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Issue 2023-10

The AVENUE

OCTOBER

Welcome

GOOD NEWS AND WORSHIP UPDATE

Sunday, October 1, 2023 @ 11 am

FIFTH SUNDAY IN THE SEASON OF CREATION

MORNING WORSHIP / COMMUNION

Sermon - "Imago Dei"

Scripture - Genesis 1:1 - 2:3

Rev. Brandon Davis, Pastor

both in-person and on YouTube or Facebook

WAPC Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgI_BKUlZH70GzG90xIQ1xA

Marcia Songer - Elder of the Month of October

SPECIAL NEWS AND INFORMATION

SEASON OF CREATION

The Season of Creation lasts 5 weeks. And we have made our way through 4 of those weeks by looking at the Book of Jonah. Through this strange, comedic, fantastical story, we have seen the way that God provides through the winds, the waters, the fire, and the earth. This week, we will hear about the way that God provides for humans through the creation narrative in Genesis 1-2. Yet the creation of humans in Gods image cannot and should not be separated from all of creation. God delivers the command to be fruitful and to have dominion over the earth. And sometimes, as humans, we get the dominion piece wrong. Dominion is to work with the earth so that all creation my flourish. So come and join us for the final week of the Season of Creation not so that our work is completed, but so it may begin.

Yours in Christ,

Brandon

ADULT SUNDAY SCHOOL CLASS

On October 1^st, the Adult Sunday School class will begin reading and discussing John Shelby Spong’s Born of a Woman which challenges the doctrine of the virgin birth, tracing its development in the early Christian church and revealing its legacy in our contemporary attitudes toward women and female sexuality.

Please order a copy of the book soon; it is available online from various sources and bookstores.

The class meets in the Poteat Library at 10 am. If you wish to join the class there is always room for one more.

UPCOMING CONFERENCES @ MONTREAT IN OCTOBER

Earth & Soul: reawakening to the sacredness of the earth and every human being – October 18-20 at the Montreat Conference Center. This is immediately followed by Thresholds of Hope – a new, experimental weekend retreat focused on the House Gatherings model developed by John Philip Newell which will be from October 20-22.

Please check the Montreat website for more information and deadlines for registration.

NEW T-SHIRT ORDER LAST CHANCE

Our WAPC Meet the Mountains t-shirt that were created by local artist, Wes Keplinger, are so cool. For those who missed ordering the first time, let us know if you want one (@ $15 each). There is a new sign-up sheet on the bulletin board or you can message or call the office to have you name added by Sunday, October 1sr. We will be wearing them again for our Trunk or Treat event in October. So let us know how many you want (and the sizes too).

LUNCH BUNCH / FOOD NEWS

The Lunch Bunch Schedule for OCTOBER

October 1 @ Mad Greek (2010 Franklin Terrace, JC)

October 8 @ Red Meze (109 Buffalo Street, dwtn JC)

October 15 @ Southern Craft BBQ (601 Spring Street, dwtn JC)

October 22 @ Rainbow Asian Cuisine (2412 No. Roan Street

October 29 - Fellowship Potluck Lunch

(potluck sign-up sheet is on the bulletin board)

THERE IS A FALL SCHEDULE OF ALL LUNCH BUNCH LOCATIONS

POSTED ON THE BULLETIN BOARD.

IF ANYONE HAS SUGGESTIONS FOR OTHER DINING VENUES, PLEASE CONTACT THE OFFICE TO ADD THEM TO OUR LUNCH ROTATION. THANKS.

HIGHLIGHTS FOR THE MONTH (noted when online)

Sunday, October 1, 2023 - Fifth Sunday of Creation / World Communion Sunday

10 am Adult Sunday School begins "Born of a Woman," by John Shelby Spong

11 am Morning Worship / Communion, Rev. Brandon Davis, Pastor (in-person YouTube / Facebook)

12:15 pm Mission Team meeting (important)

12:30 pm Lunch Bunch @ Mad Greek (2010 Franklin Terrace, North JC)

4 pm Blessing of the Animals @ Covenant Presbyterian Church

Monday, October 2, 2023

6 pm Weekly Bible Study in Conference Room

Wednesday, October 4, 2023 - Season of Creation Ends

Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi

10 am Green Team in Parlor

4 pm Meditation Circle (via Zoom)

6 pm Chancel Choir rehearsal

Thursday, October 5, 2023

10 am PW Meeting @ the home of Bea Ellis

Sunday, October 8, 2023

10 am Adult Sunday School reading "Born of a Woman," by John Shelby Spong

11 am Morning Worship / Communion, Rev. Brandon Davis, Pastor (in-person YouTube / Facebook)

12:30 pm Lunch Bunch @ Red Meze (109 Buffalo Street, dwtn JC)

Monday, October 9, 2023

NO Weekly Bible Study this evening

6 pm ETSU / U-Kirk supper hosted by WAPC (1412 College Heights Road, ETSU / JC)

Tuesday, October 10, 2023

6 pm Session meeting in Fellowship Hall

Wednesday, October 11, 2023

10 am Green Team walk @ Tweetsie Trail / lunch afterward

4 pm Meditation Circle (via Zoom)

6 pm Chancel Choir rehearsal

Sunday, October 15, 2023

10 am Adult Sunday School reading "Born of a Woman," by John Shelby Spong

11 am Morning Worship, Rev. Brandon Davis, Pastor (in-person YouTube / Facebook)

12:30 pm Lunch Bunch @ Southern Craft BBQ (901 Spring Street, dwtn JC)

Monday, October 16, 2023

6 pm Weekly Bible Study in Conference Room

Wednesday, October 18, 2023

4 pm Meditation Circle (via Zoom)

6 pm Chancel Choir rehearsal

Saturday, October 21, 2023

10 am - 2 pm The River Craft and Goodies Fair @ 1st Presbyterian Church (dwtn JC)

3 - 5 pm WAPC Fall Festival / Trunk or Treat (church parking lot)

Sunday, October 22, 2023

10 am Adult Sunday School reading "Born of a Woman," by John Shelby Spong

11 am Morning Worship, Rev. Brandon Davis, Pastor (in-person YouTube / Facebook)

12:30 pm Lunch Bunch @ Rainbow Asian Cuisine (2412 No. Roan Street)

Monday, October 23, 2023

6 pm Weekly Bible Study in Conference Room

Wednesday, October 25, 2023

4 pm Meditation Circle (via Zoom)

6 pm Chancel Choir rehearsal

Sunday, October 29, 2023

10 am Adult Sunday School reading "Born of a Woman," by John Shelby Spong

11 am Morning Worship, Rev. Brandon Davis, Pastor (in-person YouTube / Facebook)

12:15 pm Fellowship Potluck Lunch

Monday, October 30, 2023

6 pm Weekly Bible Study in Conference Room

Wednesday, November 1, 2023

4 pm Meditation Circle (via Zoom)

6 pm Chancel Choir rehearsal

Visit our calendar

“But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness

like an everflowing stream." -- Amos 5:24

SESSION NOTES

October Elder of the Month - Marcia Songer

Next Session meeting - Tuesday, October 10 @ 6 pm

FINANCIAL UPDATE

[2023 Annual Budget - $ 177,600

awaiting new info

Budget through September 29, Week #39 ($133,200)

Receipts $ 129,691.89

Disbursements -$ 123,938.81

Balance $ 5,753.08

Thanks to everyone for your continued support the church with your tithes and offerings during this extraordinary time. You are encouraged to mail your pledge to us or to drop it by the church office during regular business hours. Thanks.

Please remember the 5 Cents per Meal Offering this week

and every first Sunday of the Month. We will receive the special PC(USA) offering

for the Peace & Global Witness offering on October 1st

HOLSTON PRESBYTERY NEWS

Holston Presbytery meetings 2023

Most meetings begin at 10 am; Camp meeting begins a 1 pm.

Tuesday, November 7, 2023 @ First Presbyterian Church, Jefferson City, TN

Rev. Diana Moore, Transitional Stated Clerk

Rev. Karen Russell, Transitional Executive Presbyter

vacant, Transitional Treasurer/ Financial Manager

info@holstonpresbytery.org

423-247-6178

OCTOBER BIRTHDAYS

October 18 - Karen Martin

October 24 - David Hughes

October 27 - Lanny Brashear

October 28 - Fred Burrell

OCTOBER ANNIVERSARIES

October 27 - Stephen & Sue Shanks (45th)

THE 2023 FLOWER LIST IS AVAILABLE ON THE BULLETIN BOARD IN THE SIDE ENTRY

Request Chancel Flowers

THOUGHTS & PRAYERS

For Friends and Loved Ones

the Spears family in the loss of Karen Clark's cousin Kimberly Spears; the Henderson family in the loss of Matthew Clark's cousin, Mike Henderson; the Hughes family and son-in-law Bryce Bennett (heart attack), and Debi's foster mother, Janet Vencel in Ohio; Marty Shanks; Sue Sheffield; Messina Lyle; George, Jo & Nikki Rolling; Theresa Lura; Camilla Lyle's brother, Jeff McFee; Marty Shanks' sister, Judy Hall; Jonathan Sharp; Don Loughry; Rev. Maggie Lauterer; Sarah Suptin; Kelly Hodges.; Heather Hughes; Edna Campbell.

Prayers for others

Continue to pray for the people in Ukraine as they continue their fight against the Russian Invasion. For the people Sudan as they are caught between an armed conflict between rival factions of the military government of Sudan and continues to be an ongoing humanitarian crisis, as well as the crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as heavy rains and landslides. Prayers of the victims and families of Hurricane Lee in Northeastern US (Maine) and Eastern Canada (Nova Scotia); flooding in Massachusetts and Rhode Island; the aftermath of Tropical Storm Ophelia in Eastern U.S.; the 6.8 magnitude earthquake in Morocco; torrential rains and flooding in Guatemala and Libya, and the spring tides in South Aftica. Prayers for U.S. troops and migrants seeking refuge along the southern U.S. border. And especially prayers for our nation and for strength, endurance, faith and courage for all.

CENTER FOR DISASTER PHILANTHROPY - https://disasterphilanthropy.org/

UN OFFICE FOR THE COORDINATION OF HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRS (OCHA) - https://reliefweb.int/

INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE - https://rescue.org

US FEMA - DECLARED DISASTERS - https://www.fema.gov/disaster/declarations

GLOBAL DISASTER ALERT & COORDINATION SYSTEM (GDACS) - https://gdacs.org

Submit Prayer Requests

A Blast from the Past

This event is the re-enactment of the founding of WAPC

on September 27, 1942, the church's 50th anniversary.

NOTEWORTHY GREEN SPACE NEWS

California's trucks and buses make up only 7% of the vehicles on its roads, but they are responsible for the majority of the state's soot and smog. Plus, they contribute a sizable amount of heat-trapping global warming emissions. Because of historic redlining and inequitable urban planning, predominantly Black and Brown neighborhoods are the ones that suffer most from this pollution, with a disproportionate number of busy truck corridors running through and near these communities.

In an effort to improve air quality and cut emissions, this spring the California Air Resources board voted unanimously to adopt the Advanced Clean Fleets rule. This history-making rule requires California's largest vehicle fleets to transition over the next two decades to trucks that produce zero tailpipe emissions and to phase out the sale of fossil fuel-powered models by 2036. This will reduce global warming emissions from the state's trucking fleet by nearly 330 million metric tons through 2050. That is roughly equivalent to taking 90 coal-fired power plants offline for an entire year. (GSN#167)

VIRTUAL CREATION ACTIVITY OF THE WEEK

COLCA CANYON - PERU

Amazing Places on our Planet (February 2019 | 8:52 min)

Colca Canyon is one of the deepest canyons in the world and one of the top scenic destinations in Peru. The Colca Valley is a colorful Andean valley with pre-Inca rooted inhabitants, and towns founded in Spanish colonial times, still inhabited by people of the Collagua and the Cabana cultures. The local people maintain their ancestral traditions and continue to cultivate the pre-Inca stepped terraces, called andenes.

It is Peru's third most-visited tourist destination with about 120,000 visitors annually.

In the video: Watching condors at the Cruz del Condor and hiking the popular 2 days/1 night trek (or 3 days/2 nights) from the rim down to the bottom of the canyon, crossing bridge San Juan, passing by Sangalle's waterfall, night at Sangalle's oasis and early morning steep walk back up to the rim.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjLbKYbUg9I&t=10s

IN THE POTEAT LIBRARY

LOOKING FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT,

CHECK OUT THE POTEAT LIBRARY

NOTE: Please remember that you are welcome to drop by the church library if you are looking for something new to read. We ask that you to sign out any books on the register sheet found on the file cabinet in the corner with the call #, book title, your name and date checked out. The white book cart inside the library has new titles. There is also an orange book cart in the Heritage Room that has books free for the taking. Come and browse.

The Case of God

By Karen Armstrong

(211/ARM)

Moving from the Paleolithic age to the present, Karen Armstrong details the great lengths to which humankind has gone in order to experience a sacred reality that it called by many names, such as God, Brahman, Nirvana, Allah, or Dao. Focusing especially on Christianity but including Judaism, Islam, Buddhism,Hinduism, and Chinese spiritualities, Armstrong examines the diminished impulse toward religion in our own time, when a significant number of people either want nothing to do with God or question the efficacy of faith. Why has God become unbelievable? Why is it that atheists and theists alike now think and speak about God in a way that veers so profoundly from the thinking of our ancestors?

Answering these questions with the same depth of knowledge and profound insight that have marked all her acclaimed books, Armstrong makes clear how the changing face of the world has necessarily changed the importance of religion at both the societal and the individual level.

Yet she cautions us that religion was never supposed to provide answers that lie within the competence of human reason; that, she says, is the role of logos. The task of religion is “to help us live creatively, peacefully, and even joyously with realities for which there are no easy explanations.”

She emphasizes, too, that religion will not work automatically. It is, she says, a practical discipline: its insights are derived not from abstract speculation but from “dedicated intellectual endeavor” and a “compassionate lifestyle that enables us to break out of the prism of selfhood.”

REMINDERS

Congregational Concerns / Prayer Requests - Please contact the church office or Sherry Bailey.

Flower List - Sign up to sponsor flowers for our weekly worship services in honor or in memory of loved ones. Arrangements are $65 each.

e-Avenue deadline - Please submit information to church office ( office@wataugapc.org or 926-7942) for the November 2023 issue of the e-AVENUE no later than October15th. This includes team and committee reports, news, planned events and other newsworthy items.

Facebook - Please remember to friend and follow our Watauga Avenue Presbyterian Church Facebook page [https://www.facebook.com/Watauga-Avenue-Presbyterian-Church-94712920937/ ]. All news and events will be reported there.

Photos needed - We welcome contributions to our Facebook page via your comments and photos of church events and activities. Please also submit your photos to the church office for archiving. It will be wonderful to have a visual record of all of the positive things that Watauga Avenue Presbyterian Church does for our community.

Visit our website

Established 27 September 1892, Watauga Avenue Presbyterian Church is a congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ. Reformed in theology and Presbyterian by way of organization, it is related to Holston Presbytery, the Synod of Living Waters, and to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

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