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Dear Grace Covenant Community,
This weekend there are many different ways to celebrate and honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wherever you are. Opportunities to strengthen community, acts of service, local action, and services of worship are just some of the ways we honor Dr. King's legacy and his prophetic call to racial and economic justice for all people. Below in the newsletter are some opportunities in the Asheville area over the weekend.
As some of you know the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has been engaged in discernment for a few years around Dr. King's "A Letter from the Birmingham Jail" becoming a part of our Book of Confessions. Below you will find a link to an audio recording of Dr. King reading his letter. I encourage you to take time to listen to his words. So much of his call to white moderate Christians resonates still with struggles we face in white-dominant collectives as we work to truly be agents of justice and transformation.
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You'll notice during worship on Sunday that we will be using parts of Dr. King's letter in our Confession and in our Affirmation of Faith.
Blessings to you as we remember and honor, and as we seek strength for the journey we are on together.
Peace and love,
Marcia
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Worship Preview | Sunday, January 15, 2023
Second Sunday after Epiphany
In-person and Online Service
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*For the full revised common lectionary, please click here. | |
| Thursday, January 12 | PART Mtg. | 6:00 pm on Zoom | | Sunday, January 15 | Hybrid Worship
(In-person and online) | 9:30 am @ GCPC
(also on Youtube) | | Sunday, January 15 | Fellowship Time | 10:45 am | Narthex | | Sunday, January 15 | Formation for All Ages | 11:00 am
*please see details below | | Sunday, January 15 | Visitation for Archie Lane Young | 1:00-1:30 pm | Sanctuary | | Sunday, January 15 | Memorial Service for Archie Lane Young | 2:00 pm | Sanctuary | | Sunday, January 15 | Middle School Youth Group | 4:30 pm | Youth Room | | Monday, January 16 | MLK Jr. Day | OFFICE COSED | | Monday, January 16 | Memorial Garden Group | 1:00 pm | Memorial Garden | | Tuesday - Thursday | Church Office OPEN | 10:00 am - 4:00 pm | | Tuesday, January 17 | Finance Council Mtg. | 5:30 pm on Zoom | | Tuesday, January 17 | Serve Council Mtg. | 6:30 pm on Zoom | | Wednesday, January 18 | Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) Mtg. | 11:00 am | Jerusalem Room (also on Zoom) | | Wednesday, January 18 | Bible Study | 12:00 pm | Jerusalem Room (also on Zoom) | | Wednesday, January 18 | Just Funding Mtg. | 6:00 pm | Youth Room (also on Zoom) | | Wednesday, January 18 | Choir Rehearsal | 7:00 pm | Sanctuary | | Thursday, January 19 | Men of GCPC Gathering | 9:00 am on Zoom | | Thursday, January 19 | Long Range Visioning Team | 6:00 pm | Fellowship Hall | | |
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PART Meeting | TONIGHT, Thursday, January 12 | 6:00 PM | Zoom
The Power and Race Team will be meeting tonight via Zoom at 6:00 pm.
Marcia has some exciting news to share and a creative exercise for you all to engage in together!
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/91314445389
Meeting ID: 913 1444 5389 Passcode: 789
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Children's Formation (K-5th Grade) | Sundays | 11:00 AM | Sanctuary
The children will begin in the Sanctuary with prayer, music and storytelling. At 11:25 am they will travel to their "wondering rooms" (second floor of Education Wing) to finish their Godly Play lesson. Pick up is at noon and children are invited to take a snack home.
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Youth Formation (Middle/High School) | Sundays | 11:00 AM | Youth Room
After worship service starting at 11 a.m. Middle and High Schoolers will meet together in the new youth room. We will provide breakfast-like snacks and will be learning about Holy Troublemakers and Unconventional Saints.
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Bible Study | Wednesdays | 12:00 PM | Jerusalem Room & Zoom
Join the pastoral staff to read and study our sermon texts for Sunday. No preparation needed; just come ready to open scripture and discuss!
Join Zoom Meeting: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82947867192
Meeting ID: 829 4786 7192 Passcode: 789
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Stewardship & Sustainability | |
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WE'RE GETTING CLOSE!
Finance Council and Session are working to finalize the 2023 budget, but we need pledges to set the income and expenses.
If you're already donating but haven't pledged, please take a few minutes today to let us know your giving plans for the next year by submitting a pledge.
If you haven't given or pledged before but would like to talk to someone about how impactful your support could be, let us know! We can connect you with a member of the Finance Council or Treasurer to share some of the amazing ways GCPC dollars are put to good use.
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2022 YEAR END STATEMENTS - COMING SOON!
Your 2022 year end giving statements will be issued mid to late January once the accounting year is closed. If you want to check your 2022 pledge balance or have questions, you can check the Giving tab in Realm (change the date filter to last year) or contact Natalie in the Finance office at natalie@gcpcusa.org or 828.254.3274.
All statements will be emailed unless we do not have an email address on file for you or you have specifically requested a printed statement.
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eGiving Made Easier!
Did you know that GCPC's software, Realm, has an eGiving option? You can give on a recurring, automatic schedule at whatever frequency and date is best for you from your bank account or credit card.
There are two ways to set up Realm eGiving:
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Have Natalie do it for you - she's happy to help and can get it all set up easily with a signed authorization form. She can assist with changes, payment method updates, and annual pledge giving set up.
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Self set up - Log in to Realm, click Giving, then click the blue + Give button. Change the frequency option to Give Multiple Times then your preferred frequency to set up automatic, recurring donations. Select the Start date and enter an end date of 12/31/2023. Be sure the total gifts in the bottom right is correct before continuing.
|  | If you self set up eGiving and/or submitted a pledge but would like it double-checked for accuracy, feel free to reach out to Natalie at natalie@gcpcusa.org or 828.254.3274. Thank you for your support and generosity! | |
READY TO SUBMIT YOUR 2023 PLEDGE?
Submitting your pledge is quick and easy! (Watch a tutorial video here.) Simply CLICK HERE or scan the Qr code to the right to submit your pledge online, all in one form.
If you would also like to set up automatic eGiving from your bank account or credit card, be sure to checkmark Add a scheduled gift for this pledge after the pledge confirmation and follow the prompts. These are two separate steps and forms - setting up a pledge does not renew eGiving automatically and eGiving without a pledge doesn't count towards our Stewardship and budget goals.
You will receive an email confirmation of your pledge and a separate confirmation for eGiving, if applicable. Questions or concerns? Please contact Natalie Weaver, Stewardship & Financial Administrator, at giving@gcpcusa.org or leave a message at 828.254.3274.
Keep in mind, anyone can pledge any amount - every single penny helps support the ministry and mission at GCPC!
WAYS TO PLEDGE:
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Online pledge card HERE
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Email giving@gcpcusa.org
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Call 828.254.3274 and leave a message for Natalie Weaver
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Fill out a pew pledge card and put in the Sunday offering plate
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Request a mailed pledge card from the office
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Important Announcements... | |
Update from the Winter Shelter Team: | |
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We are grateful to share that the Presbytery of Western NC has agreed to partner with the Winter Safe Shelter team to provide shelter to 10 guests at the former West Asheville Presbyterian Church. This shelter remains a referral based, 10-person nightly capacity shelter serving intact families, BIPOC, and LGBTQI individuals. More details on the webpage.
If you have questions about referrals you can contact the brilliant Operations Coordinators, Gene, Tracey, and Kat by clicking here.
Please sign up for evenings you may be able to volunteer. The link to the volunteer schedule is on the webpage, or you can access it here. Once you sign up, you will receive a call from one of the coordinators to confirm and let you know a little more.
Your pledge to GCPC helps fund the financial support GCPC is providing for this shelter initiative. If you would like to encourage others to contribute to the effort by donating funds or if you would like to donate items,
Please share the link to the Winter Safe Shelter info page www.counterflowasheville.com/safeshelter.
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Deacon of the Week:
The deacons of Grace Covenant are available to talk and pray with you by phone or online and to coordinate care. If you have difficulty reaching your assigned deacon or if you do not know who your assigned deacon is, please feel free to reach out to our deacon of the week.
This week (1/8-1/14): Bill McNeff | email: wpmcn6@yahoo.com
Next week (1/15-1/21): Cathy Froehlich | email: oremont2@gmail.com
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Prayer requests will stay on the GCPC Prayer List for one month. Please let any staff member know if you (or your loved one) would like to remain on the list for longer.
Iglesia Jerusalem congregation
Trey and Alisha Thompson and 3 kids - Gabi, Arlo, and Eldon (Patty and Brent Thompson's son and daughter-in-law and grandchildren)
Rebecca Longenecker-Singer (sister-in-law of Loidaly & Hans Rosario-Singer)
Bill Ross (Jonathan Ross' dad)
Diane Eubanks (Marty Johnson’s sister)
Jamie Waskey (Anna Hamel's sister-in-law)
Richard Davis (Lori Davis’s father)
Bill Brown (Mary Lou Nash's brother)
Susan Smialowicz
Doris Prak
Michelle Chromey and family
Andrea Rosal
Sharon Sasse
Lisette de Groot
Reed Carney
Laura Ross
Margaret Rada
Juanita Schneider
Mary Byers
Our sympathy and support are extended to Leslie Sharpe and family following the passing of her father, Archie Lane Young, on Monday. A Service to the Witness of Resurrection and Thanksgiving for the Life of Archie Lane Young will be held this Sunday, January 15 at 2:00 pm in the GCPC sanctuary. Visitation will be from 1:00-1:30 in the sanctuary.
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Presbyterian Womenʼs Circles are Zoom meetings. Please join us.
Circle 1: Second Monday of each month, 10:00 a.m.
Circle 2: First Tuesday of each month, 7:30 p.m.
Circle 3: Second Tuesday of each month (some Zoom and some in-person), 7:00 p.m.
Circle 4: Second Tuesdays of each month, 10:30 a.m.
Circle 5: First Monday of each month, 11:00 a.m.
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Need to set up a church zoom meeting?
Contact Anna Louise and she can get you all set up!
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Community Working Together | |
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13th Annual Kenilworth Celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - Keeping the Promise: Accountability and Reparations in Asheville | Monday, January 16 | 6:30 PM | Kenilworth Presbyterian Church (123 Kenilworth Rd. AVL 28803)
The discussion for the evening will center around "Keeping the Promise: Accountability and Reparations in Asheville." We are honored to welcome Dr. Dwight Mullen, Chair, and Ms. Dewana Little, Co-Chair of the Reparations Commission for Asheville and Buncombe County, as speakers. The conversation will be moderated by Councilwoman Antanette Mosley.
The evening will be hosted by Marvin Chambers, a founding member of A.S.C.O.R.E. (Asheville Student Committee on Racial Equality) and an icon of the Civil Rights Movement in North Carolina. DJ Profe$$ah G. will be spinning great tunes. Come out for community fellowship and learn how Black leaders in Asheville are creating a historic roadmap for reparations in Asheville and the nation!
For more information, contact Katie Adams at 828-273-3747 or by emailing mountainstomoveavl@gmail.com.
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Hood Huggers International MLK Day of Service 2023 | Monday, January 16 | 11:00 AM - until | 47 Bryant St.
Join us for our annual MLK Day of Service! We'll be tackling various projects in and around the Burton Street Community in West Asheville - helping out Elder neighbors, building and finishing projects in the community gardens, making art, picking up garbage, and more!
We'll provide snacks & food, hot & cool drinks, art supplies, tools, and music. You bring full water bottles, work gloves, and wear warm layers 'cause the weather can be hit or miss.
Come to the main Peace Garden (47 Bryant Street), sign in, and someone will point you in the right direction.
Parking is available on the field at the Burton Street Recreation Center AND at St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church on Buffalo St.
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Land of Sky UCC (15 Overbrook Pl)
This three-part workshop series guides participants in telling the truth about the history of racism in the United States, that we might work toward true reconciliation with Creator, Creation and restoration with community. Racial Justice & Organized Religion gives participants the tools they need to address racism at a systemic level - whether they decide to work for criminal justice reform, advocate for fair housing, close the racial wealth gap, or end racism within their religious communities. In this three-part program, small groups learn about key obstacles to racial justice that are embedded within our institutions, systems, and structures. Participants leave the gathering ready to work for racial justice in your local community, and the faith communities and institutions of which you are a part. All sessions include, dialogue, active listening, and relationship-building.
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Creation Care Alliance will hold its annual Creation Care Symposium at Montreat for clergy and faith leaders Monday, February 6, 1-5:30 pm and then an open symposium on Tuesday February 7, 8:30am-5:30pm. Grace Covenant is a progressive faith community. We have solar panels, we recycle, and we vote for laws to protect the God’s Creation, but I wonder if, as a congregation, we can’t do more. I would love for several of us to go to the Tuesday symposium so that we can get our EARTH TEAM very active again in new and ‘creative’ ways.
Check out the CREATION CARE ALLIANCE website for more info about this symposium and contact Susan Presson(4pressons@gmail.com) if interested in registering together as a faith community.
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UNC Asheville presents: | |
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UNC Asheville presents: Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration Keynote Address from Clint Smith, “Our History, Reimagined” | Wednesday, January 18 | 7:00 - 8:30 PM | Lipinsky Hall
UNC Asheville presents “Our History, Reimagined,” a Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration Address from keynote speaker Clint Smith in Lipinsky Hall on Wednesday, January 18. This event is free and open to all, no tickets are required.
In a conversation exploring Civil Rights movements over the decades, as well as how memorials tie into our perceptions and collective memories of these eras, Clint pushes the audience to wrestle with the complicated truths about the country we live in and helps crystalize how this history has shaped the contemporary social, political, and cultural landscape of our world today.
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Interfaith Initiative -
Social Justice Opportunities
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Buncombe Community Remembrance Project | | |
The Rev. Paul Roberts leads Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary | |
Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary is hosting a national conversation on repairing the nation’s racial divide -
Seminary President the Rev. Paul Roberts says foundation funding will help get the conversation started on Jan. 19
~ by Mike Ferguson
Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary is relying on the calling of Isaiah 58:12 — “… you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in” — as it begins convening a national conversation on what the seminary calls in a news release “the interest and capacity of diverse organizations in developing sustainable approaches to reparations” and repair.
“If racism is the opposite of what God intended for humanity, then the work of repair — which includes reparations — must become a more intentional part of the way forward,” said the Rev. Paul Roberts, JCSTS president, who spoke last week to Presbyterian News Service. With grants totaling $90,000 from foundations including the Ford Foundation and the Henry Luce Foundation, “JCSTS is now positioned to do something we’ve longed for: to help leverage the moral authority of the Black church in fostering public interest in repairing the historic breach of racial discrimination in this country.”
Conversation tables will take place in Atlanta and Los Angeles and in cities in between, Roberts said. The first conversation designed to gauge interest among Black church leaders and their allies is Jan. 19 in Atlanta.
As the conversations are set to convene, “We are thinking about the work of repair even before we utter the word ‘reparations,’ which can be a lightning rod,” Roberts said. At JCSTS, a historically Black seminary based in Atlanta but serving an online community, the conversation has been going on for about 18 months among the seminary’s executive leadership team and the board of trustees, Roberts said. “We have arrived at this notion there is something we can contribute to the conversation about repair, restorative justice and reparations,” Roberts said.
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Poor People’s Campaign Co-Chair the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis and PC(USA) Associate Director for Advocacy the Rev. Jimmie Hawkins lead a protest in Washington, D.C. in 2018. (File photo courtesy of the Office of Public Witness) | |
‘Resurrection always wins out over insurrection,’ Presbyterian pastor tells a Capitol crowd -
People of faith call for unity, peace and healing as two-year anniversary of Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol stirs emotions
~ by Darla Carter
On the eve of the two-year anniversary of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, an interfaith vigil was held in Washington, D.C., on Thursday evening.
The Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, a Presbyterian pastor who co-chairs the Poor People’s Campaign, was one of several speakers featured during the livestreamed event, which focused on the need for unity and healing.
“God of the people, you teach us that love tramples hate, that truth trounces lies, that hope conquers fear, and life overcomes death,” said Theoharis, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign and director of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice housed at Union Theological Seminary. “Resurrection always wins out over insurrection.”
The vigil, which lasted more than an hour, was hosted by the Franciscan Action Network and Light4America, which seeks to “reclaim” Jan. 6 as a day for Americans to defend democracy and repair partisan discord.
“We call upon people of faith and no faith to use this observance of Jan. 6 to recommit to working in their community to safeguard democracy, including the right to vote without intimidation, and the protection of our poll workers and government officials from all who would threaten or harm them,” said the Rev. Paul Raushenbush, an ordained Baptist minister who’s president of the Interfaith Alliance, which strives to unite diverse voices to challenge extremism. “We invite religious leaders to teach all of us to be generous in victory, gracious in defeat, and unrelenting in our determination to find common ground upon which all might live together and flourish side by side.”
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NEW DATES!!
Fraught & Flummoxed: Courage and Creativity for the Elevation of the Gospel | January 30–February 2, 2023 | Montreat
In a time when the gospel of Jesus is threatened by the ascendance of Christian nationalism and white supremacy, what is the apprehensive, overstretched church leader to do? How does a leader tend one’s soul for the elevation of the gospel? How do followers of Jesus meet this moment with courage and imagination?
Building on the content of past conferences such as CoInspire, DisGrace, and MLK’s Unfinished Agenda, we will engage in three days of peer learning group work in partnership with Crossroads to examine the current challenges of leadership in this time and place. Furthermore, we will critically reflect on the obstacles of leadership as well as explore tangible and embodied practices involving creativity, movement, and contemplative exercises with the goal of building capacity and endurance for this important work. All levels of interest and experience are welcome as we will host three customized tracks of learning, nurture, and growth.
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The church office is open Tuesday - Thursday, 10am - 4pm.
We recommend calling ahead or emailing to set up an appointment if you are wanting to meet with a specific staff member. Please note, many staff are off or work remotely on Monday and the office is not open on Friday.
Coming to visit? We have a new video doorbell to assist with security. To access the building or office, please enter through the far left glass doors off the courtyard (labeled Enter). Ring the doorbell to have the door unlocked. The GCPC office is down the hall to the right, just past the Sanctuary.
You can also reach our office by phone at 828.254.3274. Follow the prompts for the staff directory to dial by name or press 0 for the main office.
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Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church
789 Merrimon Ave. Asheville, NC 28804
828.254.3274
www.gcpcusa.org
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