Covenant Presbyterian Church Augusta

8/10/2025 Promises & New Beginnings

Pastor Katelyn Gordon Cooke said, "To say this Sunday is going to be a big day at Covenant feels like an understatement." It's Preschool Sunday, which means we are inviting preschool families and staff to join us for worship. We'll commission the preschool staff and have a blessing of the backpacks for students (of all ages!) during the service.We also have the Blessing of the Playground this Sunday after worship. Hurricane Helene's destruction of Covenant's playground was a great loss to our church, preschool, and community, and we are so excited to be able to bless the new playground and to celebrate this special space with Covenant members, friends, and neighbors.God is faithful.

7/3/2025 Bigger Barns

Our Scripture passages this Sunday are like medicine: as Pastor Andy Cooke says, they may not taste great, but they are good for us. Our call to worship comes from Psalm 49, and our readings are from Ecclesiastes and Luke (see links above). All of these readings have to do with money, wealth, and our labor. In our society, it can sound a little depressing to hear a spiritual critique of wealth. After all, isn't wealth the goal? Everywhere I look, it seems to be. But the messages that we get from culture need to be tempered by the words of Jesus and other teachings in Scripture. Come with an open mind as we explore these texts together.

6/27/2025 Persistant Prayer

This is our final message in the Double Take Series of sermons in which co-pastors Katelyn Gordon Cooke and Andy cook preach different sermons on the same scripture passage.  Prayer is often a daunting subject. We might love God, but we get nervous about talking to God--especially in front of other people. We don't quite know what to say or how to say it. We worry that we don't do it well. We assume that someone else can do it better.In our reading from Luke's gospel this Sunday, Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray and even gives them the words to pray. If you've ever felt unsure about prayer, then I hope you'll join us  and contemplate this teaching with us.

7/20/2025 Double Take: Priorities

This week we continue our Double Take Series of Sermons with our wonderful pastors, Rev. Katelyn Gordon Cooke and Rev. Andy Cooke.  During a recent conversation with some Covenant youth, one of the teenagers said this about their sibling: "Sometimes it's hard to believe we're related. We're just so different." I imagine some of you reading this email have had that thought about your own sibling or others siblings you know. Just because we share DNA and grow up in the same family doesn't mean that we're necessarily alike in personality or preferences.The differences between sisters Mary and Martha are front and center in this week's gospel reading from Luke. When Jesus comes to visit them, Martha goes into super-hostess mode while Mary sits at Jesus' feet and listens to his teachings. In this week's Double Take sermon where Andy and I each preach a brief sermon on the same Scripture passage, we'll share two perspectives on what these two sisters can teach us about what it looks like to be faithful.

7/13/2025 Double Take: The Good Samaritan

Pastor Andy Cooke said he really enjoyed preaching the first Double Take sermon last week. Katelyn and I each preached half of a sermon, which is what we are doing throughout the month of July. We are in Luke 10 again this week, specifically the story of the Good Samaritan. Last week, we heard about Jesus sending out 72 "missionaries" to towns in the area and telling them to carry no purse, bag, or sandals. They all go out and after some time, they return. Then, he tells them the story of the Good Samaritan.It is good that these two stories appear so close together in Luke's gospel. In the first, the disciples of Jesus are learning to receive hospitality from others. In the second, the disciples are learning to give hospitality to others. They are both important practices in Christian faith.

7/6/2025 Double Take: On a Mission

This week you get not one but two messages from Pastor Katelyn Gordon Cooke and Pastor Andy Cooke.  This Sunday, we start our Double Take sermon series where Andy and I each preach a sermon on the same Scripture passage. This week's reading from Luke 10 includes some hard (and somewhat confusing?) words from Jesus, and it also includes some pertinent reminders for this weekend when we'll celebrate Independence Day and commission our high school youth and their chaperones who will be going to Montreat Youth Conference next week. 

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.