Covenant Presbyterian Church Augusta

11/23/2025 Christ the King

Christ the King Sunday, celebrated on the last Sunday of the church year, focuses on the crucified and risen Christ, who God exalted to rule over all creation. As pastor Karla Conditt Daniels tells us, Christ the King Sunday was established by papal decree in 1925, to reorient the faithful after the horrors and destruction of World War I. 
One hundred years later, with wars raging and the proliferation of dangerous political ideologies, we also need to be reoriented (and reminded) that the only Sovereign in life is God made known in Christ, and our allegiance belongs only to our Creator God. 
I am grateful for a strong and diverse community of faith, that sometimes challenges and often clarifies where my allegiance belongs. While we may not share uniformity in our thinking I hope that we can appreciate our unity in God’s Spirit.

11/16/2025 Quiet Work

Pastor Andy Cooke says being part of the church can be hard work sometimes. Our relationships are a constant balancing act between grace and accountability, kindness and truth, acceptance and aspiration. Being part of the church is challenging, but I think that it is practice for how we interact with the rest of the world. On Sunday, we will look at the letter of 2nd Thessalonians and see how this challenge has been with us since the beginning of the Christian church. I hope that you'll join us  and consider how we might continue to be formed and reformed into a more Christ-like community.

11/9/2025 Growing and GIving

Ever since the Stewardship Task Force decided on this year's theme of "Growing and Giving," those two words have been in the forefront of my mind.  Pastor Katelyn Gordon Cooke said she's noticed growth and giving happening all around me - especially here at Covenant. I see it in our Sunday School classes and in worship. I see it in the ways that people show up and serve at the church and in our congregation's generosity toward our neighbors. (Y'all donated two car-fulls of food for GAP last week!) It's amazing to see how the Spirit works through our growth and giving.

11/2/2025 Growing Among the Saints

Yesterday, November 1st, was All Saints' Day, a holiday that Christians have been celebrating for over a thousand years. As Pastor Andy Cooke explains, at Covenant, we tend to celebrate this holiday on the first Sunday in November when we remember in worship those who have come before us in the faith and thank God for their lives. In Ephesians, the Apostle Paul talks about a spiritual inheritance in Christ that has been passed to us. We come from a long line of saints who have been faithful, taught us well, and lived lives worthy of their calling.

10/19/2025 The Time is Surely Coming

This week, Pastor Andy Cook, tells us that Christian faith is often misconstrued as something that only pertains to an internal relationship with God, but if you open the Bible, it doesn't take long to realize that faith also involves our relationship to the world around us. This Sunday, we will be focusing on the world around us and our particular call to address poverty and homelessness.

10/12/2025 Hard Words of Hope

On this week's sermon podcast, Pastor Katelyn Gordon Cooke, tells us of Jeremiah's counsel to God's people about what they are to do next. If you've ever felt displaced, homesick, or out of place (and who among us hasn't felt that way at some point in our lives?), there's a hard but good word of hope here for you.

10/5/2025

This weekend, we will celebrate World Communion Sunday, which is a time for us to recognize the unity that we share with other Christians around the world. As Pastor Andy Cook tells us, it is a reminder that we are part of a global community, and that our allegiances are greater than we might sometimes think.This year, we are adding a new element to our celebration. Following a discussion between the Worship Ministry Team, Mission Ministry Team, and Matthew 25 Task Force, we have decided to invite some elected officials to join us for worship. We have been interested in finding ways to develop relationships with our elected officials and to thank them for the important work that they do, and we believe that this is a good first step. In my letter of invitation to forty or so local, state, and national elected officials, I invited them to come and worship with the promise that we were not attempting to lobby them or ask them for anything. All that we ask is for the opportunity to thank them, to pray for them, and to join us for lunch. Even if they cannot attend, we will still pray for them.

9/28/2025 Getting Closer

As Pastor Katelyn Gordon Cooke tells us this week, transitions are often moments when we pause to consider where we've been and where we're going, and our Scripture readings this Sunday invite us into that reflective space as well. In all of our transitions, we give thanks that God is steadfast and faithful. 

9/21/2025 Cross Carrying

This week pastor Andy Cooke is back in the pulpit reading Jesus' words from Luke 14: "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children...cannot be my disciple." It is...interesting...to read and preach those words when your father, mother, wife, and child sit a few feet away. Some might want to skip over these words of Jesus, but I really appreciate them. And I'll preach it the same way whether or not my parents are in the pew. I hope that you'll come with an open mind on Sunday and hear what Jesus has to say to us.

9/14/2025 The Small Things

In this week's sermon, Pastor Katelyn Gordon Cooke says we celebrate the big events and happenings in the life of our church and in our community, and, at the same time, Jesus invites us to remember the importance and significance of small things. In this week's reading from Luke, we'll hear Jesus' parable of the (very tiny) mustard seed. In world that is often drawn to things that are big and flashy, it can be refreshing to hear what God can do even with something very small.