Souper Bowl of Caring Sunday 

Churchwide Survey Now Available in Two Formats 

An anonymous survey designed to gather information about all members' worship, education, and fellowship experiences at First Presbyterian Church is now available online and as a printout. We are seeking feedback from all members of our congregation to aid our work in bringing glory to God in our ministry and life together.

Print Version

We have mailed printouts of the survey to members of our congregation who receive the print version of our newsletter. If you have not yet received your copy of the survey, or if you need additional copies, please call the church office at 423-764-7176.

We ask that each member of your household age 15 and older complete a survey and return it to the church by next Thursday, February 5. If you need someone to pick up your survey, just call the church office and let us know.

Online Version

The digital version of our churchwide survey is now available online here. Please note that you will need to set aside about 30 minutes for this task because the survey cannot be saved until it is completed. If you exit the survey before you have finished, your answers will not be saved.

We ask that each member of your household age 15 and older complete a survey by next Thursday, February 5. If you prefer to complete the survey offline, please contact the church office, and a printed version will be delivered to you.

Thank you very much for your willingness to participate in this very important exercise. Please continue to keep our church and this process in your prayers.

The members of the Strategic Planning Committee are Aaron Brooks, Peggy Hill, Jennifer Kennedy, Shannan Miller, Lensey Richardson, Gordon Turnbull, John Vann, Paul Warhurst, and Charles Webb.

The fourth installment of our new churchwide study series, EPIC: Through the Bible with Jesus, will be "A New Beginning," inspired by Genesis 6-9. Join us for a consideration of this story Sunday, February 1. Sermon texts throughout the course of this series will be taken from the children's book, The Jesus Storybook Bible. If you have not already picked up your preordered copy from the front office, please do so soon.

Next Wednesday: Stewardship of Resources 

Please join us at 5:30 for dinner in the Fellowship Hall and stay for the program at 6:15. Student Small Groups and Wednesday Night Kids will meet as usual at 6:00.

Parents: Please keep your children with you or within sight until they are called to their groups at 6:00. We want to keep our children safe and adults unworried!

Bowled Over at Belmont Lanes

All women of the church are invited to Heart to Heart's annual Read and Feed, scheduled for 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., this Saturday, January 31, in Jennifer Kennedy's home. Amber Warhurst, Billie Whisnant, and Betsy Turnbull will present books. The snow date for this event is February 7.

Amber will discuss a book by her friend Rachel Marie Stone, Eat with Joy: Redeeming God's Gift of Food. Billie Whisnant will talk about Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken, and Betsy will review Rare Bird: A Memoir of Loss and Love by Anna Whitson-Donaldson. Please join us for this stimulating get-together, and feel free to bring a friend!

Register now for our annual women's retreat, scheduled for February 27 through March 1 at Blowing Rock Conference Center. Lindsay Fooshee, Christian thinker, blogger, and mom, will be our speaker this year, and her theme is joy. Be sure to mark your calendars for this wonderful Heart to Heart weekend! Forms and flyers are available throughout the church.

Family Promise to Hold New Volunteer Training, Refresher Session 

Family Promise of Bristol works through local churches to house selected families while they are working their way back into a home of their own. The churches in the program take turns throughout the year for a week at a time, and they always need volunteers from their congregations to provide breakfast and dinner, to serve as dinner and overnight hosts, and to do laundry when their week is over. FPC has been pleased to have this opportunity, and we are always looking for volunteers to help with this truly gratifying service to the people of our community.

We are delighted to announce that Family Promise has scheduled a training session for all new volunteers as well as those who would like to refresh their training. The session will be held at 6:00 p.m., Monday, February 9, at Redeemer Lutheran Church, 672 Island Road (beside the day center), Bristol, Virginia. If you would like to participate in this event, please contact Scottie Bales by Monday, February 2, at 423-360-5357 or scottie@rtheraputics.com.

New Opportunity for Meal Ministry with Lotsa Helping Hands 

In recent years our church has been blessed with a vital ministry of support for new mothers through Heart to Heart, our women's ministry. Volunteers receive email notice of days for which meals are needed for families with new children. The volunteer can choose a day to offer a meal, and the calendar registers the commitment. This ministry, coordinated by Lensey Richardson for Heart to Heart, occurs through an online service called MealBaby. Anyone interested in joining this list of potential servers may email Lensey (lasinjc@yahoo.com) to sign up.

Encouraged by the good response to this vehicle, our Board of Deacons would like to expand the scope of such caring meals. If you are interested in providing the occasional meal for those who are recovering at home from illness or recent hospitalization, please email Dave Welch (dwelch@fpcbristol.org). Your name will be placed on a list of those to be notified of serving opportunities through a separate online service, Lotsa Helping Hands.

Signing up as a potential server does not obligate you for any particular day or meal; you choose whether to respond to a particular notification. You may also "tag-team" with others to prepare and serve a meal. We hope that these mechanisms help more people offer and more people receive the caring love of our church. 

High School Super Bowl Party This Sunday

The High School Super Bowl Party will be held this Sunday, February 1, at the home of the Pruners. We'll gather at 6:00 p.m. and party until the end of the game. Come enjoy games, prizes, food, and fun with a great group of people!

High School Students to Hit the Slopes on Friday the 13th! 

Costs

Lift Ticket: $25

Skis + Lift Ticket: $42

Snowboard + Lift Ticket: $49

Food

Pack a lunch for the ride up, and bring money for dinner on the way back.

Middle School Mania at FPC This Sunday

Middle School Mania strikes again! This time it will break out on Sunday, February 1, from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. Seventh and eighth grade students are invited to the church for Super Bowl games and fun. We always have a wild time!

EPIC Family Fun Art Event 

FPC's Children's Ministries will hold a family art event on Saturday, February 7, at 10:00 a.m. in room 31, Creation Station, in the Education Wing. We will provide canvases to each participating family to paint in a manner related to our EPIC series, Through the Bible with Jesus.

Families may choose to paint more than one canvas, and we suggest a donation of $5 per canvas. Please RSVP to the church office at 423-764-7176, or by email to Lilly Osborne at losborne@fpcbristol.org, by Thursday, February 5, and tell us the number of canvases you would like. This is a family event, so children must be accompanied by an adult. This event is for all ages of children.

Please Donate Vanilla Wafers for Fairmount Students 

We are collecting cookies for our young friends at Fairmount Elementary School. The Neighborhood Initiatives Steering Committee is asking us to fill the Little Red House in the Fellowship Hallway with boxes of vanilla wafers. The committee will take them to Fairmount, where teachers will divide them into portions for the youngsters whose parents cannot afford to send snacks to school with them. Let's make sure all students get a midafternoon energy boost!

When the air is frigid or the roads hazardous, we will follow the lead of the Bristol, Tennessee, city schools. Please tune in to a local radio or television station to learn what that may be. We will make every effort to gather for worship on Sundays, even in severe weather.

Sunday's music participants: Sanctuary Choir; Jubilate Youth Choir.

Sunday's music: At both services this week the Jubilate Youth Choir will offer the anthem "Christ Has Broken Down the Wall," with text and music by Mark Miller. Miller serves on the faculty of two universities in addition to holding a church position; he will be the Senior High Choral Clinician at this summer's Montreat Worship and Music Conferences. This anthem reminds us that through Christ's saving grace we all are one.

Alice Parker

The Sanctuary choir anthem, "How Firm a Foundation," is an arrangement by Alice Parker of the beloved hymn. Parker (b. 1925), a noted composer, choral conductor, and teacher, has been instrumental in championing American music within the folk tradition. Her arrangement effectively captures the rugged nature of the hymn's melody and words. According to the Psalter Hymnal Handbook: " 'How Firm a Foundation' is a noble text, full of comfort for God's people, whose 'foundation' of faith is rooted in the Word and whose lives experience divine protection when they face 'deep waters' and 'fiery trials.' [This is particularly appropriate this week as we consider the story of Noah and the flood.] The final stanza clearly moves beyond the text's Old Testament source and proclaims the certainty of redemption in Christ." The text for this hymn is an anonymous English set of words first printed in 1787; the tune is an American folk hymn that first appeared in print in 1817. Parker led a hymn service at FPC as one of our Arts Series programs several years ago and will present a series of programs February 12-16 at ETSU.

Karen Thompson

Montreat bio: Children's Handbell director Karen Thompson is a freelance handbell composer and author. In the past several years, Karen has had numerous compositions on the Hot 40 List (best sellers posted weekly) here. In 2013 and 2014, she won an ASCAP Plus Award for her handbell compositions. Karen is the founding and current president of Concert Bells of Fort Worth, an auditioned community handbell ensemble. She has held different positions nationally and regionally in the Handbell Musicians of America and is a past chair of Area 9 (Texas and Oklahoma). Karen enjoys teaching and conducting at handbell events nationally, regionally, and locally.

Musical project: As was publicized last week, both the Savior's Singers Children's Choir (grades 2-5) and the Jubilate Youth Choir (grades 6-12) are now working on a musical, to be presented to the congregation on Sunday, August 30. One of the parables in The Jesus Storybook Bible is the miracle of the loaves and fishes, and the musical is called Table for Five ... Thousand! with music by Allen Pote and script and lyrics by his longtime collaborator, Tom S. Long, director of the liturgical drama troupe Friends of the Groom. All children and youth in these age groups are welcome to come to rehearsals. This year's first graders will be given a CD so that they can begin learning the music at home before they join the older choir in August. The youth choir rehearses on Sundays at 5:15 p.m. right before youth ministry fellowship, and the children's choir rehearses Wednesdays at 4:45, just before dinner. Come join us!

In Our Prayers

Becky Busler

Jane Crewey

Barbara Daniel

Dorothy Dollar

Fred Frazier

Ann Galliher

DeeDee Galliher

Dorothy Giesler

Juanita Goforth

Ron Grubbs

Will Hankins

Mary Nell Harris

Sharon Hatcher

Hawley Heglar

Carolyn King

Nancy King

Ruth Musser

Sue Olsen

Nancy Preston

Mary Rice

Brenda Rogers

Virginia Rutherford

Katy Sikorski

Faye VanNostrand

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

Condolences

Our love and sympathy are with Ron Grubbs in the death of his brother, Louis Grubbs, January 24 in Knoxville.

Birthday Prayer Fellowship

February 1    Kristy Davis, Dawn Davridge, John David Odom

February 2    Geneva King, Isabelle Ladd

February 3    Josh Pruner

February 4    John Graham

February 5    Harriette Massengill

February 7    Sophie Dollar

Sunday, February 1

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

3:00 p.m.     Middle School Mania, FPC

6:00 p.m.     Senior High Super Bowl Party, Pruner Home

Monday, February 2

5:30 p.m.     Sanctuary Handbells, Handbell Room

7:00 p.m.     Board of Deacons, Room 123

Tuesday, February 3

9:00 a.m.     Staff Meeting, Room 123

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

1:00 p.m.     Jackie Burt's Bible Study, Burt Home

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

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

Wednesday, February 4

9:30 a.m.     Lorri Looney's DVD Bible Study, Parlor

10:00 a.m.   Elizabeth Patrick's Women's Bible Study, New Mothers' Room

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, Rooms 34-37

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

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

6:00 p.m.     Wednesday Night Kids, Rooms 11 & 31

6:15 p.m.     Adult Learning, Fellowship Hall

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

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

Thursday, February 5

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

12:00 p.m.   Noon Bible Study, Room 117

7:30 p.m.     Troop 3 Committee, Room 163

Saturday, February 7

10:00 a.m.   EPIC Family Fun Art Event, Room 31