Covenant Presbyterian Church Augusta

6/29/2025 Fruit Season

Guest minister Amy Hobby Rickard says she loves the fruits and vegetables that are available to us this time of year. June is when the juicy locally grown tomatoes and peaches make it to farm stands, and neighbors beg you to take the zucchini proliferating in their garden.  None of this fruit happens by accident. It requires planting and careful cultivation. The fruit of the Holy Spirit is no different.Our passage from Galatians 5 may be familiar to you as Paul shares an extensive list of negative acts and habits that are unfortunately present in many of our lives, and a counter list of positive character traits that God wishes to see in us. We will explore how these ideas were presented to their original audience in the ancient congregation in Galatia, how they can inform us today, and how we can cultivate our own spiritual gardens.

6/22/2025 The Audience

This Sunday will conclude our Greatest Hits sermon series. Pastor Andy Cooke repreaches a sermon from August 7, 2022 entitled "The Audience." This sermon draws heavily from another sermon that one of our first pastors, French O'Shields, preached here 65 years ago this month. When I first came across that old sermon, I felt that it would be important for you to hear it and I re-worked it into the sermon that I preached in 2022. With that history, it seemed perfect for our Greatest Hits series.French O'Shields preached his sermon in June, and I preached mine in August. They were both internally focused sermons meant for those dedicated church worshipers who were attending in that time of the year when the pews were not quite as full. Basically, these sermons were meant to help us re-think what it is that we are doing when we gather for worship.

6/25/2025 In The Dark

This Sunday will be a liturgical mash-up of sorts. As Pastor Katelyn Gordon Cooke explains, on the liturgical calendar, it's Trinity Sunday; we'll still have our Pentecost decorations up; and I'll be preaching an Easter sermon from 2019 as part of our Greatest Hits sermon series. So exciting! :)Each of those events and theological doctrines - Jesus' resurrection, the coming of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the church, and the reality of God as three-in-one - issues its own invitation that we get comfortable with mystery. Resurrection is beyond our full knowing as is the Holy Spirit and the Triune God. There's a gift here, I think, in that we are not expected to know everything but instead get to appreciate the wonder, beauty, and faithfulness of the God who created us and claims us.

6/8/2025 A Mighty Wind

Recently, Pastor Andy Cooke said he watched A Complete Unknown, the movie about Bob Dylan that was released last year. Near the end of the movie, he is performing at the Newport Folk Festival and playing his new songs with an electric guitar rather than his old folk songs on an acoustic guitar. The audience revolts and starts throwing trash on the stage! They want the songs that they know and love, not the new ones.Pastor Andy says he's often lamented the fact that this is reversed for preachers. People want something new rather than a sermon that they appreciated from long ago. During the month of June, we're experimenting with a reversal of this mindset. This Sunday is the second week of our "Greatest Hits" sermon series during which Katelyn and I will (re)preach some favorite sermons that we've preached during our time at Covenant. This Sunday will be an adaptation of the Pentecost sermon that I preached on June 9, 2019.

6/1/2025 With All Our Heart

This Sunday is the first week of our "Greatest Hits" sermon series during which Andy and I will (re)preach some favorite sermons that we've preached during our time at Covenant. To kick off the series, Pastor Katelyn Gordon Cooke is  preaching a sermon from early November 2022. We had just started our "Heart and Home" stewardship campaign, which included our annual stewardship campaign for 2023 as well as a three-year Home Improvement Plan.In the Friday email on November 4, 2022, I wrote, "There's a well-known quote from Teresa of Avila that goes, 'Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion upon the world.' It's also true that we are an extension, an expression of God's heart in the world, and that's what we're exploring together in worship this Sunday as part of our conversations about stewardship of time, talent, and treasure." This is still true for us today,

5/25/2025 The Peace of Christ

This week's reading from the Gospel of John includes some of my favorite verses of Scripture. Jesus says to his disciples, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid." I don't know about you, but I need to hear those words from Jesus on a daily - and sometimes hourly - basis. as Pastor Katelyn Gordon Cooke tells us, there's a lot about our world and in our personal lives that is troubling and that makes me afraid. I need that encouragement and invitation from Jesus to receive his peace.

5/18/2025 What Will Be

I've been looking forward to this Sunday for some time. During our worship service, we will recognize and celebrate our confirmands. They have attended confirmation classes, completed their confirmation journals, created faith statements, and met with mentors and elders. This Sunday is the last step on their confirmation journey, and I hope that you will join us and show your support for them.The sermon text will be Acts 11, where God shows Peter a new way to follow Christ that he could never have previously imagined. We often view faith as static, but as Pastor Andy Cooke tells us, it is interesting to watch God change the rules for this old disciple. As we watch these confirmands assume their new roles in the church, I have to wonder what changes God might bring through their involvement that we could never have previously imagined.

5/11/2025 The Great Multitude

Revelation is not usually a favorite book of the Bible for most Christians, but it is a wonderful place to go during the season of Easter. There are many visions of redemption or resurrection throughout. As Pastor Andy Cooke explains, "I will grant to you that most of it sounds odd to our ears and is often not especially well suited to Sunday morning worship. But there are certain parts that paint a glorious picture of God's Kingdom for us. The seventh chapter of Revelation is one of those places, and I'm looking forward to sharing it with you this Sunday. I promise that I won't make Mother's Day a drag for you."

5-4-2025 The Lure of the Familiar

On Andy's and my first date, I ordered one of the "safer" items on the menu: a flatbread pizza. Andy, on the other hand, looked at our waiter and said, "I'll just have whatever you think is good." I was both flabbergasted and impressed - who was this man who would leave his dinner order up to a complete stranger??Our choices for dinner that evening many years ago said something true about each of us: Andy likes novelty and adventure, and I prefer what is known and familiar.My preference for the familiar means that I resonate with Peter in this Sunday's gospel reading from John. It's a few days after Jesus' resurrection - a life-changing, world-changing event! - and what does Peter do? He goes back to what's familiar to him; he goes fishing. As pastor Katelyn Gordan Cooke tells us, it might not be what we expect from the disciple who was so zealous in his faith, but it's what he did and it's where Jesus found him.

4/27/2025 On a Tree

This Sunday, we will look at the resurrection through the lens of Creation. God's Creation reflects the resurrection everywhere, which is why you see so many hymns that make that connection. As Pastor Andy Cooke explains, simply put, resurrection is God's way and there are opportunities all around for us to see that.