News and Updates

March 29, 2024

Easter Service on Wednesday

Join us for our Easter service this Wednesday, April 3rd, at 12:30. Pastor Seth will lead us in the conversational homily.

Salvation Army Easter Egg Hunt on March 31st

Foot Clinic on April 3rd and 10th

The foot clinic will start again twice a month, beginning April 3rd. They will now be located in the old art room outside of the Haynes Dining Hall.

Tickets Available for A Seat at the Table Event

This special event highlights a creative partnership between Asheville's talented local chefs and the Downtown Welcome Table. Learn more about the event and how to purchase tickets HERE.

Building Closed, Monday, April 1st

The building will be closed this Monday, April 1st following Easter Sunday. The doors will reopen on Tuesday.

Happy Easter!

Companion Orientation, Monday, April 8th

Because of the Easter Holiday, the next companion orientation will be Monday, April 8th, at 5:00 pm in the sanctuary.

This is a great opportunity to invite friends and family to learn more about Haywood Street and how to get involved!

Contact interim Companion Coordinator Laura for more information.

Seek Healing Listening Training at Haywood Street

Seek Healing Listening Training, April 12th and 19th, 9:00 am - 4:00 pm at Haywood Street

Please join us for this two day  Listening  Training that teaches participants a new way of relating with each other in a world where authentic relationships are scarce. This is open for all companions. Please provide your own lunch. 

Click here to sign up and learn more.

Local Mission Opportunity at Christmount, April 5th

If you are interested in getting involved with our local mission efforts, we will make a day trip next Friday, April 5th, to Christmount Retreat Center in Black Mountain, NC, to assist their team as they demo one of their buildings.

We will meet in the Haywood Street parking lot at 8:30 am to carpool to the location together and return by 1:00 pm. If able, please wear close-toed shoes in addition to clothes you don’t mind getting dirty (there will be dust!). Some tools will be provided at the site, but feel free to bring any you may have as well in case there is a limited supply. Haywood Street will provide water, light snack options, and sandwich makings for lunch if you have not brought your own. 

For more information, contact Pastor Seth at 

seth@haywoodstreet.org or by phone at 828-575-2477, ext. 118.

Haywood Street Highlights

Today, Brother John invited our friends in Respite to join our card ministry. Being in community and creating art are both powerful healing modalities. These beautiful cards will be sent to our community members who are incarcerated and who may be in the hospital, reminding each of them of their worth, their love, and their belonging. Before the cards are sent, Pastor Jody will invite our congregants to pray over them at worship service. God bless the work of these hands.

If you've been to a family-style meal at the Welcome Table, you've probably noticed the slower pace.

Moving slowly feels counterintuitive when there’s work to do. But the Jesus movement is counterintuitive. It doesn't fit inside our social and cultural paradigms. That's why God’s kingdom is also called the “upside-down kingdom” because it’s countercultural and uncomfortably unnatural for us. When we rush, trying to get as much done in one day as possible—we risk missing the wisdom behind Jesus's mission.

Haywood Street chooses not to use the term “volunteer” for this reason. Rather than folks coming to fill an open spot in the dish room, we want folks coming to Haywood Street because they have a hunger for something deeper and more flavorful than what the world provides.

So, we refer to folks who participate in our ministries as companions--the original, literal meaning of the term being together with bread. Companions were literally the people who ate and broke bread together at a common table, implying that strangers would become companions through eating together.

In companionship, there’s no hierarchy, class system, or us, and them. Every person who sits at the table is a companion. Some may choose to bring the plates or clear the table, but make no mistake--companionship happens when we slow down enough to sit at the table together.

Beloved members of the Haywood Street family, Rachel and Joseph are familiar faces around campus. Rachel, who has the care and attentiveness of a mother, asked for a picture with Joseph on Wednesday, saying, "We're having a really good day today. I want to have it captured!"

We love you, Rachel and Joseph!

Weekly Ministry Opportunities:

Tuesday Haywood Street Holy Ground Keepers: 8:30 a.m. in the parking lot. Walk the grounds of the church campus and our local neighborhood, cleaning up along the way.

Tuesday Prayer Group: 12:30 p.m. in Room 6. Gather for a time of communal prayer.

Wednesday Downtown Welcome Table: Join us for lunch between 10:00-1:00 or help with kitchen and dining room clean-up from 1:00-3:00. Sign up here!

Wednesday Worship: 12:30 p.m. in the sanctuary

Thursday Card Making: Meet at 10:00 a.m. in the Respite Kitchen to make cards for our friends in prison or the hospital. 

Weekly Sermons

Read the weekly sermons on our website here.

~Preaching Schedule~

April 3rd:

Pastor Seth (Easter service)

April 10th:

Pastor Jody

April 17th:

Pastor Brian

April 24th:

Pastor Jody

Community Resources

Click below to see a list of places in the community to donate and find clothes, and when recovery meetings are held.

Fresco Viewing Hours:

Monday - Thursday, 10 am - 2 pm (with the exception of during our worship service, which is 12:30 pm every Wednesday).

Contact April if you would like to make an appointment to see the Fresco outside of those hours.

REFLECTION

Rest is Resistance

By Laura B.

It has been a month of family-style meals and here are a few moments we are grateful for: 

time to sit and remember each other’s names, 

time to have a conversation, 

time to be a team, 

time to notice the calm environment settling over the dining room, 

time to make new family, 

time to fellowship,

time to sip a cup of coffee and listen to music in the sanctuary, 

time to invite new companions to join us, 

time to remember how much we need one another, 

time to notice there will be a place for everyone, 

time to remember why we are here. 

Spring is upon us and reflecting on this past month reminds me that transition can invite us into experiencing new creation. The beauty of the Downtown Welcome Table has been true in all its forms. The desire to care for one another and create space to build a new relationship has always been core to the delicious plates of food offered with smiles from people generously giving of themselves and their time. The bravery of every individual that sits at a new table generously sharing themselves with one another. A collective of humanity setting aside time and space to care for one another. 

As we gather together around the family style meal, we are being invited into a slower rhythm. One that sometimes offers us a pace to notice the divine in each face. The urge to move faster is always present for me and at times feels quite necessary. In an attempt to resist this urgency, I hope to rest into the familiarity of caring for one another. 

Tricia Hersey, founder of The Nap Ministry, is a voice of truth claiming “Rest is Resistance.” We exist in systems daily that ask more of us and offer little in return. Systems that will always deny communal care. Hersey states, “I prefer the word care over luxury. It’s simply care that we are seeking. We want to be seen and cared for like the divine beings we are. Community care will save us. Is saving us.” 

On Wednesday, each meal is an invitation to community care. The Holy Chaos of being in close proximity of humanity and the divine will always exist but may we invite each other into a slower pace of care and relationship with each greeting of “I’m so glad you’re here.” 

A witness to include the most excluded, Haywood Street not only welcomes every child of God–especially sisters and brothers of every mental illness and physical disability, addiction and diagnosis, living condition and employment status, gender identity and sexual orientation, class, color, and creed–but we celebrate your presence, certain that the kingdom of God is coming closer because you are here.