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Serving Friday and Saturday, May 27 & 28, 2022 from 11:30 a.m. - 2 p.m. Prep Day Thursday, May 26 10 a.m. - 2 p.m.
We need YOUR HELP to make this year's Tea Room a success. We need between 25-30 people each day. If you have any questions, please contact Cathy Hinson, 843-813-6756.
Since 1954, Presbyterian churches in South Carolina have marked Mother’s Day with an offering to support the ministry of Presbyterian Communities of South Carolina to older adults.
Presbyterian Communities operates six retirement communities across the state that hundreds of seniors call “home.” Each location provides a full range of accommodations and services from independent and active living to healthcare and memory support.
Living at a Presbyterian Community, residents find everything they need to live life to its fullest. They are empowered to “grow old,” and not just “get old.”
And yet, after years of living at their community, some will find their financial resources dwindling, perhaps due to a costly medical crisis or to extreme old age.
Thankfully, the Presbyterian churches who founded this ministry continue to sustain it, so that residents who have outlived their life’s savings can continue to call PCSC “home.” One way they do this is through the Mother’s Day Offering, which is used solely to provide charitable care for residents who can no longer pay for the full cost of their care.
Because the cost of charitable care can run to $1.5 million or more, it is truly a blessing that generous Presbyterian churches and their members help to shelter and care for each and every one of these through the Mother’s Day Offering.
Please give generously – thank you!!!
“Meeting people at their point of need, Inviting all into a dynamic relationship with Christ”
LET US KNOW YOU WORSHIPED WITH US TODAY - If you’re a visitor, online or in person, and would like more information please feel free to fill out a card or email Pastor Cress.
Second Presbyterian is a church community where you will be known and nurtured. Have a prayer request? Please let us know here. Interested in joining Second? Find more about becoming a member here.
And get connected! Join a small group here. There are still ways to be involved and to offer your time, talents, and resources in service to others. Please reach out to our Director of Community and Communications Jordyn Pritchard to get connected.
Dear Friends in Christ –
“Persecutor or committed son of the covenant?” Professor Amy Oden asks. Well, depends on your perspective. If you’re “a follower of the way”, as Christians were known before they were Christians, Saul was a rabid menace determined to seek out and destroy the Jesus devoted and devout. If you were a pillar of the temple, however, Saul was a righteous hero pursuing infidels wherever “the way” had taken them.
Well, what is the truth?
Enter Jesus, asking a searing question, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”
Hopefully none of us prompt such a question.
This Sunday, we engage again a familiar story of the Damascus road trip and uncover more than perhaps many of us had imagined. We baptize Rowe Legare Smythe. We share communion. We worship Jesus who loves us.
I invite you to come together, invite your friends and perhaps someone also who is not. Position yourself for the gift of healing, comfort and joy. Yes, it’s a gift :)
See you in worship.
Please worship from home if you are exhibiting any COVID-like symptoms, are aware of an exposure, or have been asked by a school or other institution to quarantine or isolate.
Interested in becoming a member of Second Presbyterian? Email Cress for more information and dates for upcoming new members classes.
“Meeting people at their point of need, Inviting all into a dynamic relationship with Christ”
LET US KNOW YOU WORSHIPED WITH US TODAY - If you’re a visitor, online or in person, and would like more information please feel free to fill out a card or email Pastor Cress.
Second Presbyterian is a church community where you will be known and nurtured. Have a prayer request? Please let us know here. Interested in joining Second? Find more about becoming a member here.
And get connected! Join a small group here. There are still ways to be involved and to offer your time, talents, and resources in service to others. Please reach out to our Director of Community and Communications Jordyn Pritchard to get connected.
Dear Friends in Christ –
Jesus came that we might have life and have life in abundance, and during Lent we imagined what that would look like. Not just that we would not know want, but that we would know abundant joy, generosity, holy purpose, growing ever closer to Jesus by proclaiming the gospel, caring for God’s creation, preserving truth, heartfelt worship, promoting social righteousness, and living like we mean it for all the world to see! Basking in God’s delight!
We looked at the resurrection as the pivotal moment in the cosmos. Some described it as a second "Big Bang," as life springing forth!
This coming Sunday, Easter II, is often known as Low Sunday. No mystery here. Lower energy, lower attendance. But I don’t buy it, I won’t! It’s also Doubting Thomas Sunday each year where we can imagine ourselves as believers from the get go and not as crass as Thomas who demanded visual proof. The narratives we return to each year beg us to see things in fresh ways, through resurrection eyes.
Tomorrow we celebrate Susan Ragsdale King’s life. Sunday we remind ourselves why we live in hope in the midst of wars, fires, floods and folly. Annual meeting of the congregation. Quarterly meeting of the Deacons. Growing closer to Jesus –
See you in worship.
Please worship from home if you are exhibiting any COVID-like symptoms, are aware of an exposure, or have been asked by a school or other institution to quarantine or isolate.
Interested in becoming a member of Second Presbyterian? Email Cress for more information and dates for upcoming new members classes.
“Meeting people at their point of need, Inviting all into a dynamic relationship with Christ”
LET US KNOW YOU WORSHIPED WITH US TODAY - If you’re a visitor, online or in person, and would like more information please feel free to fill out a card or email Pastor Cress.
Second Presbyterian is a church community where you will be known and nurtured. Have a prayer request? Please let us know here. Interested in joining Second? Find more about becoming a member here.
And get connected! Join a small group here. There are still ways to be involved and to offer your time, talents, and resources in service to others. Please reach out to our Director of Community and Communications Jordyn Pritchard to get connected.
Dear Friends in Christ –
The Sunday of the Resurrection is not only the greatest day of the church year, it is also the only one that is set by the moon. Easter always falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the spring equinox. As complicated as that sounds, it makes ancient sense, since it means Easter coincides with the greening of the earth. Christ is risen and the whole world comes to life. Sap rises in dormant trees, spring peepers start their peeping, and trumpet lilies spill their sweet fragrance on the air. The connection is a happy one, guaranteed to renew our faith in the creative power of God.
But the story hasn’t always been so clear. There are four gospels and four perspectives, but in each there are questions that invite us to surrender our disbelief. We need our God who lives so that we may. Come on and step up, sign on, and sign in for the work we get to do!
Please worship from home if you are exhibiting any COVID-like symptoms, are aware of an exposure, or have been asked by a school or other institution to quarantine or isolate.
Interested in becoming a member of Second Presbyterian? Email Cress for more information and dates for upcoming new members classes.
After a 2-year absence due to the pandemic, we will be opening our Seconds Please Tea Room this year for indoor dining and take out!
Days of operation will be Friday and Saturday, May 27 & 28, serving from 11:30 a.m. - 2 p.m. Prep Day will be Thursday, May 26, from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. We need YOUR HELP to make this year's Tea Room a success, so consider volunteering. We need between 25-30 people each day. There will be a volunteer poster in the Education Building in a couple of weeks and you can sign up online. If you have any questions, please feel free to call or email Cathy Hinson at 843-813-6756 or at bluesdog2@att.net.
Thank you so much for considering how you will be a part of this fundraising effort for our Missions programs here at Second Church.
Happy Easter from the Tea Room Committee!
Saturday, April 16 at noon and 7:30 p.m. | Gaillard Center
Our friends at the Charleston Symphony (CSO) will present the world premiere performances of Edward Hart’s A Charleston Concerto on Saturday, April 16 at noon and 7:30 p.m. at the Gaillard. A local composer and dean of the College of Charleston School of the Arts, Hart wrote the concerto to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the City of Charleston. Joining the CSO is The Harlem Quartet in their Charleston debut performances. The concerto chronicles, in music, the discovery of Charleston Harbor by native peoples, the celebration of Gullah culture and its musical heritage and optimism for the future.
The Harlem Quartet is known for advancing diversity in classical music and engaging new audiences in a variety of repertoire, including those by minority composers. With a mission to share their passion around the world, the Quartet’s performances have ranged from a performance at the White House for President and Frist Lady Obama to a highly successful tour of South Africa in 2012.
This weekend’s performances, conducted by Ken Lam, will explore music from two living composers, Hart and Adolphus Hailstork, as well as a 19th Century Russian Romantic, Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The concert opens with Black American composer, Hailstork’s, Fanfare on “Amazing Grace,” first performed at the 2021 Presidential Inauguration.
Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 closes out the program. Written during an emotionally tumultuous time in the composer’s life, the melancholy work nonetheless displays optimism with lush sounds featuring bright brass and soothing strings.
Ticket prices begin at $28.75 plus fees, and students with an ID are admitted for $10 when purchasing a ticket on the day of the performance. Visit www.charlestonsymphony.org for more details and tickets.
Find all Holy Week services here.
Easter Sunday, April 17, 2022 livestream for 10:30 a.m. worship at Second Presbyterian Church of Charleston. Enjoy the festive service with trumpet and guest tenor soloist Dr. Robert Taylor singing Five Mystical Songs (#1,2,5) by Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Prelude: Trumpet Tune (Jeremy Bankson) and Trumpet Tune (Scott Hyslop), trumpet: Grant Cordé
Choral Introit: “Easter” (Ralph Vaughan Williams), soloist: Dr. Robert Taylor
Hymn: Jesus Christ Is Risen Today! #232
Offertory Anthem: “I Got Me Flowers” (R. Vaughan Williams), soloist: Dr. Robert Taylor
Scripture: Mark 16:1-8
Sermon: "Step Up, Sign On, Sign In," Rev. Cress Darwin
Closing Hymn: Christ Is Risen! Shout Hosanna! #248
Choral Response/Postlude: “Antiphon” (R. Vaughan Williams)
WE WELCOME OUR GUEST MUSICIANS:
Dr. Robert Taylor, tenor soloist, is Director of Choral Activities at the College of Charleston, Founding Artistic Director and President of the Taylor Festival Choir (TFC) and Taylor Music Group (TMG), and the Director of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra Chorus and Chamber Singers.
Grant Cordé, trumpet, is a high school freshman and studies trumpet with Sue Messersmith.
Will Royall, tenor, graduated from Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC. He sings with the Charleston Men’s Chorus, Opera Charleston and Taylor Festival Choir. He is store manager for Royall Ace Hardware in Mt. Pleasant.
by Dr. Julia Harlow
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958), one of the most important English composers of the 20th century, wrote symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music and film scores. He was also an avid collector of English folk music and composed or arranged many congregational hymn tunes (including 22 in our present hymnal, Glory to God). Vaughan Williams composed the Five Mystical Songs between 1906 and 1911 and conducted the première in September of 1911. They are settings of poems by George Herbert, from his 1633 collection The Temple: Sacred Poems. All five of the Mystical Songs will be presented by the Charleston Symphony Orchestra and Chorus on April 28th and 29th at the Gaillard Auditorium.
George Herbert (1593-1633) was a Welsh-born English poet. He was born into a wealthy, aristocratic family; his father was Earl of Pembroke. George was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge and later served in Parliament. Having become disillusioned with a career in politics, in his late thirties he became a priest in the Church of England, and was rector of a small church near Salisbury. However, this quiet existence was short-lived as he died of tuberculosis only four years later. In 1633 Herbert finished a collection of poems entitled The Temple, which imitates the architectural style of churches through both the meaning of the words and their visual layout. The themes of God and Love are treated by Herbert as much as psychological forces as metaphysical phenomena. On his deathbed Herbert reportedly gave the manuscript of The Temple to a friend, telling him to “publish the poems if he thought they might ‘turn to the advantage of any dejected poor soul’, or otherwise, to burn them.” Fortunately, he did not burn them and they were published later that year.
There are many metaphors for Christ that have appeared throughout history, such as The Great Physician. In Easter, Herbert also presents the image of Christ as Master Musician. He draws a parallel of the lute’s strings (made of gut) and wood, to the “stretched sinews” of Christ’s body and the wood of the cross. The imperfect, struggling music of Herbert’s lute contrasts with the perfect resonance of Christ’s music in his sacrifice. In the last stanza, “all musick is but three parts vied and multiplied” refers to the triad as the foundational sonority for music (at least in Herbert’s time it was), and is also a Trinitarian reference. Herbert’s reference to “heart and lute” is also a personal one, as he was a fine lutenist and singer.
I Got Me Flowers is actually the second part of the poem Easter, above. The imagery of the first stanza makes reference to the strewing of flowers and palm branches before Christ on Palm Sunday, then the arrival of the women at the tomb with sweet ointments. In the second stanza the Sun and the East, the origin of those sweet perfumes, provide no contest with the miracle of the Resurrection. In the third stanza, though “we count three hundred” (365) days in a year, we miss the mark. There is only one day that matters, Easter Day, and that forever. In this lyrical song the choir only hums accompaniment to the soloist for the last part, then loudly joins in proclaiming the text of the final line.
Antiphon is often performed alone as a choral anthem and its exuberant joy is the climax of today’s Easter celebration. The accompaniment uses scales and parallel fourths in joyous cascade, evoking bells and change ringing. The text, “Let All the World in Every Corner Sing” was set to a new hymn composed in 1964 by American composer Erik Routley and is in our hymnal, Glory to God, #636. One example of Vaughan-Williams’ musical illustration of the text can be heard at the end of the second stanza, when the tempo slows and the notes prolong “But above all, the heart must bear the longest part.” An ‘antiphon’ is a recurring musical theme, a section of melody, which, by means of several reappearances, serves to bind the diverse sections of a piece into a cohesive whole. The “antiphon” in this piece is the music that accompanies “Let all the world in every corner sing, My God and King!” Please sit and enjoy this, today’s postlude.
Find all Holy Week services here.
Prelude: “And Can It Be” (Dan Forrest, 2014), guest musician: Elise Pickford
Hymn: When I Survey the Wondrous Cross #223
Reading 1: Luke 23:24
Anthem: “Wondrous Love” arr. Christiansen, soloist: Clarissa Rider
Reading 2: Luke 23:43
Anthem: "Jesus, Remember Me" (Taizé chant)
Reading 3: Mark 19:26
Anthem: "Jesu, Word of God Incarnate” (Mozart)
Reading 4: Mark 15:34
Hymn: O Sacred Head, Now Wounded #221
Reading 5: John 19:28
Anthem: “Christ, We Do All Adore Thee” (Th. Dubois)
Reading 6: John 19:30
Anthem: “God So Loved the World” John Stainer
Reading 7: Luke 23:46
Hymn: Were You There?
Find all Holy Week services here.
Area churches and choirs come together for a community communion Maundy Thursday service at Second Presbyterian Church of Charleston. Rev. Dr. Sidney Davis of Zion-Olivet Presbyterian will preach and the New Tabernacle Fourth Baptist and Second Presbyterian choirs will sing. Rev. Dwight Hudson (New Tabernacle Fourth Baptist) and Rev. David Washington (Old Bethel United Methodist) will participate in the service and Rev. Darwin will officiate at communion.
Hymn of Praise: I Love the Lord, Who Heard My Cry #799, soloist: Joel Dettweiler
Invocation: Rev. Hudson
Offertory Anthem: "Wondrous Love” arr. Christiansen, soloist: Clarissa Rider
Scripture: Matthew 26:6-13
Sermon: “She Showed Him Compassion”, Rev. Sidney Davis
Communion Hymn: An Upper Room #202
Circle of Atonement
Benediction: Rev. Darwin
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As I write this, it is Palm Sunday. Jesus has humbly made his way into Jerusalem and we find ourselves here, yet again, in Holy Week. The season of Lent, the season of journeying to the cross and especially Holy Week are sacred times in the liturgical year. We are challenged to face our mortality and invited to rely on God through the Lenten journey but even more fully through the journey of our whole lives.
Holy Week, a week that is set apart; a week that invites us to sit in the darkness and to lean into the chaos, the unknown, and the grief alongside the disciples. It is a place most of us most likely do not want to be in and yet, we are called there, just as the disciples were.
One of my favorite scriptures is Mark 14:3-9, often entitled “The Anointing at Bethany.” In the Gospel of Mark, the woman is unnamed. A plot to kill Jesus has already been put in place, we find Jesus and his disciples at Simon the leper’s house and the unnamed woman breaks an alabaster jar of expensive ointment and anoints Jesus. She is scolded by the disciples for wasting this precious oil, that could have been sold. Yet Jesus defends her because he knows that she understands what is coming next, his death. The disciples so often miss what Jesus has been telling them all along and this unnamed woman honors Jesus with her knowledge and with her gift. The scripture reads, “She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial” (Mark 14:8).
Friends, as we enter into this Holy Week, may we have the faith and courage of this woman. May we be bold enough and brave enough to accept the invitation to sit with our Lord as he moves towards the cross. To honor him on this journey by choosing to lean into the chaos, sit in the darkness, and do so with a hope that burns bright in our hearts and a love that leads us to break jars and pour out our gifts—for we know Sunday is truly coming.
Amen.
- Margaret Fleming
Find all Holy Week services here.
Worship Service from Palm Sunday, April 10 at 10:30 a.m.