We mean it when we say, “Everyone is Welcome here!”

May 6 – 12, 2026

This Week @ First Church

Wednesday May 6

Mindful Meditation – 6 p.m.

Come every Wednesday evening and leave the troubles of the world outside as you spend an hour in meditation. Enter the church through the Delaware Street entrance.

Sunday May 10 – Mother’s Day

Worship Service – 10 a.m.

Worship Service In-Person and on Facebook

SERMON: “Love is the Greatest of All” Based on 1 Peter 3:13-22 and John 14:15-21

Notes for 1 Peter 3:13-22                                                                                                                     

1 Peter 3:13-22 encourages Christians to live righteously, even when suffering for their faith, highlights Christ’s ultimate victory over sin and death, and urges believers to share the reason for their hope. Let us now listen to the Word of God.

1 Peter 3:13-22   

Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil. For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you– not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.

Notes for John 14:15-21 

John 14:15-21 features Jesus promising Our Advocate, the Holy Spirit to his disciples emphasizing that love for him is demonstrated through obedience to his commands. He promises not to abandon them and those who love him will be with the Triune God in their heavenly home. Hear now what the Spirit is saying to the church.

John 14:15-21 
Jesus said, ”If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

”I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

HYMNS

“Blessed Assurance”

“A Christian Home”

“Wonder of Wonders, Here Revealed”“O Jesus, I Have Promised”