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#GCPCEasterinthesanctuary
Click here to view the full GCPC Easter album
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Worship Preview | Sunday, April 16, 2023
Second Sunday of Easter
In-person and Online Service
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*For the full revised common lectionary, please click here. | |
| Thursday, April 13 | Guatemala Comm. & Iglesia Jerusalem Event | 7:00 pm | Fellowship Hall/Atrium
(also on Zoom) | | Sunday, April 16 | Hybrid Worship
(In-person and online) | 9:30 am @ GCPC
(also on Youtube) | | Sunday, April 16 | Formation for All Ages | 11:00 am
*please see details below | | Sunday, April 16 | Deacons Mtg. | 12:30 pm | Choir Room (also on Zoom) | | Sunday, April 16 | Asheville Area Piano Forum Spring Benefit Concert | 3:00 pm | Sanctuary | | Sunday, April 16 | ALL YOUTH Sunday Planning | 4:30 pm | Youth Room | | Sunday, April 16 | Laura Ross Benefit Concert | 5:30 pm | A-B Tech/Mission Health Conference Center | | Tuesday - Thursday | Church Office OPEN
| 10:00 am - 4:00 pm | | Tuesday, April 18 | Prayer Group | 10:00 am | Jerusalem Room | | Tuesday, April 18 | Finance Council Mtg. | 5:30 pm on Zoom | | Tuesday, April 18 | Serve Mtg. | 6:30 pm on Zoom | | Wednesday, April 19 | Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) Group | 11:00 am | Jerusalem Room (also on Zoom) | | Wednesday, April 19 | Bible Study | 12:00 pm | Jerusalem Room (also on Zoom) | | Wednesday, April 19 | Just Funding Mtg. | 6:00 pm | Youth Room | | Wednesday, April 19 | Centering Prayer | 6:00 pm | Sanctuary | | Wednesday, April 19 | Choir Rehearsal | 7:00 pm | Sanctuary | | Thursday, April 20 | APNC Meeting | 6:15 pm | Fellowship Hall | | Friday, April 21 | Parents' Night Out (PNO) | 5:30 - 8:30 pm | Kids in Atrium/Fellowship Hall | | |
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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 and planning for Youth Sunday!
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Adult Formation | Sundays | April 16-May 21 | 11:00 AM | Choir Room
Our Adult Formation and Education Sunday school class will be reading William Yoo's new book, What Kind of Christianity: A History of Slavery and Anti-Black Racism in the Presbyterian Church. Two copies will be available in the church library but also we encourage participants to purchase your own copies: https://www.cokesbury.com/9780664264673-What-Kind-of-Christianity
Dr. William Yoo, Assistant Professor of American Religious and Cultural History at Columbia Theological Seminary, will be coming to Grace Covenant during the education hour on May 14 to discuss his book with us.
Members of the Power and Race Team (PART) and the Me and White Supremacy groups will be leading our discussions.
* For the opening class, please read the first chapter of William Yoo's book at this link.
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REFRESHMENTS NEEDED!
The April 16 Benefit Concert for Laura Ross will have an intermission with light refreshments. We are asking the GCPC family for contributions of COOKIES and DRINKS. Can you provide 2 dozen cookies and/or 1 gallon of tea, lemonade, or water? Please sign up at Concert refreshment signup or send an email to Lynne Meacham at larkm99@gmail.com to say what you'd like to contribute. On April 16, bring your refreshments to the concert or leave them at GCPC before noon that day. Thank you!
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MCI (Mild Cognitive Impairment) Group | Wednesday, April 19 | 11:00 AM | Jerusalem Room (also on Zoom - password: 789)
This support group introduces techniques for daily living with such issues, led by Paul Rogers, a retired physician in our congregation. We meet the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of every month. *New participants welcome at any time. Contact Richard, rcoble@gcpcusa.org, with questions.
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Bible Study | Wednesdays | April 19 - May 21 | 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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Centering Prayer | Wednesdays | 6:00 - 6:30 PM | Sanctuary
Join us on Wednesdays to sit in sacred silence and feel God closely. If you are not able to join us in person, we invite you to light a candle and hold silence wherever you are.
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Important Announcements... | |
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Hearing Aid T-Coil Loop -- listen in.
The GCPC sanctuary is equipped with a Hearing Aid Loop. This loop sends a magnetic signal directly to personal hearing aids equipped with T-Coil (90% of the aids manufactured). Most hearing aids require you to select the Telephone or T-Coil program on your hearing aid to take advantage of the signal.
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Earth Team News
Have you noticed that you aren't seeing monarch butterflies as often? You can spot them immediately by their two pairs of brilliant orange, black-veined wings with white spots towards the edges. You aren't seeing them because the population has declined by approximately 90 % since the 1990s. The milkweed plant population - the only thing that monarch caterpillars will eat - has also declined 90%. These plants are disappearing due to the loss of habitat stemming from land development and the use of weed killer.
Enter the Monarch Butterfly Waystation Program that Laura Ross researched for her work at the Biltmore Estate in 2018. Laura, Betsy Richards and Sharon Sasse presented the plan for a garden to the Property Council and later it was approved by Session. It is located just outside the entrance to the Fellowship Hall beside the playground fence. The Earth Team purchased the supplies for a raised bed and Rick Philipsen assembled it. Betsy obtained a retailers discount at a local nursery and purchased six milkweed plants and other plants were donated. Laura and Betsy took the caterpillars and put them in safe butterfly houses at their homes so they could become butterflies.
When Covid hit, the garden somewhat died but the Earth Team is in the process of re-establishing it. You can read more about the Monarch Waystation program here. Stay tuned for more information about the dwindling monarch population and our own butterfly garden.
~ Tamara Puffer, GCPC Earth Team Member & Minister of Vulnerability
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News from SOS
(Saving Our Selves)
It is always an uplifting experience to connect with Phyllis Utley, the founder and director of SOS, one of Grace Covenant’s SERVE Council Covenant Partners. The work of SOS and the funding provided is focused on Black self-care and on facilitating access to safe Black spaces. In recent years, Phyllis has been regularly commuting between Asheville and Charlotte to work with the Bail Project, providing financial assistance and offering pathways toward healing from trauma to BIPOC persons incarcerated in the North Carolina prison system. Although her Charlotte-based work is beginning to wind down, Phyllis is putting her skills and experience to good use, supporting the development of a similar effort in the Asheville area.
In addition, Phyllis now serves as a community liaison with Asheville’s Racial Justice Coalition, concentrating on the re-development of Black legacy neighborhoods, notably old Shiloh, relocated many years ago to make way for the building of the Biltmore house. In connection with that work, she has begun highlighting the need for food reparations, a life-altering consequence of BIPOC loss of land and capacity to plant, grow, and produce food, resulting in the proliferation of food deserts.
Two weeks ago, Phyllis was among a group of contemporaries who toured North Carolina HBCUs, among them North Carolina A & T, Winston Salem State, and St. Augustine College in Raleigh. At each site, there were special events involving the gathered student body, and Phyllis spoke glowingly about the drumming she witnessed. A member of Asheville’s Reparations Commission also was on the tour, an experience that person described as transformational.
During the week of April 17, Phyllis will join a delegation from Asheville travelling to Baltimore, Maryland, to attend ‘State of the Black World’, a quadrennial conference which includes representatives from around the globe. Among the many distinguished speakers will be the Afro-Caribbean female vice president of Colombia, Francia Márquez. Then, later this spring, Phyllis will celebrate her Black and Native American heritage, when she appears in a film to be shown at the Diana Wortham theatre. As she says so well, “Black folks were not just imported (into the U.S.): they were already here.”
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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 (4/9-4/15): Frank Chapman | email: frank.chapman@gmail.com
Next week (4/16-4/22): Robin Mallernee | email: mom.mallernee@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
Cathy Wooten (William High’s mom)
Maria, Esteban, and Erik Goicoehea
Ann Bartlett (friend of Amanda Pressley)
Ruth Fenk (Cathy Froehlich’s mom)
John F. Riedesel (Steve Riedesel’s brother)
Josh Johnson (Bill McNeff's son-in-law)
Reid McCollum (Susan Nevers' son-in-law)
Family of Juan Sanchez (Amy Kim Kyremes-Parks’ uncle, who died on 4/12)
Susan Smialowicz
Doris Prak
Michelle Chromey and family
Andrea Rosal
Sharon Sasse
Reed Carney
Laura and Jonathan Ross
Margaret Rada
Mary Byers
Gloria Moe
Ken Richards
Susie Churchfield
Karen Rohls
Dea Sasso
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A Service of Sharing and Preparing
Sunday, April 23 | 6:30-7:30 PM | Sanctuary
The sanctuary renovation is almost here! The work begins on April 24th and because of the years of worship and community-building spent in the sanctuary as it is now, we are planning an evening service the night before to honor and say goodbye to the pews and celebrate what is to come. Folks will be invited to participate in a variety of ways and everyone is encouraged to engage in ways that work for you.
There will be opportunities for guided reflection,
for movement around the space, for listening,
and for blessing what this space has been and what it will become.
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SAVE THE DATE: SUNDAY, JUNE 25th!
Come meet GCPC's new members (all those who have joined since COVID began) after worship on June 25th. This will be a great opportunity to visit with everyone and enjoy a meal. More information to follow.
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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, 10:00 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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The Garden season is fully underway!
On Tuesday March 28, a team of 10 volunteers planted cabbage and lettuces!
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On Wednesday March 29, twenty garden volunteers harvested 30 lbs. of spinach which was shared with Western Carolina Rescue Ministries.
They also planted broccoli, chard, kale, collards, and more cabbage.
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Community Working Together | |
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The WNC Racial Equity Collective is pleased to announce a new upcoming REI Phase 1 Workshop scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, May 9 - 10 from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm both days. If you're interested in participating and available, please complete this registration form. And, as always, feel free to share it with your networks. If you have any questions, reach out to Danae Aicher.
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Pisgah Legal Services Lunch and Learn: Immigration and Justice in WNC | Wednesday, April 19 | 12:00 – 1:15 PM | St. Mary’s Episcopal Church – Emmaus Hall (337 Charlotte St, Asheville)
Join Pisgah Legal Services’ immigration team to learn more about our Justice For All program, which helps eligible immigrants in WNC work legally and secure legal status and addresses other basic needs. The program will have a special focus on our Afghan Asylum Project, where Pisgah Legal harnessed the power of volunteer attorneys to provide legal help for Afghan asylum-seekers.
This event is free and open to the public. A light lunch will be provided thanks to generous supporters of Pisgah Legal Services’ immigration work.
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BeLoved Asheville | Raise Another Home Auction | Saturday, May 6 |
AB Tech/Mission Event Center
Amazing food by local chefs
Craft beer & wine
Silent & Live Auction
& this year dancing with DJ Nex Millen
CELEBRATE the success of last year’s Auction in building a home in the BeLoved Village! And let’s come together again to RECREATE this amazing success by building another home and launching our replication efforts!
Tickets on Sale NOW!
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Interfaith Initiative -
Social Justice Opportunities
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Buncombe Community Remembrance Project | | |
The Rev. Michiko Bown-Kai | |
‘A Matter of Faith,’ a PC(USA) podcast, explores creating worship spaces for people who feel they don’t belong there -
The Rev. Michiko Bown-Kai is the guest on the most recent podcast
~ by Mike Ferguson
The Rev. Michiko Bown-Kai, a pastor in the United Church of Canada, discussed during “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast” last week how people who feel they don’t belong in religious spaces can indeed feel that sense of belonging.
Hear the conversation on “Decolonizing Spiritual Spaces and Practices” with Bown-Kai and hosts the Rev. Lee Catoe, editor of Unbound: An Interactive Journal of Christian Social Justice, and Simon Doong of the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program, by going here. Bown-Kai enters the conversation at the 25:33 mark.
Bown-Kai described themselves as a “non-binary queer person of color doing ministry within congregational settings.”
“It’s been my passion to be connected with all kinds of justice movements,” Bown-Kai said, including with people who “felt they didn’t belong in religious spaces,” some of them struggling “on a spiritual level with no tools or community of faith.”
How do we decolonize practices and traditions, Doong asked, helping people to make them their own?
“For me, these questions come back to power: who has it and how is it being used?” Bown-Kai said. Often when we talk about spiritual practices, “the norms are that there is a professional, someone who knows what’s going on and therefore they get to control what a spiritual practice looks like. If they are leading it, it is deemed as a worthwhile practice.”
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Presbyterians for Earth Care receives one scientist’s look at the most recent climate assessment -
‘Our choices will reverberate for hundreds, even thousands, of years’
~ by Mike Ferguson
Dr. C. Mark Eakin, a retired oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told about 75 people attending a webinar Tuesday that a recent climate assessment contains both bad news and good ideas for what Presbyterians and others can do to help restore Creation.
Eakin, a ruling elder at Warner Memorial Presbyterian Church in Kensington, Maryland, shared some highlights of the Synthesis Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment. He spoke to Presbyterians for Earth Care, which he serves as a member of the Steering Committee.
Because it’s a synthesis, the report contains little that’s new, Eakin said. But it does drive home “what we as human beings need to be doing.” Its central message is this, Eakin said: The pace and scale of climate action are insufficient to tackle climate change.
According to the report, extremes will become more widespread and pronounced with every increment of warming. “The hope is there are things we can do now,” Eakin said. “The problem is getting society, government, companies and individuals to do what’s needed.”
Eakin reminded those in attendance that Black and brown communities and people in less-developed communities are impacted by climate change the most.
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PC(USA) Special Offerings -
Pentecost | April 10 - May 28
A gift to the Pentecost Offering helps the church encourage, develop, and support its young people, and also address the needs of at-risk children. 40% of the Pentecost offering can be retained by individual congregations wanting to make an impact in the lives of young people within their own community. The remaining 60% is used to support children-at-risk, youth, and young adults through ministries of the Presbyterian Mission Agency.
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Stewardship & Sustainability | |
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IT'S NOT TOO LATE TO SUBMIT YOUR 2023 PLEDGE!
CLICK HERE or scan the Qr code to the right to submit your pledge online, all in one form. You will receive an email confirmation of your pledge.
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
Questions or concerns? Please contact Natalie Weaver, Stewardship & Financial Administrator, at giving@gcpcusa.org or leave a message at 828.254.3274.
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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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