Return to Home

What's New

Monthly calendar

Senior Pastor's Report

Associate Pastor's Report

Sermons and Services

Staff/Session/Deacons

Councils

Christian Education

Music programs

Mission and Outreach

Presbyterian Women

Come Join Us

Our denomination

History

Bicentennial Celebration

Related Links

E-Mail Us

 

Mission and Outreach
 First Presbyterian Church supports a wide variety of mission and outreach projects, both local and global in scope. The Outreach Council is responsible for allocating financial resources for these worthy causes. The Mission Council co-ordinates the human resources needed for these ministries.

Piecemakers
This group meets on various Mondays throughout the year. We make quilts, knitted caps and mittens, bandages, and other fabric items. No sewing experience is required. Every child who comes to the Victims Assistance Center of Jefferson County may choose a quilt to keep and act as their security blanket. Quilts, mosquito netting and bandages are sent to Africa. This groups has also sent items to other agencies in the Presbytery as needed.

We are proud to announce that Piecemakers received the Community Spirit Award from the Victims Assistance Center of Jefferson County at a presentation on May 9, 2002. Well done!

Radio Ministry
Our Sunday worship services are broadcast live at 10am on 1240 WATN AM radio. Copies of the church bulletin are mailed to shut-ins so they may follow along. If you would like to receive the bulletin, please contact the church office. The broadcast is also recorded, and copies are distributed upon request. In November, 2001 this ministry celebrated 60 years of continuous radio broadcasts, sharing the Word and music with our shut-ins and the community.

Watertown Urban Mission
Our church and 29 others in the Watertown area support this organization, located on Factory Street in Watertown. Two lay persons and one clergy from each church make up the board of directors. Among the programs run by the Urban Mission:
  • Christian Care Center - A walk-in center which provides a place of caring and acceptance. Spiritual growth opportunities for those who wish to participate.
  • Food Pantry - Offers a three-day supply of food given to families or individuals in need. Our church collects donations of food and personal care items on the final Sunday of each month.
  • Impossible Dream Thrift Store - Offers donated clothing, furniture, and household goods at very reasonable prices. People in need and fire victims receive needed items at no cost.
Currently, our business manager, Donna Chunglo and two of our parish associates, Al Elmer and Elizabeth Schultz, are on staff at the mission.

Dollar Dinners
Starting in January 2006, our congregation hosted six dollar dinners on behalf of the Watertown Urban Mission. These were designed to help families cope with the soaring costs of heating their homes. With grant assistance from The Northern New York Community Foundation, three other church locations were also involved. For a dollar, each person attending received a hot, nutritious plate of food. In 2007, the program expanded to eight sites, providing dinners approximately twice a week. For 2007-8, dinners at First Presbyterian will be held on the second Sunday of each month from November through March. If you wish to volunteer, please contact Linya Bell.

Neighborhood Revitalization
During the summer of 2004, First Presbyterian provided funding and guidance for six high school interns to conduct a door-to-door survey of the neighborhood bordering the church to its south and east. The purpose of the survey was to assist Neighbors of Watertown in determining the needs of this area, and determine which grants might be available to assist landlords and homeowners with repairs to the homes and apartments in this neighborhood. Further studies continued with nine students in the summer of 2005. As a result, Watertown received a grant for over $1 million dollars to renovate homes. In 2006, the program was deemed valuable enough for Neighbors of Watertown to take over supervision of the students. First Presbyterian will continue to facilitate this worthy project.

Habitat for Humanity
This organization works to create affordable housing for local families by renovating single-family dwellings in partnership with the recipient family.

North Country Children's Clinic
In 2004 First Pres voted to begin a three year funding commitment to help the clinic move to new quarters on Arsenal Street. The clinic provides sliding-scale fee medical and dental care to children from needy families.

Mission Trips to Mississippi
In April 2006, a 14-person adult team traveled to Gulfport, MS to assist victims of Hurricane Katrina. During their week-long stay, the began by repairing a roof for one homeowner. At another home they replaced sheetrock, installed telephone wiring, and replaced plumbing fixtures and pipes for two bathrooms. Two members of the team worked at the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance warehouse near Biloxi, performing computer data entry to help track the movement of relief and repair supplies. A second trip with 6 adults was undertaken in November, 2006 and renovations were made to a parsonage. A third trip with 7 youth and 3 adults was conducted in February, 2007. Three different projects were undertaken on this visit. Check out the pictures on our photo gallery.

Mission Trips to Mexico
The fifth annual Senior High Youth Group trip to Mexico to build 3 houses will be held July 1-9, 2008. Rev. Schultz will lead 51 adults and youth to the Tijuana area to participate in the Amor Ministries project. Check out the pictures on our photo gallery.

Malawi Partnership
Churches of Africa are increasing in membership as never before. It is estimated there will be more than 400 million Christians on the continent by the year 2000. Yet, the challenges facing African society are greater than ever before. Economic gains made in the 1960s and 1970s have been negated in the last decade. Ethnic rivalries often flare into costly warfare. College graduates flee to find employment overseas. The health situation is more critical than ever, especially with the devastation of AIDS.

Yet there has been a sense of failure of the old ways of conducting church mission in Africa. As made clear by the Rev. Dr. Augustine Musopole of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian as quoted in the 1994 Mission Yearbook "the old ways unwittingly created at least two dynamics which aren't helpful today. One is dependency, which at some point hampers the development of the partner church. The other is an assumption of a Western model which may not be appropriate to an African culture." The African churches say "Let's work as partners. Let us tell you what we need instead of you deciding that yourselves."

This thinking has led to the establishment of a partnership between the Presbytery of Northern New York and the Synod of Livingstonia, Church of Central Africa Presbyterian. The relationship began when 2 members of our congregation, Fred and Nella Stone, served as medical missionaries. Members of our congregation also spearheaded an effort to send a vehicle to Malawi.

Since 2000, when the partnership was formalized we:
  • continued to gather needed medical supplies and other donations to send to Malawi.
  • In October, 2004, had the session vote to fund the construction of a grade school in the village of Chivumu which was completed in the spring of 2005.
  • partnered with the local YMCA to provide supplies for the school
  • sent an 8-member mission team on a 3-week trip, departing April 25, 2005, to help support the school project
  • sent a 2-person team on a 2-week trip in March 2006, to study how the school can be used to combat social ills in the area, such as the AIDS epidemic, malaria, and hunger.
  • through the Presbytery of Northern New York, sponsored overture 11-27 to the General Assembly of the PCUSA. Our senior pastor traveled to Birmingham AL, to speak on behalf of the overture, which did pass.
  • hosted Rev. Nkhoma, the executive secretary of the Synod of Livingstonia of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian to further our partnership
  • sent a 4-person team on a 3-week trip in April, 2007 to secure visas to bring a 12-member youth choir, their director, a minister from their church and his wife for a month-long visit in July, 2007. This trip also helped establish a fund to assist widows in Malawi, who often face challenges due to cultural practices in place when their husbands die.
  • hosted the Mzuzu Youth choir on a 4 week visit to the Presbytery of Northern New York in July 2007
  • sent Ken Reed and Don Klug to install shallow wells with Marion Medical Mission for 3 weeks in the fall of 2007. Our church also provided funding for 15 wells at $350 each.
  • will be sending two teams to Malawi in July 2008 to check on the widow's fund, and to further the malaria eradication efforts. We are also partially funding the cost of a vehicle to serve as an ambulance for the Livingstonia hospital
To see some of the faces involved in this ministry please see our Malawi video and PowerPoint presentation.

Presbyterian Border Ministry
Presbyterian Border Ministry (PBM) is a cooperative endeavor of the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico and the Presbyterian Church (USA). Its mission is to share the Gospel in Mexican cities along the 2,000 mile border with the United States: serving the needs of spirit, body, and mind in 7 Ministries with multiple sites stretching from the Gulf to the Pacific. The two sister churches have covenanted to bring the message of God to this uncommon international community, a region immersed in Mexican culture but dominated by the US economy, a locale of rich heritage and enormous potential, yet characterized by vast communities cobbled together from discarded scraps. For more information please click here.