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Welcome to First Presbyterian Church!

Welcome to our First Presbyterian Church website!  We’re glad you’ve stopped by.  We hope you find the information you’re looking for about First Presbyterian Church in Ottawa, Illinois.  Please let us know by email to our staff or our elders if you need anything further than what you’ve found here.  We’re always trying to update our website based upon what will be most helpful and useful to those who visit these pages.  Please take time to look through our different pages to see who we are and what we’re excited about in life and ministry together.  Or just come join with us in the midst of our growing life in Jesus Christ and see what makes First Presbyterian Church a place that many love to call their spiritual home.

In the love of Jesus Christ,
Pastor John Walker

Join Us for Worship During Advent & Christmas

Please join us for our Advent and Christmas worship services this year.

*On Sunday, December 17 at 9:30 a.m., we will celebrate this holy season with our annual Christmas music worship service. Come share in the joyous music of Advent and Christmas with the gospel story of Jesus’ birth as we remember that God sent his Son to save the world by his love.

On Sunday, December 24, please join us for TWO special services of worship.

*At 9:30 a.m. we will welcome the newborn Savior whose light pushes back the darkness in our world.

*At 7:00 p.m. please come Christmas Eve for a very special candlelight worship service. It will be a night to capture all hearts with the wonder and joy of God’s love in his Son, Jesus Christ.

First Presbyterian Church is a loving congregation of God’s people who warmly welcome anyone who seeks to dray near to God. We hope you will join us!

Please Pray for Ukraine

First Presbyterian of Ottawa has partnered for many years with Pastor Freddy and his wife Lenka to help support the Maják network of churches that they have planted in the Czech Republic. They are now helping the Ukrainian immigrants that are arriving in Czech looking for safety. Please watch the video, at the link below, about what they are doing and how you can help. If you are interested in sending a donation to Pastor Freddy to help with the people fleeing Ukraine please contact the FPC office at 433-1045.

April 9, 2022.

This is the latest update from Pastor Freddy in Czech Republic and how they are helping immigrants coming from Ukraine. They have accomplished so much but there is so much left to do.

August 24, 2022

The latest update from Pastor Freddy and the involvement of Mayak Network with Ukrainain immigrants looking for safety from the war in Ukraine.

If you are interested in sending a donation to Pastor Freddy to help the people fleeing Ukraine please contact the FPC office at 433-1045.

“Thank you for your partnership and support. Here is a short thank you video update.” ~ Pastor Freddy

GREAT THINGS IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC!

God is doing great things in the Czech Republic through our mission partner, the Majak (pronounced “Mai-yahk”) Church Network and its lead pastor, our longtime friend, Fredy Smola. Every year they baptize many new believers and add more small churches to their growing network in a country where Communism tried to eliminate the Christian Church. Listen here to Fredy’s brief update of God’s blessings during COVID in the Czech church this past year, and learn what’s ahead for Majak in 2022. Please remember to pray for Pastor Fredy and Majak in the Czech. 

God is making miracles happen in the Czech Republic everyday by bringing new believers to faith in Jesus Christ!

AN UPDATE ON THE GREAT THINGS HAPPENING WITH THE MAJAK CHURCH NETWORK

A prayer for our nation from the past, needed in the present and the future

Let us pray: “God of ages, eternal One: in your sight nations rise and fall, and pass through times of peril.

Now when our land is troubled, be near to judge and save.

May leaders be led by your wisdom; may they search your will and see it clearly.

If we have turned from your way, reverse our ways and help us to repent.

Give us your light and your truth; let them guide us; through Jesus Christ who is the light of this world and our savior. Amen”

From the 1970 Worshipbook of The Presbyterian Church

From the Pastor’s Desk

The Grit & Grace of Being the Loving Community of Jesus Christ

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

We have been reviewing our FPC mission statement each Sunday since January 12. We began at the heart of what and who we are wanting to grow to be for Christ’s glory – a people whose lives and witness are identified and activated by love. It’s a supernatural kind of love. It is only by supernatural means of the Holy Spirit that we can begin to have inside and outside of us the kind of love that Jesus calls us to.

It is always important for us to hold up the high ideal of that level of Loving Community, even as we are honest about how our love can often look in our everyday lives together. It is far from the ideal, but we are growing up and learning more of the kind of grit and commitment it takes to love, really love each other. We are also discovering just how this deep love can emerge from our frail hearts and hands as we look to Christ and his love for us. It’s amazing! Ordinary people like us who have good days and bad, who sometimes seem to be oddly matched with others in the church, can actually be drawn together by the grace of God that astonishes the world (and us!) with how much we are being transformed in LOVE! When we recognize this powerful truth of who we are together in Christ, others want to come find out what it is that’s going on. In short, we become very effective to WIN, GROW & GO in faith to our world. That’s exciting!

Here’s a personal reflection on the kind of Loving Community in church that I’m talking about. It comes from a writer and NPR commentator named Heather King. She’s a recovering alcoholic who has come to faith in Christ and offers her unvarnished reflection on her initial experience with the church. See if you can relate to what she describes:

“My first impulse was to think, My God, I don’t want to get sober (or in the case of the church, worship) with THESE nutcases! (or boring people, or people with different politics, taste in music, food, books, or whatever). Nothing shatters our egos like worshipping with people we did not hand-pick …. The humiliation of discovering that we are thrown in with extremely unpromising people!—people who are broken, misguided, wishy-washy, out for themselves. People who are … us.

“But we don’t come to church to be with people who are like us in the way we want them to be. We come because we have staked our souls on the fact that Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and the church is the best place, the only place, to be while we all struggle to figure out what that means. We come because we’d be hard pressed to say which is the bigger of the two scandals of God: that he loves us—or that he loves everyone else.” (Adapted from Heather King, “The Better Church,” Shirt of Flame blog, 10-23-11)

I am grateful for our bold and challenging mission statement that starts at square one with the great challenge to be the LOVING COMMUNITY of Jesus Christ. That’s just where it needs to start, continue and end. It’s just where you and I need to start as we seek by great faith and hope in Christ to be a people whose lives and witness are identified and activated by his love.

Welcome to the grit and grace of LOVING COMMUNITY!

Pastor John Walker