Happy Birthday to the church!  The unofficial beginning of the Christian church begins when the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles with a rush of wind and flames on the day we call Pentecost.  We celebrate with a worship service full of music typically done in our Emerging Worship format (without the full ensemble!) as well as the sacrament of the Lord's Supper.

It wouldn't be the weekend without another technical glitch, right?  So this week's misadventure begins with an attempt to make Pastor Michael's voice more clear on our recordings.  We tested out a wireless microphone that would connect directly with my phone camera.  All three of us (Michael, John, and I) checked it with the ear piece.  Perfectly clear, best it's ever sounded.  What did we discover after we finished recording?  The phone didn't recognize the external microphone and used the default built-in microphone.  Apparently we needed a special cable that allows the phone to recognize the mic.  So, during the spoken parts of the service, you may hear the air conditioning coming on in the background, you might occasionally hear John breathing into his mask from behind the camera, and at times Michael's voice might be a little "echo-y."  I did the best to filter it with the EQ settings in the video editor to amplify his voice and got it to a fairly decent place I think.  The music part was recorded on another device closer to the piano, so it is clearer and has no background noise.  I'm gonna get this right - it's driving me crazy!

As we've invited you to do in the past, if you would like to participate in communion, we ask that you prepare the elements of bread and cup before you watch so that you may partake when instructed to do so.  And, these songs are some of our favorites that are well known to the congregation - so join us in the celebration by singing at home!

With all of the chaos and turmoil happening in the world around us, take some time to be with the Holy Spirit today.

PDF bulletin, SoundCloud audio, and YouTube video links below:

Peace,
Shaun

Our service for the seventh Sunday in the season of Easter is now available.  The theme Pastor Michael has chosen is healing and wholeness, and it includes very familiar hymns that you are invited to join in singing along to from your homes.

Today is also the day when we would lead a community Memorial Day service along with the members of Boy Scout Troop 23.  You will find a link below to a separate video compiled for a virtual service that contains the presentation of colors, pledge of allegiance, and wreath ceremony by the scouts, remarks by Russ Raisig, the reading of names and a poem by Wayne Dean, and a prayer by Pastor Michael.  Thank you to the participants for taking the time to record their portions so that we could provide this connection to the Edgewood community that has been part of our tradition for so many years.

The service for the 6th Sunday of Easter is now available for viewing and listening.  Apologies for the delay in posting - while playing with settings to have better audio, the first export of the video had no sound and had to be processed a second time!  We tried something different when recording this week and did not use the sound system in the sanctuary, which should remove the echo that was being picked up by the camera in previous weeks.  Hopefully, it will sound clearer to everyone.

As we have done, the service is available as a video on YouTube, audio only on SoundCloud, and a pdf of the bulletin for those who may want to read and follow along.

Happy Mother's Day!

Our May 10, 2020 online worship celebrates the strength of the women in our lives on this 5th Sunday of Easter.  Pastor Michael preaches from 2 scriptures focusing on strong women and mothers of faith, and our hymns and responses echo the theme.  Please join in by reading and singing the words on the screen, or following along with the pdf bulletin.

Each year, the First Presbyterian Church of Edgewood, in collaboration with Boy Scout Troop #23, holds a community Memorial Day ceremony following Sunday morning worship at Memorial Park, across the street from the church on East Swissvale Avenue, on the day before Memorial Day.  

Since we are unable to meet physically due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are planning to compile a video presentation as a virtual way to observe this important day, remembering those who gave their life in service to our country.

To make this more personal to the Edgewood community, we invite residents to submit a photo of a loved one who formerly lived in Edgewood that lost their life while in military service.  At the end of the video, we will create a tribute to those men and women, honoring their sacrifice.

Please complete the form below and upload your photo by Monday, May 18, 2020.  This will allow time for the editing process, so that we can have the video uploaded and shared with the community by Memorial Day.


Form link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc-P0vVbQkNKXYi8P9UGC8Xl7QWYcwiPU3eANnaEEUVLRXtPw/viewform?usp=sf_link

We're happy to share our first attempt at a full video of FPCE worship.  Michael, Shaun, Sunny, and John Foster met on Friday to record our service in its entirety, then Shaun edited the video to add text to prayers, responses, and hymns so that you may participate fully while watching on screen.  We also posted the audio only as we've been doing for the past 6 weeks on SoundCloud, and a PDF of the bulletin is also available.  You choose how you'd like to experience worship!

As we did on Easter Sunday, we invite those who wish to participate in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper to prepare the elements of bread and cup before the service so that you may partake when invited to do so.

We welcome your feedback so we may plan for future Sunday worship services.  Please email Michael or Shaun your thoughts about the video.  And don't forget to like the social media postings and share them on your own feeds so that your friends can access our worship.

Finally, the link for donating on the website has been fixed.  Treasurer Tom Ochs mentioned he received a few notes from members stating they could not get the online donation feature to work.  The code has been updated and by selecting the DONATE menu option and clicking the "online giving" button.  Or access it directly at www.fpcedgewood.org/donate