Pastor Steve Thomas will deliver the message “The Lord God Will Cause Righteous”.  The Scripture lessons are from Isaiah 61:10 to 62:3 and Luke 2:22 to 40.  The service will conclude with the serving of communion.  All are welcome to participate at the Lord’s Table.

The service will be followed by a coffee hour in the Meeting House.

If you are looking for an open and friendly place to celebrate New Year’s Day, the Cazenovia Presbyterian Church welcomes you.  There will be a fully staffed nursery on New Year’s Day.  For more information contact the church at 655-3191.

Each hymn will have a narration about the life of the composer/hymnwriter and the message of that hymn and its place in the history of the Christian faith.   Bells, organ and piano will be used enhance the singing under the direction of Catharine Wheat.  Congregational participation is at the heart this work.

Some of the hymns included in the program will be:  “Of The Father’s Love Begotten” based on the Latin poem by the Roman poet, Aurelius Prudentius (348 to 413) and paired with a medieval plainchant melody; Martin Luther’s  “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God“; Isaac Watt’s “O God Our Help In Ages Past; John Wesley’s “O For A Thousand Tongues to Sing” and  Sydney Carter’s contemporary  hymn “Lord of The Dance” set to a American Shaker melody.

If you are looking for an open and friendly place to spend Sunday morning, Pastor Thomas invites you to worship at the First Presbyterian Church of Cazenovia.  Child Care and Sunday School are available during the service.  For more information contact the church at 655-3191

September 18^th will also see the start up rehearsals for both the Jubilate and Children’s Choir.  The Jubilate Choir both sings and rings handbells and is open to any youth in grades 5-12.  The Children’s Choir is open to youth in grades k-4 and they are a singing choir.  The choirs will open their 2011-2012 season with a pizza party.  New members are always welcome.

The Senior Choir will sing “Cantate Donino “ by Natalie Sleeth.  Special music will be provided by flutist Melissa Sieling and pianist Kathy Knoff.  Melissa was a flute major at Syracuse University and studied with John Oberbrunner.  She has continued to teach and play the flute.  Melissa and Kathy met each other through the group Pianists in Progress.  Kathy Knoff teaches piano in Cazenovia.  She is a member of Quattro Pianisti, an eight hand piano group.  She is also President of Pro Art Eltinge Guild which is a performance group associated with Civic Morning Musicals

If you are looking for an open and friendly place to celebrate Sunday morning worship, please join us at the Cazenovia Presbyterian Church.  Child Care and Sunday School are available during the service.  For more information contact the church at 655-3191 or www.cazpres.org.

On Maundy Thursday, April 21st, the First Presbyterian Church of Cazenovia will hold a Service of Tenebrae at 7:30 p.m.  The service will be centered on a choral and narrative piece titled “Light In the Darkness” by Patrick Liebergen.  This work offers a unique blend of classical Georgian Chants, classical hymns such as Beautiful Savior. What Wondrous Love is This, and When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.   Mary Coburn will be accompanying the choral works on her violin.  The dramatic narrative readings are drawn from biblical passion accounts and the Psalms.  There will be a celebration of the Lord’s Supper.  The cross behind the pulpit will be draped in black.  The sanctuary will be lit by candles that are extinguished after each of the readings.

The Service of Tenebrae follows a tradition of the church dating back to the eighth century.  The word ‘Tenebrae’ is Latin for shadows or darkness.  The service commemorates the final hours of our Lord’s life on earth, as he suffered death upon the cross.  Two large candelabras will light the sanctuary at the beginning of the service.  Candles will be extinguished as the service evolves, symbolizing the fading loyalty of the disciples and friends of Jesus.  The gradual darkening of the church sanctuary portrays the diminishing light of the world as Christ was departing from it. The service ends in silence with the relighting of the Christ candle. 

The purpose of the service is to recreate the betrayal, abandonment, and agony of the events leading to Christ’s death and it is left unfinished, because the story isn’t over until Easter Day.

A fully supervised nursery will be available for the Tenebrae Service.

For more information about the Tenebrae Service or other Easter Season celebrations, contact the First Presbyterian Church of Cazenovia at 655-3191.

Combined choirs from Cazenovia and Morrisville will sing the anthem Take Up Your Cross by Larson.  Catharine Wheat, Director of Music for the Cazenovia church will lead the choirs and accompany them on the organ.

A fully staffed nursery will be available for infants, toddlers and pre-school children.

In Western Christianity, Ash Wednesday marks the first day, or the start of the season of Lent, which begins 40 days prior to Easter (Sundays are not included in the count).  Lent is a time when many Christians prepare for Easter by observing a period of fasting, repentance, moderation and spiritual discipline.

The name “Ash Wednesday” is derived from the custom of marking foreheads of the faithful with blessed ashes as a sign of penitence and humility.  The Lent season has been a time for self-examination and penitence prior to Easter for many centuries. The Lent season comes from the Saxon lengten-tide, referring to the days and the coming of spring in the northern hemisphere.

This 40-day period of abstinence recalls the fasts of Moses, Elijah and Jesus, all of which lasted for 40 days according to the Christian scripture. 

Ashes were used in ancient times, according to the Bible, to express mourning.  Dusting oneself with ashes was the penitent’s way of expressing sorrow for sins and faults.   The ashes that are used on Ash Wednesday usually come from the remains of burned palms that were blessed on the previous year’s Palm Sunday.  They symbolize death, mortality and sorrow for sin. The marking of ashes on foreheads in form of a cross also symbolizes that sins are forgiven through Jesus’ death and resurrection.

If you are looking for an open and friendly place to celebrate Sunday morning worship, please join us at the Cazenovia Presbyterian Church.  The sanctuary is handicap accessible.  Child Care and Sunday School are available during the Sunday morning service.  For more information contact the church at 655-3191

We’ve added a new service to our devotional calendar.

Please join us for an 

ASH WEDNESDAY EVENING SERVICE 

Wednesday, March 9, 2011 

7:30 p.m.

The data received from Matt Monroe concerning our facilities, Craig Buckhout and & Candy Riley concerning our finances, Russ Grills and Kevin Curtis concerning the community, Steve Thomas & Candy Riley concerning participation and facility use, along with your input during the Appreciative Inquiry is now being digested by our Assessor, Carla, and will be presented back to us at a retreat to be held at Christ the King Retreat Center, DeWitt, February 11 – 12.

In addition to helping us interpret this data, the participants in this retreat will receive training in facilitating a four to six week small group process that will enable others in the congregation to add their input.  I hope you will all take advantage of the small group sessions to add your input to the state of your church. If you think you might like to attend the retreat and lead one or more of the small group sessions, please contact me for additional information.

These small group sessions are important to complete the data gathering process. We hope to receive input from as many of you as possible to help determine just where we are as a church right now, as well as, where you would like to see the church go in the future. So, keep an eye open for these sessions in the near future and help us determine where God might be calling us to go.

Bagpiper, Jesse MacWilliam, is the son of Scott and Sarah MacWilliam and grandson of Hugh and Phyllis Mac William of Fabius and a junior at Fabius-Pompey High School. He is currently playing in an adult bagpiper band and is a grade 1 piper. ,

The Presbyterian Church celebrates Reformation Sunday on the last Sunday of October,
commemorating a significant event in the history of the Reformed tradition. It was on October 31, 1517, that Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. Martin Luther was protesting against the corruption of the Church in Rome and the great abuses attending the sale of indulgences. Luther, a German priest and professor, is credited with starting the movement known as the Protestant Reformation.

Some twenty years later, a French/Swiss theologian, John Calvin further refined the reformers’ new way of thinking about the nature of God and God’s relationship with humanity in what came to be known as Reformed Theology. This theology proved to be the driving force of the Reformation, particularly in Germany, France, the Netherlands, England, and Scotland.

John Knox, a Scotsman who studied with Calvin in Geneva, took Calvin’s teachings back to Scotland. The Presbyterian Church traces its ancestry back primarily to Knox in Scotland and to England. The First Presbyterian Church is Cazenovia was started in 1799.

If you are looking for an open and friendly place to celebrate Sunday morning worship, please join us at the Cazenovia Presbyterian Church. Child Care and Sunday School are available during the service. For more information contact the church at 655-3191 or www.cazpres.org.