We are excited for you to join us for a Congregational Meeting this Sunday, April 11, at 11:00 a.m. via Zoom for the purpose of voting on the recommendation from the Pastor Nominating Committee for a New Senior Pastor and the Terms of Call for the Senior Pastor!

The Zoom link for this meeting will be emailed to the Congregation a few hours before the live meeting at 11 a .m., so watch your email for the Zoom link.

Jesus calls us to recognize that gladness and sadness are never separate, that joy and sorrow really belong together, and that mourning and dancing are part of the same movement. That is why Jesus calls us to be grateful for every moment that we have lived, and to claim our unique journey as God's way to mold our hearts to greater conformity with God's own. The cross is the main symbol of our faith, and it invites us to find hope where we see pain, and to reaffirm the resurrection where we see death. The call to be grateful is a call to trust that every moment of our life can be claimed as the way of the cross that leads us to new life. Source: The Essential Henri Nouwen

Following the success of our Advent Community Prayer wall, the Christian Education Committee has brought a fresh, new adaptation (from the Commons) to the front of our campus.

Please stop by and see what we are offering you and our neighbors this Spring!

Thank you to all who took part in our annual Flowered Cross tradition.

A special thank you to: Harris and Kate Morrison, Knox and Betsy Morrison, and Ben and Porter Peterson and their families for serving as greeters during the morning drive through event on Easter morning.

The annual Stations of the Cross procession through downtown Concord took place April 2nd. Approximately twelve to fifteen First Presbyterian Church members were among the sixty participants who traveled from Grace Lutheran Church to Forest Hills United Methodist Church, with a number of stops along the route, including Memorial Garden and First Presbyterian Church. Hunter Morrison and Valerie Thomas served as readers during the stop in front of the sanctuary.

This week's Youth Mission Weekend highlight is on our college care packages. Due to COVID, our annual care packages did not go out in 2020, so we are excited for the opportunity to support our college students this spring! The Youth worked to assemble the packages, which include snack foods, candy, coffee and tea, post-it notes, prayer rocks, and more! The Youth also wrote notes of encouragement to each college student and these will be included in the packages which will arrive in time for final exam week!

Please register for our Annual Birthday event: Sunday, May 2nd, at 1:00 p.m. via Zoom. We will reflect on our accomplishments over the last year, celebrate the lives and contributions of the women whom we have lost since our last Birthday Event, and install our new Coordinating Team officers and Circle Leaders, as we look forward to the year ahead.

We will offer a birthday gift bag to accompany the event theme. Please indicate if you would like to pick up your bag at the church between 11 a.m. and noon on May 2nd, or if you would like it to be dropped off on your front porch.

Please RSVP here by April 19th. 

Please keep our college congregation members in prayer over the coming weeks as exams begin as early as this week for some of our First Presbyterian Church college students. Many colleges and universities altered spring schedules in an attempt to best serve students this semester. These changes mean that some students complete their final exams this week, and others will finish as late as the third week of May.

If you or your college student graduated in December 2020, or will graduate this spring, please contact the church office to let Suzanne Russell or René Prager know so that we can celebrate this milestone.

We will be celebrating our High School graduates on Sunday, May 16th. Please look for an upcoming e-mail and watch The Banner for additional information.

2021 Vacation Bible School!

June 21-24 (Monday to Thursday)

9 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

Volunteers needed! Please use this link to sign-up to help: 2021 FPC: Volunteers - Vacation Bible School

Registration is now OPEN! Please register here today! Due to COVID protocols, May 24^th will be a firm deadline for VBS registrations. This will allow us the necessary time to implement in-person programming for our exciting week of VBS!

Please contact René Prager at r.prager@firstpresconcord.org for more information.

Our pastoral staff continues to preach and teach through various means of technology. Please join us for all of our worship opportunities on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/firstpresconcordnc/),

YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfpzVUz-ZgaCJuogIMor8Iw) or our Sermon Archives (https://firstpresconcord.org/worship/sermon-archives/).

Worship is posted at 8:30 a.m.