Our annual church picnic is scheduled for this Sunday, August 24, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. in the Rotary Shelter at Steele Creek Park. There will be no charge for parking; just tell them at the gate that you are with First Presbyterian Church.

FPC will provide meat and beverages, and supper will be served at 5:30. Please bring one of the following dishes with you, according to the initial of your last name:

A-H: a side

I-P: a dessert

Q-Z: a salad

We look forward to sharing good fellowship, fun, and food with you!

Pick Up the Story Next Wednesday

Join us next Wednesday, August 27, at 6:20 p.m. in the Fellowship Hall to hear Brandon Story, Professor of English at King University, present the second module in our churchwide study of Ephesians. Come early and enjoy intergenerational fellowship over a shared meal at 5:30. Student Fellowship small groups and Wednesday Night Kids will meet separately at 6:00. We are looking forward to an evening of fellowship and learning with you!

Volunteers Needed

We are looking for once-a-month volunteers to prepare food, set tables, and clean up on Wednesdays. We feed approximately 140 people at each dinner. For more information or to volunteer, contact Ruthie Blair at 423-797-1815 or Ruthiebblair@gmail.com.

Ephesians Small Groups: On Land and Online

We have a wide and wonderful array of opportunities for study and fellowship in small groups as we kick off our new program year. We also have an online group! Contact Dave Welch for more information about that. Whatever the mode, we feel sure that you will find a study group to suit your learning style.

SUNDAY

11:30 a.m. Poteat Family

Intergenerational conversation: Do you want to know what young people think? Would you enjoy some family-centered conversation with teens and adults? Join Linda and Jerry and their family in their home. Call Linda or Jerry at 423-968-3070 to let them know you'll be there. Adults without teens are welcome, as well!

7:00 p.m. Billie & Bill Whisnant

Would you enjoy a couples' group? Some new faces at FPC will be joining the Whisnants for fellowship in their home and to discuss Ephesians and how we faithfully live out our Christian calling, connected to Christ and to one another! Call 423-968-9043 to let them know you're coming.

MONDAY

7:00 p.m. Barb & Chuck Thompson, Karen & John Vann

More lively conversations, everyone is invited, singles and couples!! Connect each week at the Thompson home for some fun and rich spiritual conversation. Call Barb or Chuck at 423-968-7892 to let them know you'll be there!

TUESDAY

1:00 p.m. Jackie Burt's HeartsBurn Group

If you would like to gather with a group of ladies for fellowship, coffee, and Bible study around the dining table, just let Jackie know by calling 423-646-7405. This HeartsBurn Group meets in her home in middle of the day, so come as you are, dressed for fun, work, or play.

6:15 p.m. Jon & Lisa McClain

Come try something new! Singles, couples, young, and not so young are invited to join Jon and Lisa in room 117, across from the Director of Children's Ministries' office. Child care will be provided on site; please call the office (423-764-7176) to let the nursery know how many children to expect. You can contact the McClains at 423-956-5452.

7:00 p.m. Con & Nancy Sauls

Explore the riches of scripture with others in Con and Nancy's downtown loft. Any and all are invited to join this group. Call 423-361-9470 to let them know you will be there.

7:00 p.m. Betsy Turnbull's Heart to Heart Bible Study

The inductive Heart to Heart Tuesday Women's Bible study with Betsy Turnbull will begin the semester August 19 with the six-week, churchwide study of Ephesians. In October, they will resume their customary schedule of first and third Tuesdays. This group meets in room 123.

WEDNESDAY Six-Week Program on Themes in Ephesians, Fellowship Hall

5:30 p.m. Fellowship Dinner

6:20 p.m. Adult Learning Program

THURSDAY

7:00 a.m. Men's Study

Join other men in the church parlor for a continental breakfast and stimulating conversation that focuses upon the upcoming sermon scripture selection. This group is led by Gordon Turnbull.

12:00 p.m. Lunch Bunch

Bring a bag lunch to room 117 and join the conversation with a diverse group of men and women, including staff. This group is led by Gordon Turnbull.

6:30 p.m. Robin & Lee North, Lisa & Jon Lundberg

Fellowship, conversation, and more for singles and adults! Connect with one another in the North home for a six-week exploration of Ephesians and get to know some of our newer fellow members!

8:00 p.m. Amy Benjamin & Amy Buck

A small group just for young adults that will meet in the home of Amy and Kyle Benjamin, beginning August 28. Please call 704-771-2689 to let them know you'll be there.

Kids' Kickball Party This Friday

Children's Ministries will give a kickoff kickball party this Friday, August 22, from 3:30 to 5:30 at the Osbornehome. Popsicles or ice cream sundaes will be served, and fun and fellowship are guaranteed! For more information, please contact Lilly Osborne.

Student Small Groups Meet Wednesdays

Student Ministries provides same-age, same-gender small groups that meet once a week for fun, sharing, and a devotion. These groups are intended for relationship building and walking with each other through life's ups and downs. Small groups are now meeting at the church from 6:00 to 7:00, after the Wednesday fellowship dinner. Join us!

The Very Hungry Student Fellowship Gets Going Sept. 7

Student Fellowship kicks off Sunday, September 7! We invite all students in seventh through twelfth grades and their parents to join us at the church at 6:00 p.m. for dinner, games, worship, learning, and fellowship. We'll wrap it up at 8:00 p.m.

Students, bring your friends! Parents, you will have the opportunity to see what happens at Student Fellowship and take part in a parent information breakout.

And by the way, we're going to need to feed these teens through the program year! We are asking families to sign up to provide an evening's dinner, either home cooked or fast food. Families are invited to partner with other families to share the load and to either donate the food or turn in receipts for reimbursement. Dinner is served at 6:00 p.m. at the church, where Student Fellowship meets.

Deidre Pendley is Dinner Coordinator, and she cannot wait to hear from you! Please contact her at pendleyd@btcs.org. Thank you for helping us make Student Fellowship fantastic!

Volunteer Now for Children's Programs

our safe church logo FPC's Children's Ministries is looking for volunteers to teach or aid Sunday School classes, to organize the classrooms and those important supply closets, to work with Wednesday Night Kids, and to take a turn or two caring for children in the nursery. You can do it, we can help! Sign-up forms are available throughout the church. For more information, please contact Lilly Osborne at 423-383-5476 or losborne@fpcbristol.org.

FPC's Boys & Girls Club Outreach Needs Volunteers

Making name tags during our outreach program last fall.

This fall begins our third year of outreach to the children who attend the Boys & Girls Club afterschool program that meets in our Education Wing. Do you like sharing about Jesus and God's saving love for all of us? Do you enjoy having fun with children who are always glad to see you? Then this is the program for you!

The 2014 B&G Club outreach will begin mid-September, and we need three activity leaders and three shepherds. Won't you please pray and consider joining this outreach program?

Along with the B&G Club's helpful and ever-present staff, we like to have at least one shepherd with each group, along with the activity leader. Shepherds are helpers that sit by the children during the activity, hand out materials, and generally help individual children during the lesson. Activity leaders present the lesson and plan a simple craft or game to emphasize the lesson's main points.

The program is designed to meet six times in the fall and six times in the spring, beginning around 4:30 p.m. Each lesson and fun activity lasts from 15 to 45 minutes, depending on the plans for the day. The activity leaders and shepherds choose the days that are most convenient for them.

If you would like more information about becoming an activity leader or a shepherd, please contact Peggy Hill at peggyhill145@gmail.com or 423-956-0209.

Ahoy, the Program Year!

That's Dan Gross you see tacking across the lawn in heavy weather this week. We hope skies will clear next week for Tom King's turn at the controls. Signal Randy Cook at 423-956-1541 or npolecook@aol.com if you'd like to try your hand at keeping the lawn shipshape and Bristol fashion. Randy will be happy to add you to our team of volunteers or, if you prefer, to our substitutes list.

Lorri Looney's DVD Study Group Resumes Sept. 3

Lorri Looney's Heart to Heart DVD Bible study group will start back September 3 with Children of the Day, by Beth Moore, which will continue through November 19. Workbooks will be available for purchase at the first session.

This group meets Wednesday mornings from 9:30 to 11:30 in the church parlor. All women of the church and their friends are welcome!

Elizabeth Patrick's Women's Bible Study Begins Sept. 3

A new Wednesday morning women's Bible study will consider the virtue of contentment through a study of scripture guided by Laurie Cole's Experiencing Contentment in Every Season of Life.

How many of us can say with the Apostle Paul, "I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances" (Philippians 4:11)? Laurie Cole was living what looked like "a good Christian life," when she realized how very discontented she was. She sought the spiritual gift/virtue of contentment and has shared what she learned in this study, which looks at many scriptural lessons, including Ecclesiastes, Proverbs 31, the life of David, and the teaching of Paul.

Through a combination of group Bible study, mutual sharing, and audio messages from Laurie Cole, we will examine the different seasons of our own lives, we will seek to be honest about our own level of contented living, and we will learn principles to help us live contentedly in all seasons and circumstances.

This Bible study, led by Elizabeth Patrick, will meet in the New Mothers' Room across from the nursery, on Wednesday mornings from 10:00 to 11:30, beginning September 3. Women in all seasons of life are encouraged to attend! This study is definitely not just for mothers of young children, but a nursery will be provided by the church. If you have any questions, you can contact Elizabeth at (423) 956-9716 or elizabethpatrick22@hotmail.com. Join us!

Save the date for a Beth Moore simulcast Saturday, September 13, at Central Christian Church! Dove Award winner Travis Cottrell will be the worship leader in the live streaming event from Fort Wayne, Indiana. The sign-in and fellowship period will begin at 8:30 a.m. and be followed by announcements at 9:15. The simulcast is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m.

A registration fee of $20 includes the simulcast, a listening guide, and a sandwich lunch. You can pick up a registration form in August at FPC or register online at www.cccbristol.com, where online payment is an option. If you write a check, please make it payable to Central Christian Church and write "Beth Moore Simulcast" on the memo line. Send mail to Central Christian Church, ATTN: Beth Moore Simulcast, 424 Melrose Street, Bristol, TN 37620.

Registration and payment are due by August 30. For more information, contact Carolee Hacker at 423-383-6232 or cwh6232@gmail.com.

From Steve & Vicki Fey

Music Notes

Sunday's music participants: Sanctuary Choir.

Arlen Clarke

Sunday's music: The text of the Sanctuary Choir anthem, "Sing, My Soul, His Wondrous Love," echoes the sentiments of this week's passage from Ephesians: that we are saved by the merciful grace of God through the sacrifice of Christ. The text first appeared anonymously in a hymnal collection published in Baltimore in 1800 and has been a particularly popular hymn in the Episcopal Church. The musical setting is by Arlen Clarke (b. 1954). Clarke, a resident of Greenville, South Carolina, is a free-lance composer and performer who serves as director of music at St. Mary's Catholic Church. His musical setting captures the wonder and joy that is this great blessing. The postlude, John Rutter's "Toccata in Seven," is an annual tradition, as Vicki marks one of the Sundays closest to our first Sunday here in 1999.

Children's rehearsals: By the time you read this, the Cherub Choir as well as the Savior's Singers Children's Choir and both children's and youth handbells will have had their first rehearsals. We anticipate a great year and would love to see as many children and youth involved in music as possible.

Jubilate Youth Choir will kick off with Student Ministries on Sunday, September 7, rehearsing from 5:15 to 6:00 p.m. Parents of sixth graders, please remember that they may choose which music group they wish to participate in this year. They may remain with the older children's choir and bells, rehearsing on Wednesdays, or they may move to the Youth Choir and bells, with bell rehearsals on Wednesdays and singing rehearsals on Sundays.

Montreat: While anyone may attend either week of the Montreat Worship & Music Conferences next summer, our children and youth will be attending week 1, June 21 to 26, which falls between Great Escape and the senior high trip. More details later, but here is the first of our faculty bios, which we will offer every now and then.

I-to Loh

Routley Lecturer in Congregational Song: I-to Loh: Born in 1936 in Taiwan, Dr. Loh received the M.Div. (Tainan Seminary), SMM (Union Seminary), and Ph. D. (UCLA) degrees. He taught Asian and Global Church Music, Ethnomusicology, and Worship at the Asian Institute for Liturgy and Music in Manila and Tainan Theological College and Seminary. For more than two decades, he was a consultant as well as a music and worship leader in WCC and CCA assemblies and workshops. In 1995, he became the first non-Caucasian to be awarded the honor of Fellow of the Hymn Society of North America and Canada. He was the recipient of the Global Consultation on Music in Mission's Award in 2006.

He has published more than 100 original hymns and anthems and compiled more than 22 collections of hymns, including Sound the Bamboo: CCA Hymnal 2000 and its companion, Asian Hymns in Their Cultural and Liturgical Contexts (GIA 2011). He was the editor of Seng-si 2009, the official hymnal of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, and has published In Search for Asian Sounds and Symbols in Worship (CSCA, Singapore 2012). Retired from the presidency of Tainan Seminary in 2002, he has been an itinerant visiting professor of worship and church music in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and the US.

He is currently Chair Professor of Church Music and Worship at Tainan Theological College and Seminary, and is coediting a new Asian Hymn Collection titled Let the Asian Church Rejoice, to be published in 2015.

Pray for One Another

In Our Prayers

Becky Busler

Barbara Daniel

Dorothy Dollar

DeeDee Galliher

Juanita Goforth

Mary Nell Harris

Sharon Hatcher

Cindy Heglar

Opal Johnson

Carolyn King

Ruth Musser

Nancy Preston

Mary Rice

Brenda Rogers

Virginia Rutherford

Katy Sikorski

Faye VanNostrand

Ann Woods

An extensive list of prayer concerns, "Pray for One Another," is available for pickup at the church each week.

Birthday Prayer Fellowship

August 24 Jack Smith

August 25 Sam Shim, Roger Sikorski

August 26 Nik Musser, Molly Shaw

August 27 Zach Beckner

August 28 Steve Fey, Vance McCracken, Breanna Necessary, Katie Vande Brake

August 29 Aaron Addison

August 30 Jackie Burt, Logan Tudor

Church Calendar

Sunday, August 24

8:30 a.m. Worship, Fellowship Hall

9:00 a.m. Cherub Choir, Room 209

9:45 a.m. Sunday School, Education Wing

11:00 a.m. Worship, Sanctuary

11:30 a.m. Connect Ephesians Small Group, Home of Jerry & Linda Poteat

4:30 p.m. Church Picnic, Steele Creek Park Rotary Shelter

7:00 p.m. Connect Ephesians Small Group, Home of Bill & Billie Whisnant

Monday, August 25

7:00 p.m. Session Meeting, Room 123

7:00 p.m. Thompsons' & Vanns ' Connect Ephesians Small Group, Home of Chuck & Barb Thompson

Tuesday, August 26

9:00 a.m. Staff Meeting, Room 123

10:00 a.m. Morning Prayer Group, Conference Room

1:00 p.m. Connect Ephesians Small Group, Home of Jackie Burt

6:00 p.m. Venture Crew 3, Room 123

6:15 p.m. Jon & Lisa McClain's Connect Ephesians Small Group, Friendship Classroom

7:00 p.m. Connect Ephesians Small Group, Home of Con & Nancy Sauls

7:00 p.m. Betsy Turnbull's Inductive Study of Ephesians, Room 123

7:00 p.m. Boy Scout Troop 3, Scout Wing

Wednesday, August 27

4:15 p.m. Children's Handbells, Room 212

4:45 p.m. Youth Handbells, Room 212

4:45 p.m. Savior's Singers Children's Choir, Room 209

5:15 p.m. Baby & Toddler Care, Nursery

5:30 p.m. Fellowship Dinner, Fellowship Hall

6:00 p.m. Wednesday Night Kids, Rooms 31 & 32

6:00 p.m. Student Ministries Small Groups, Youth Wing

6:20 p.m. Adult Learning Program on Themes in Ephesians, Fellowship Hall

7:15 p.m. Sanctuary Choir, Room 202

7:30 p.m. Praise Team Rehearsal, Fellowship Hall

Thursday, August 28

7:00 a.m. Men's Connect Ephesians Bible Study, Parlor

12:00 p.m. Lunch Bunch Connect Ephesians Bible Study, Room 117

6:30 p.m. Connect Ephesians Small Group, Home of Robin & Lee North

8:00 p.m. Connect Ephesians Small Group, Home of Kyle & Amy Benjamin

Friday, August 29

9:30 p.m. Fifth Quarter High School Party, Off Campus (TBA)

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Windows is a publication of First Presbyterian Church, Bristol, TN. Please direct questions and suggestions to the editor, Kathy Acuff, kacuff@fpcbristol.org.