GraceNote

Dear GCPC Community, 

What a wonderful beginning to our fall programming year! Palooza was a beautiful celebration and we started our new worship rhythm together. Wednesday night Food and Formation is also off to a strong start after last night. I hope you will find ways to engage that feed your soul and that strengthen your resolve to do the work of collective liberation. This work is sacred, strenuous, and deeply healing for us all. I am grateful for you and what you bring to this community. 

As I shared at Palooza, the Session voted unanimously to approve the architectural firm recommendation of the Campus Vision Team. Below is a letter introducing you to the firm and inviting you to engage in the continued emergence of living, breathing justice and repair manifesting on the GCPC campus.  

I am grateful for the integrity and holy imagination that have defined the work of the Campus Vision Team since it was formed in 2019. Each person along the way who has been engaged has supported this process in profound ways. We are beginning the next chapter of our life together with our commitments to theological curiosity, moral courage, abundant compassion, beloved community, and transformation leading the way. 

Peace,

Dear GCPC,

Since 2019, the Campus Vision team has explored how God is calling Grace Covenant to use our land and our buildings to participate in liberatory justice for Asheville. In January, we began a process to hire the architecture firm that will develop plans for the campus vision of deeply affordable housing, expanded educational opportunities and community spaces to integrate with our church life. 

THANK YOU to the many church members who participated in conversations with the three finalist firms and provided questions & feedback at those events to contribute to our discernment process. Your participation led us to the very joyful announcement of….. 

We are excited to announce that A Complete Unknown will be our architecture firm! We believe the team at A Complete Unknown - led by Suman Sorg - bring the depth of experience and expertise and shared values of justice and community that will shepherd us into this next chapter for Grace Covenant. 

Campus Vision team members shared these reasons that they are excited about A Complete Unknown:

• Their spirituality and oneness with our land. The fact that they work as a team and Suman said she hires people for life. 
• Suman and the team at A Complete Unknown bring deep experience and commitment to developing projects they undertake based on listening to the communities they’re serving. 
• Our church and ACU share a deep alignment of mission and values, specifically dedicated to dismantling white supremacy through intentional, equitable design and community practice.

Invitation to read “The Color of Law”

As a next step in the readying process of our campus vision, we invite you to read with us “The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America” by Richard Rothstein. The Campus Vision team plans to read this important book on the history of racial discrimination in housing policy as we think about what it means to build deeply affordable housing on our campus. Mark your calendar - we will host a brown bag lunch after church on Sunday, November 15 for a discussion of the book!

We are excited that we are taking this next step of engaging A Complete Unknown.

With gratitude,

Marta Alcalá, Maria Allen, Caroline Blunt, MC Ellis, Cathy Froehlich, Liz Huesemann, Russell Kominski, Libby Kyles, John Legerton, Denise Lockett, Kate Shem, Ray Shem, Mesheala Sunblade

GCPC staff: Marcia, Tami, Olivia and Marcella