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Dear BMPC FAMILY,
On our Great Day of Service, something happened that I keep turning over in my heart.
A young girl named Gillian told her mom she wanted to go make visits at Highland Farms. And so she went. And our older members — who have given so much to this church, who have carried so much of its life — got to see that a child wanted to be near them. She wanted to bring something to them. I don’t think any of us will forget what that looked like.
Across town, other young disciples were at their school with rakes and mulch, tending the ground where they learn and play. They weren’t being dragged along. They showed up.
What I saw at our Great Day of Service — across all three of our services, across generations — was us. Not the idea of us, but the actual us. People who, in the ordinary flow of Sunday mornings, might never have stood side by side, working together, laughing together, seeing one another as we served our community of the Swannanoa Valley we love so very much.
Holy Week begins this Sunday with Palm Sunday, and I want to invite you to carry that image with you into these days. The same Jesus who rode into Jerusalem on a donkey — humble, vulnerable, not what anyone expected — is the one who meets us in the ordinary and extraordinary moments of our lives together. Holy Week is not a performance to observe. It is an encounter to enter.
Come and see what you find.
In hope and gratitude,
| | Holy Week & Easter Services | | |
PALM SUNDAY
March 29
Palm Sunday recognizes the contrast of Jesus' entrance into the holy city with crowds excited at his arrival - only to turn on him just a few days later. We will wave palm branches to honor the beginning of this sacred week.
8:45am FirstLight Service
10:00am Family Worship
11:00am Sanctuary Service
MAUNDY THURSDAY
April 2
This special service reflects upon the night of Jesus' meal with his disciples. Together, we will participate in a reverent worship service with special music and contemplation.
7:00pm in the Sanctuary
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EASTER SUNDAY
April 5
A joyful service to celebrate that Jesus has risen! Come prepared to sing praises!
8:45am FirstLight Service
10:00am Easter Egg Hunt for children (ages birth-10) at the church house/playground
11:00am Sanctuary Service
- Overflow seating will be available in the fellowship hall during the 11:00am service
- A cross will be placed outside for families to bring flowers and, if you desire, take a family picture
- Childcare is provided during the 8:45 and 11:00 services
- We encourage fully-abled members to park further away, allowing spaces for visitors and those with special needs
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SONGBIRD: THE SINGULAR TRIBUTE TO BARBRA STREISAND
Flat Rock Playhouse
April 16
Celebrate the voice that defined an era, starring vocalist Karine Hannah — a showstopping performer praised by legendary songwriter Jim Steinman as “the best voice I’ve worked with since Céline Dion.”
From “The Way We Were” to “Evergreen,” this stunning tribute captures the grace, emotion, and timeless beauty of Barbra’s songbook. It’s an evening where melody meets memory, and one extraordinary voice reminds us why some stars never fade.
Event Time: 2:00 PM
Tickets starting at $48 (most are $60)
The Congregational Life Team invites our BMPC members (55+) to this Spring Songbird event. Each person/couple would need to purchase her/their own ticket/s. Carpooling or Bus Transportation from BMPC can be arranged once the group size is established.
Contact Annamarie Arens (334-790-3134) with any questions.
| | | Lunch and Learn - Drug Interactions | |
Thursday, April 2
Noon in CR1
Please bring your own lunch.
What are the types of drug interactions? What are common interactions? What are the risk factors for drug interactions?
Come to our next Lunch and Learn on April 2 to hear from Mary Mustian Pharm.D, retired Clinical Pharmacist and member of BMPC from noon to 1/1:30 in CR1. Bring your own lunch or
go out together afterwards!
Mary will give an hour-long talk about drug interactions: Mechanisms, severity, possible symptoms,
risk factors, OTC/herbal products and resources you can use yourself. She welcomes a confidential email beforehand should you not want to discuss your specific concerns in the group. She will address your question in a general manner on April 2.
Email Mary at mpmustian@brmemc.net
Questions? Call Sarah Berglund at 636.484.0690
Open to friends and neighbors!
| | | Creative Liturgy Workshop | |
Sunday, April 12
Noon at BMPC
Calling all readers!
If you have felt the tug to support worship at BMPC by reading Scripture, please join members of the Worship Arts Team on Sunday, April 12, following the 11am service. We will provide instruction, tips, passages to practice, and, of course, pizza for lunch.
This is a wonderful opportunity to try out your "voice" with the sound system on and a small group of fellow readers to support you.
Please sign up at the Welcome Table in the narthex by Easter Sunday, April 4.
If you cannot attend the workshop but would like to be included on our Readers List, please contact Annamarie Arens (11am service; originalgrit@hotmail.com) or Ginny Lindsey (First Light; rglin@bellsouth.net).
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Introduction to the Enneagram
Palm Sunday, March 29
9:45am in CR1
Join Clay Fouse for the Intro to the Enneagram didactic for Palm Sunday, 3/29 at 9:45a in CR-1.
Clay Fouse is an ordained Presbyterian minister and serving as a Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) Coordinator with the National VA Chaplain Service. One aspect of CPE is utilizing personality tools, such as the Enneagram, to assist CPE participants’ understanding of self. Clay enjoys dabbling in the Enneagram and invites you to experiment with this model to be curious about yourself too.
This is not a requirement; however, if you would like to get started before the didactic with a free Enneagram test, please click on the image below and follow the instructions:
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A note from Suzane Churchman, BMPC bookkeeper
Be on the lookout for your first pledge statement of 2026 in the mail. Please be sure that your pledge amount is correct. Also, it's a good time to see if you are set up for auto payment and if the amount being paid and its frequency is your preference. Please remember that auto payments need to be set up each year as they should only be set up for one calendar year at a time.
As I only work on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, if you need to come by the office for pledge questions or assistance, please set up an appointment with me by contacting me through finance@bmpcnc.org. Wednesdays and Thursdays are usually better days for an in-person office appointment. If you think that you have pledged and have not received a statement, again please contact me at finance@bmcpnc.org.
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Lenten Faith Formation
From yoga, to hiking, to book and bible studies and more - there are still opportunities to get involved in our churchwide endeavor to celebrate what's good as we near the close of this Lenten season.
Visit the BMPC website to find something that speaks to you!
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Moms' Retreat: a reflection
by Brittany Williams
In March, a group of moms from our church spent time together on retreat at Folly Beach, and it was truly a gift. The weather was beautiful, the ocean was peaceful, and the time away created space for rest, laughter, and connection.
Throughout the weekend, we centered our devotions on the story of the woman with the alabaster jar. Her act of pouring out what she had—an offering of love, gratitude, and faith—invited us to reflect on our own lives. As mothers, we often spend our days pouring ourselves out for others. This retreat became a reminder that God meets us in that pouring out, receiving it as an offering of love.
Our time together was filled with simple joys: walks along the beach, yoga, craft projects, shared meals, and meaningful conversation. We spent time in daily devotion and prayer, journaling, writing notes of appreciation to one another, and reflecting on where we see God at work in our lives. There was also plenty of laughter—one of the sweetest gifts of being together.
Most of all, the retreat was a reminder of the importance of stepping away from the busyness of everyday life to reconnect with God and one another. Like the woman in the story, we were invited to pause, to offer what we have, and to remember that even the small things we pour out in love matter deeply to God.
We returned home grateful for the time together, refreshed in spirit, and thankful for a community that supports and uplifts one another.
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Spring Spaghetti Dinners continue through May 13. There will be no Spaghetti Dinner April 8, in light of Spring Break.
Every Wednesday night from 5:15-6:15pm. Please RSVP for dinner! We also need volunteers to cook, serve, and clean up!
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This spring, RAD! Wednesdays focuses on the Parables of Jesus. Through music, art, storytelling, and games, children will explore these timeless stories and wonder together about what they teach us about God’s love and how we live out our faith each day.
This program is for kids who are 4 years old (as of March 4) through 5th grade.
NO RAD on Wednesday, April 8!
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Route 45 at
Big Air Trampoline Park
Sunday, April 19
5:15pm
We will leave the church at 2pm and return by 5:15pm. Cost is $25 per person for two hours of jumping and a pair of grip socks. Friends are welcome and registration is required by Thursday, April 16.
| | Please be aware: the church office will be CLOSED April 6 in observance of Easter Monday. | | | |
Celebrating Alice Patton
Sunday, April 19
During the 11am worship service
Join as we celebrate Alice Patton, who is retiring from her position as Weekday School Director after 28 years.
A reception will follow in the Fellowship Hall. Please send photos and stories about her for us to share that day to info@bmpcnc.org
A love offering will be taken up for her during the service.
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Sunday, April 26
12-2pm
Please let us know if you plan to attend our Next Discovery Class to learn more about BMPC!
Black Mountain Presbyterian Church seeks to welcome all people and this class open to any visitors who are interested in discovering more about the church. Attendees will hear from Ministry Team leads, members of the church, and meet staff members. BMPC is open to all who recognize a need for the grace and love of God revealed in Jesus Christ.
Lunch will be served. Childcare is provided upon request.
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April Youth Events
1 - Small Group (6:30-7:30pm)
5-12 - No Youth Group - Spring Break
12 - Church and Lunch
15 - Small Group (6:30-7:30pm)
18 - Thrift Store Fashion Show (1-4pm)
22 - Small Group (6:30-7:30pm)
26 - Mini Golf (2-5pm)
29 - Small Group (6:30-7:30pm)
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You’re invited to join us for Youth Group! All students in 6th–12th grade are welcome. Whether you’ve been coming for years or are thinking about trying it for the first time, we’d love to have you with us.
Youth Group is a place to hang out, laugh, ask big questions, and be yourself. No matter who you are or where you’re coming from that day, you belong here. Come as you are!
If you’re feeling a little nervous about coming for the first time, that’s totally normal. A great way to make it easier is to bring a friend along with you. Chances are you’ll find plenty of new friends here too.
We’ll have games, conversation, and a welcoming space to connect with others. We hope you’ll join us! Questions? Email katie@bmpcnc.org
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| Our three students, fondly known as the "Lads", attended the PYC High School Mission Retreat in Spruce Pine, where they spent two days serving, worshiping, and connecting with other youth in WNC. | | |
During the All-Church Day of Service, our youth group embraced the theme of "spreading kindness like confetti".
They participated in several projects throughout the community, sharing encouragement and kindness at local nursing homes, downtown, and cancer centers, brightening the day for many people along the way.
What a great group of teenagers!
| | Thank you from the BMPC Youth Group! | | Thank you to our three incredible Progressive Dinner hosts: Jim and Kay Layman, Mike and Yvette Ballard, and Margaret Fouse and Craig Cooley. The food was amazing, the conversation was great, and we all had a wonderful evening. We are deeply grateful for your continued support of our youth group. | |
Calling all Young Adults :
you're invited to our next gathering!
| | Our young adult group met at Ole's for dinner and enjoyed Music Bingo at Lookout Brewery. | | |
Our next event will be on April 23rd at 6:30-8pm in the fellowship hall for dinner and a board game. You are welcome to bring a friend!
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BMPC featured in PW Horizons magazine
A year after Helene, our Presbyterian Women's Circles hosted a Saturday event called “Climate Change & Social Justice in the Wake of Helene...a Call to Act.”
PW Horizons magazine recently featured that event and the broader work of our church post-Helene. Click on the image above to read the whole article. What a great reminder of the work we were able to do together, and the work that remains to be done.
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Endowment Legacy Month coming up in May 2026
In May, BMPC will celebrate our Endowment Fund and the legacy of donor grants that support our congregation and community. You can shape your part of this legacy by taking part in a special Adult Education class and/or by joining a gathering of the BMPC Legacy Society at a luncheon on May 17 after 11:00 Worship. The Legacy Society includes donors who have chosen to remember the church through planned or legacy giving, helping to ensure that our mission continues for generations to come. The luncheon is open to everyone who has made a commitment to the BMPC Endowment as well as all who want to learn more.
During Legacy Month, two Adult Education classes will be offered on May 3 and May 17 in CR-1. These sessions will explore how the BMPC endowment fund supports ministry and outreach, the range of funding options and how members can thoughtfully include the Endowment Fund in their long-term giving plans.
Your BMPC Endowment Fund has been supporting both congregational and community needs since it was established in 1998. Through the faithful generosity of members and friends, the BMPC Endowment continues to strengthen ministries that make a lasting difference.
Questions? Contact Senior Pastor Mary Katherine Robinson at mk@bmpcnc.org OR Endowment at endowment@bmpcnc.org
| | | Menstrual Pads for Malawi: a community sewing project | | |
February 24 was an amazing day of service & community for between 40-45 men and women of BMPC and Montreat Presbyterian. We gathered at Highland Farms from 1-7, many with sewing machines in hand, others with sewing scissors, others with just a willingness to serve. Lydia Circle members have been cutting and tracing for the past few months during our monthly 4th Tuesday Service Night. Mary Jo Clark, Ann Wiig, Betsy Murphy, Alice McDowell, Linda Caldwell and several others have been sewing & prepping at home in preparation for this big day of community sewing, particularly during the snow/ice days we had in January/February.
Our goal was to bring people together to accomplish many of the 22+ steps involved in making reusable menstrual pads for the young girls of Malawi who are required to miss school during the days of their menstrual cycle. Much was accomplished during the work day, and the work continued in the homes of many of the sewers during the weeks following. Necessary components of the kits are underwear to go with the pads. Many volunteers have spent hours at the Hearts with Hands warehouse sorting through donated boxes of underwear to find just the right sizes for these girls. Fifty-four kits were sent to Malawi in March, and we have a great start on materials and samples for next year.
Much more than pinning, trimming, tracing, cutting, sewing, sorting happened during our work days/nights- new relationships were created among our church family (one lady met two of her deacons for the first time!) as well as with our Montreat brothers and sisters, and we shared Christ's love with our sisters in Malawi.
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Volunteers Needed!
We need volunteers to keep our busy church programming going:
- Spaghetti dinners - cooks, servers, set up and clean up helpers
- RAD Wednesday volunteers to drive the church bus, be a group shepherd, and help with art and storytelling activities
- Godly Play and Nursery volunteers for Sunday mornings
- Ushers and greeters for worship
- and more!
Please fill out this form if you're interested in volunteering. We'd love to have you!
| | | Name Tags with our New Logo | |
During March we slowly updated name tags that were in the Name Tag Station in the Narthex with the new church logo.
If you do not have a name tag and would like one or if you kept you name tag with you instead of in the Name Tag Station and did not receive a new one, please let Cullen know by emailing her at cullen@bmpcnc.org, by calling the church office, or by adding your name to the list in the Narthex.
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Saying Goodbye to the P.O. Box
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Some of you may know we have been using a P.O. Box as an additional location to send mail and pledges to the church. With the installation of our secure, postmaster approved mailbox we are no longer in need of a secondary mailing location and will be discontinuing use of the P.O. Box in the next few months.
If you currently utilize the church P.O. Box for any automated mail correspondence or pledge mailings, please make sure to update the church address to 117 Montreat Road, Black Mountain, NC 28711.
Should you have any questions regarding this process please reach out to Cullen by calling the church office or by emailing cullen@bmpcnc.org
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Earth Care:
You Can't Run Away on Harvest Day
by Jeannie Franklin
“When you kill a beast, say to him in your heart:
By the same power that slays you, I too am slain, and I too shall be consumed.
For the law that delivers you into my hand shall deliver me into a mightier hand.
Your blood and my blood is naught but the sap that feeds the tree of heaven.”
- Kahlil Gibran
This spring, in addition to reading Barbara Kingsolver’s book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, the Earth Care Team has been planning our theme for Earth Sunday around eating locally sourced food; that is, food grown within one hundred miles of Black Mountain, food that is extraordinarily healthy for our planet and its inhabitants. This month we will focus on why local food is good for our mental and physical health, better than the “food-like products” that roll down assembly lines a thousand miles away. Next month we will see how local food is also good for planet Earth,
Local food: Good for our health
Kingsolver views dinnertime as “the cornerstone of our family’s mental health.” She estimates that 75 percent of her crucial parenting effort has taken place during or surrounding the evening meal. Additionally, she reports that a survey of National Merit scholars (18-year-olds of all ethnicities, nationalities, and genders) showed a common thread in their lives, “the habit of sitting down to a family dinner table.”
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More than just the food, Kingsolver credits the parents, “their care, priorities, culture of support, and the words: ‘I’ll expect you home for dinner.’”
Further, she writes, since women moved from the kitchen into the workplace, “a profiteering industry” recognized a “tired, vulnerable market” and produced a “nutritional crisis and genuinely toxic food supply. “If you think toxic is an exaggeration, read the package directions for handling raw chicken from a CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation). Globally, people consume more soft drinks and packaged foods as they grow more affluent…. We have dealt today’s kids the statistical hand of a shorter life expectancy than their parents, which would be us, the ones taking care of them. Our throw-away food culture is the sole reason.”
Kingsolver’s family eats the healthiest meat, but not CAFO meat
She agrees with Wendell Berry, who says, “I dislike the thought that some animal has been made miserable in order to feed me. If I am going to eat meat, I want it to be from an animal that has lived a pleasant, uncrowded life outdoors, on bountiful pasture, with good water nearby and trees for shade.” Kingsolver’s family is willing to put in the work to raise their own chickens and turkeys and to find local farms that ethically raise beef, lamb, and fish. Kingsolver, a biologist, says, “We animals can only remain alive by eating other life.” She reminds us, “Animal killing also underwrites vegetal foods, uncountable deaths from pesticides and habitat removal, deaths of insects, worms, field mice, and rabbits that die for our bread and veggie burgers.” Thus we make the best moral choices we can, respect each other, and in our table blessings, give thanks for the lives that were sacrificed, that we might live.
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2 Catherine Farish
Mary Mustian
3 Bridget Leary
4 Brittany Williams
Gayle Sawyer
5 Ethan Banks
6 Bill Gilliland
8 Jane Collins
Devin Carswell
9 Ann Herring
Ginny Lindsey
DC Horne
10 April Roy
Graham Roy
Melzer Morgan
Lily Morgan
Bob Hendershott
Franklin Jone
11 Susan Jumper
Chad Williams
Joy Pulido
Rylan Van Note
Josie Cullen
12 Norman Carswell
13 William Holmes
14 Connie Button
Robert Sway
Audrey Case-Meeler
15 Dale Culpepper
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16 Edward Smith
Brandon Ford
17 Nancy Ruppert
18 Camryn Davidson
Pearl Hall
20 Ann Bell
Carla Sperry
Margaret Waterstradt
Bonnie Shoemaker
21 Margaret Bauer
22 Mary McElrath
Xander Dodd
Jonah Atkins
Isaac Black
23 Karen Smith
David Hana
24 Patrick Davidson
Margaret Fouse
Jayne Vaughan
25 Susan Hensley
26 Mary Katherine Robinson
28 Harriette Fulton
29 Ken Farmer
Maya Fleagle
30 Emma Bell
Connie Schimpf
Ayden Mohr
Tag Greenwalt
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