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Worship Preview | Sunday, January 22, 2023
Third Sunday after Epiphany
Ordination and Installation of Elders & Deacons
In-person and Online Service
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*For the full revised common lectionary, please click here. | |
| Saturday, January 21 | Session/Diaconate Retreat | 10:00 am | Fellowship Hall | | Saturday, January 21 | High School Youth - Midnight Manna | 7:00 - 10:00 pm | Manna Food Bank | | Sunday, January 22 | Hybrid Worship
(In-person and online) | 9:30 am @ GCPC
(also on Youtube) | | Sunday, January 22 | Fellowship Time | 10:45 am | Narthex | | Sunday, January 22 | Formation for All Ages | 11:00 am
*please see details below | | Tuesday - Thursday | Church Office OPEN | 10:00 am - 4:00 pm | | Tuesday, January 24 | Prayer Group | 10:00 am | Jerusalem Room | | Tuesday, January 24 | Worship Council Mtg. | 5:30 pm on Zoom | | Wednesday, January 25 | Centering Prayer | 6:00 pm | Sanctuary | | Wednesday, January 25 | Choir Rehearsal | 7:00 pm | Sanctuary | | |
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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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Prayer Group | Tuesdays | 10:00 AM | Jerusalem Room
Join the Prayer Group on Tuesdays as we share a devotional and pray for church and community members. Any and all are welcome to join!
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Centering Prayer | Wednesdays | 6:00 - 6:30 PM | Sanctuary
“Centering Prayer is a training in letting go.”
~Thomas Keating
Centering prayer for me is prayer where I rest silently in the presence of God. It is a way of saying, "here I am God."
For those of you who might ask what do I do, here is my ritual.
- I choose a sacred word or phrase as a symbol of my intention to go deeper. Here are some I say while paying attention to my breathing: Peace be with me; Jesus Christ Son of God have mercy on me. I might read a scripture or a hymn and pick out a word that is meaningful.
- When I notice I am engaging in thoughts, I gently disengage myself and turn to God or return to my sacred words.
- When I am near ending, I breathe in and out 4 times and then say the Lords Prayer.
I invite you to join me on Wednesdays to sit in sacred silence, and feel God closely. Come breathe with me.
In community,
Liz Huesemann
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There will be NO Bible Study on Wednesday, January 25th due to a staff retreat.
We will resume on February 1st.
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Stewardship & Sustainability | |
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STAY TUNED!
SOON WE WILL HAVE SOME EXCITING STEWARDSHIP
AND BUDGET INFORMATION COMING YOUR WAY!
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2022 Statements Emailed 1/18
If you gave to GCPC or a fiscal partner January 1 - December 31, your 2022 Giving Statement was emailed on 1/18 to the email address on file in Realm. If we do not have an email, your statement will be mailed. If you had a 2022 General Fund pledge, you'll see your pledge fulfillment status at the bottom and should have received a separate 2022 Pledge Statement with more details.
Statements will only be printed and mailed upon request. This is your year end statement for tax deductibility purposes, if applicable.
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Natalie Weaver in the Finance Office as soon as possible at natalie@gcpcusa.org or 828.254.3274.
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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... | |
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Music Ministries at Grace Covenant!
As the new year gets underway, our search for a new Director of Music Ministries is picking up steam. Please join us in this important process by participating in the Crowdsourcing Wisdom Exercise that you can find here!
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The Sanctuary renovations will occur in May.
Here is a link to the Session Letter that was shared recently with the congregation. If you are interested in getting a GCPC pew, please email Cliff at cliff@gcpcusa.org by February 14th to reserve one. Let him know if there is a specific pew request!
| NEW Update from the Winter Shelter Team! | |
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Dear Winter Safe Shelter friends,
The abundance is real! We are so grateful for your time and generous donations. The shelter is running so smoothly, and we're delighted to report plenty of blankets, bedding, and even coffee! THANK YOU! We are currently at capacity and sheltering children from newborn to age 17, their families, and other vulnerable folks.
Currently, our most pressing needs are for evening volunteers from 8:30-11 pm and kitchen basics - especially plates, bowls and cutlery, and bottled water or water bottles. See more here.
We also want to introduce (those of you who have not yet met) Kat Sullivan, the Operations Coordinator who will also serve as the Volunteer Coordinator. Kat is a certified Peer Support Specialist who loves connecting with people and riding her Harley. She's your lady if you have any questions regarding donations or volunteering - text or call Kat at 828-713-0263.
Do you have any leads on housing? Please contact Anna at 202-997-4658.
Do you have a truck you could use to help us furnish apartments when guests get housing? Getting housing is a huge milestone; let's bring some "housewarming" and ensure families have the basics to make their new house into a home.
If you have people in your network that would also be interested in signing up to volunteer or contribute to the effort by donating funds or items, please share the link to the Winter Safe Shelter info page— www.counterflowasheville.com/safeshelter.
The Counterflow Winter Shelter Team
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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 (1/15-1/21): Cathy Froehlich | email: oremont2@gmail.com
Next week (1/22-1/28): Kimo Hyatt | email: kimohyatt@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)
Bill Brown (Mary Lou Nash's brother)
Susan Smialowicz
Doris Prak
Michelle Chromey and family
Andrea Rosal
Sharon Sasse
Reed Carney
Laura Ross
Margaret Rada
Juanita Schneider
Mary Byers
Kern Parker
Frances Johnson
Gene Callaway
A Service of Witness to the Resurrection and Thanksgiving for the Life of Madge Francis will be held on Saturday, February 25th at 1:00 pm in the GCPC 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 | |
Story Medicine Worldwide presents.... | |
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Liberating our Time (Interactive Workshop) | Thursday, January 26 | 2:00 - 4:00 PM | Online
Together we'll focus on ways to be transactional with institutions and liberatory in how we treat ourselves and others.
Your overwork, overwhelm, and exhaustion isn’t your fault. It’s not a personal failing, these institutions will eat you up. And, it’s by design, if we’re exhausted we’re not able to challenge systemic inequities and we don’t have the space to dream, create, find some peace and bring a new world into being.
Together we will:
- Explore our own tangled relationships with time, productivity and self-worth
- Address ways to divest from busyness and grind culture
- Ways to subvert traditional time management tools to create more space in our lives
- At an organizational level we'll share processes designed to help y'all develop more humane and equitable relationships to time, labor and power
Registrants will get access to the recording but we highly recommend attending live. There will be live closed captioning.
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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.
For more info, please call Land of Sky at 828-575-9050.
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Creation Care Symposium | Tuesday, February 7 | 8:30 AM - 5:30 PM | Montreat
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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Earth Day is Coming. Is Your Church Ready? | Thursday, February 9 | 7:00 PM | Webinar
Earth Day is always April 22 and this year it falls on a Saturday. That opens all sorts of possibilities for outdoor activities, joining with a community observance, dedicating a tree or solar panels... Now is the time to start planning and the WNC Earth Care Team can help you get started.
On Thursday, February 9, you are invited to attend a webinar at 7:00 PM to hear how three churches in our Presbytery have observed Earth Day in the past or what they are planning for this year. So far, we have Unity Pres in Denver, Grace Covenant (with our own Marcia Mount Shoop) in Asheville, and First Pres Asheville who will present.
To register for the February 9 webinar, go to this link. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
WNC Presbytery Earth Care Team
FB: https://www.facebook.com/EarthCareWNC
Email: wncearthcareteam@gmail.com
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Interfaith Initiative -
Social Justice Opportunities
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Buncombe Community Remembrance Project | | |
The Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II, left, poses with Ruling Elder Dianne White and the Rev. Dr. John Odom before speaking Saturday during a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Brunch in Louisville, Kentucky. (Photo by Emily Enders Odom) | |
Stated Clerk of the PC(USA)’s General Assembly celebrates the life and legacy of MLK with a rousing and prophetic talk -
The Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II says it’s time for the nation to embrace a ‘love ethic’
~ by Mike Ferguson
The Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II noted that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. celebrated his final birthday on Jan. 15, 1968, helping to plan the Poor People’s March that he would not live to see. Meeting in the basement of the historic Ebeneezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, King’s staff presented the civil rights leader with a birthday cake and a few gag gifts. “They cut his birthday cake and they laughed for a while,” said Nelson, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), “and then he said, ‘Let’s get back to work.’ On his last birthday he reminded us there is still work to be done.”
Nelson, who was elected Stated Clerk in 2016 and re-elected in 2020, called the current era “some of the worst of times in the United States of America.”
“I say that sincerely and honestly, with the understanding we have moved into a place quite frankly placing us years behind the possibility we had in front of us,” Nelson said. “The United States is a great nation, and I wouldn’t have my personal residence anyplace else. But if I am honest, we are finding ourselves as a nation in decline,” particularly in the realm of human rights “and our understanding of being ‘one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.’”
“These days, we find ourselves in a quagmire over what it truly means to have a love ethic,” which Nelson defined as “loving God and God’s people and embracing all individuals in the human family.”
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New worshiping community is rooted in reverence for the Earth -
New Way podcast features the Rev. Chantilly Mers discussing communal connections to the land
~ by Beth Waltemath
“Are you in deep relationship? Do you notice the multitude of relationships that are happening right beneath our feet, and how they are interacting and cooperating in this complex web of life?” These are the questions that the Rev. Chantilly Mers asks of herself and others looking to reconnect to the land in Brooklyn, New York.
Mers is co-organizer of Common Ground NYC, founder of Kin-dom Collective in Brooklyn, New York, and practitioner of The Circle Way. In two new episodes of the podcast New Way that debuted January 5, the Rev. Sara Hayden, associate for Apprenticeships and Residencies for 1001 New Worshiping Communities, talks with Mers about spiritual frameworks and communal practices centered on reverence and connections to the Earth.
“I grew up really close to the land. I would literally call myself an ocean baby,” Mers says. In Episode 9, she describes her Hawaiian childhood in a family descended from people who migrated from Palau, an island between Guam and the Philippines. It wasn’t until adulthood when she moved away from Hawaii that she started to notice the dislocation and disconnection that affected her spiritually. Mers identified the ocean as her playground where she fished and surfed, but also her church where she bobbed upon waves and felt a part of something greater every time she was on the water.
“There’s this feeling of being held … to feel like I was floating there, the ocean was holding me and there was this life below me. You can just see it: the fish, the turtle, the reef. There’s a real connection and humility out there,” Mers says.
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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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