in Jesus Christ, and because of that faith, had hope that our community would carry their faith into the future. In faith and hope, they began and completed a project to provide a building not only for themselves, but the future generations of families who would wors

Hello Fellow Churchgoers: The time has finally come! Your faithful Session members have decided on a plan to move forward with the basement repairs. The next phase of water proofing will begin at the end of July. Yay! This means we need to clean out and tear out all that needs to go. We have planned two work days for us, the members and friends of the church, to clear out all we want to get rid of and move what we want to keep before the work crews arrive. Please join us

Tomorrow, June 25, is a food delivery day at Samaritan’s of Pauls Valley and they need help unloading the truck. During the school year kids from Pauls Valley High School help with the unloading but school is out and due to injuries and vacations, the Samaritans staff is low, too. The pantry asks for special recruits for this date and other food delivery dates (second and fourth Thursdays) this summer. This week they will receive about 6500 lbs of food, which is a medium to