Changes to our regular schedule of programs during Holy Week include suspension of our Wednesday night fellowship dinner, adult learning session, Student Small Groups, and Wednesday Night Kids. The Wednesday night Sanctuary Choir and 8:30 Worship Team rehearsals will take place at the usual time and place, but the Wednesday afternoon children's rehearsals will be suspended for the week. The Thursday Noon Bible Study will not meet March 24. The church office is now closed on Fridays.

• Packs of ballpoint or gel pens (blue or black ink only)
• Small bookbags:
  • o   here
  • o   and here
• Laptop computer in good condition

If you can take a meal to someone just home from the hospital, send a card or make a phone call to someone in a special care facility, or comfort someone in distress, FPC wants you for Care Shepherds, our congregational care ministry. The goal of this ministry is to show Christian love to members of our church family who are in need.

We begin a new Care Shepherds schedule in April and will hold a training event sometime that month. Come with your talents and build confidence as you serve! There are as many ways to do so as there are opportunities. Volunteers serve one month at a time on a team that coordinates the needs of the congregation for that month.

For more information or to volunteer, please contact Robin North at robinnorth3@gmail.com, Dave Welch at dwelch@fpcbristol.org, or the church office at 423-764-7176. Sign-up forms will also be available at the church.

We will host a homeless family selected for the Family Promise of Bristol program in the church building during Holy Week. To volunteer to help, to ask a question, or to make a suggestion, please email Scottie Bales at scottie@rtherapeutics.com, or text or call her at 423-360-5357. If you know of folks who may want to help in any way, please encourage them to step forward, or ask Scottie to contact them. Thank you!

If you care about the plight of urban youth, you'll want to talk to Dan Kreiss about an opportunity to do something about it this summer. Dan will lead a team from FPC that will serve with Urban Promise in Camden, New Jersey, from Sunday, June 26, through Saturday, July 2. The work will support established educational and social programs there.

Lorri Looney's DVD Bible study group will begin its new session April 6 rather than on March 30, as previously planned. The postponement will extend the study of the movie War Room through May 4. Workbooks will be available for purchase at the first session. This Heart to Heart women's group meets Wednesday mornings at 9:30 in the church parlor. All women of the church are welcome to attend at any time and bring a friend.

Bem-vindo, Joćo e Rosangela! The Evangelism and Outreach Committee is pleased to announce that Pastor Joćo Batista and his wife, Rosangela, are traveling from Brazil to visit FPC in the second half of April.

Joćo Batista is the business administrator of the school with which FPC has partnered since 2003, Bethel School in the Felipe Camarćo neighborhood of Natal. Rosangela is the school's director, overseeing curriculum and administration of its program for its 150 students. Joćo Batista is also the pastor of Second Presbyterian Church in Natal, a sister congregation to our partner church in Felipe Camarćo.

This is a wonderful opportunity for our congregation to reciprocate the warm and loving hospitality that has been shown to us over the years when we have visited Felipe Camarćo. Many and various activities and opportunities are being planned to allow you to share with them in their first US experience. More information will be available over the coming weeks, but if you feel called to be more involved by cohosting a meal or participating in excursions with Joćo Batista and Rosangela, please call John Vann at (423-360-1153) or Karen Vann at (423-968-7802).

The 130 FPC folk who turned out for our Talent Show and Chili Cook-Off last Sunday were treated to 15 acts onstage and sampled a variety of chilis. We judged the latter but not the former! Hearty congrats to the cook-off winners:

Most Creative: Erin Reardon

Hottest: Dawn Eubanks

Best: Sydney Peltier

We also congratulate our entertainers on the Fellowship Hall stage: Alie Bassett, Isabel Gross, Zora Gross, Jubilate Youth Choir, Sylvia Kingsley, Reed Miller, Rett Miller, Riley Miller, Mark Mervis, Annie Osborne, Daniel Osborne, Ginny Osborne, Sydney Peltier, Sam Samuel, Sanctuary Choir, Penn Story, Chuck Thompson, Jordan Tumblin, and Paul Warhurst. Their acts included jumping rope, fiddling, tumbling, storytelling, stand-up comedy, and singing solo or in groups.

Thank you to everyone who shared their performance or culinary talent! And thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make this such an enjoyable evening! Excitement for next year's event is already building!

The fifth and sixth grade students in FPC's Fusion group will prepare a Seder meal for themselves and their parents on Maundy Thursday, March 24. The students should come to the church kitchen at 4:00 p.m. to prepare the traditional foods for this meal of remembrance and anticipation. Ruthie Blair and Barb Thompson will lead their work.

At the Seder, each child must be accompanied by an adult, so one or both parents should arrive at 5:30 p.m. Please bring cushions for you and your child to sit on. We regret that we cannot include siblings in this event. Please RSVP to Lilly Osborne (losborne@fpcbristol.org) so that we can make our plans for the meal, and do let her know if you will need child care.

The churchwide Maundy Thursday worship service will be held in the sanctuary at 7:00 p.m. Participating in it together would be a wonderful way to cap off the evening. For more information, contact your Fusion teacher, Lilly, or Ruthie, or visit our event page on Facebook.

We will hold an Easter Egg hunt at the church this Saturday, March 19, beginning at 12:30. This event is always fun for everyone, so plan now to bring your children.

As spring swells the buds, we hope to swell the ranks of our mowing team. We welcome men and women, adults and teens! We have lost some volunteers since last mowing season, so please volunteer, even if you can help only once. This is something families can do together, the younger members moving fallen branches and detritus to the curb and a parent or elder sibling piloting the Scag mower.

Our captain, Randy Cook, will be happy to train you, if necessary, on our Tiger Cat. We hope you will sign up for regular duty, but if you can help for even a single morning or afternoon, please email Randy at npolecook@aol.com or call his cell at 423-956-1541. 

This week's music participants: Sunday: Sanctuary Choir, Cherub Choir, Savior's Singers Children's Choir; Maundy Thursday: Sanctuary Bells, Sanctuary Choir; Good Friday: Jubilate Youth Choir.

Sunday's music: The Sanctuary Choir will be joined by the Cherub Choir and the Savior's Singers Children's Choir in an anthem by Hal Hopson (b. 1932), "Hosanna! Blessed Is He!" It uses an antiphonal (echoing) Palm Sunday song written by Moravian composer Christian Gregor (1723-1801), who lived and worked in Silesia, an area that now falls primarily in southwest Poland. With this song Hopson combines two stanzas of the Palm Sunday hymn "Hosanna, Loud Hosanna." Together these make for a joyous acclamation of the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.

At the point in the service where we turn to the Passion narrative, the Sanctuary Choir will sing "Watch With Me" by Daniel Gawthrop (b. 1949). Gawthrop is a noted American composer living in Idaho, but until recently he lived for several years in Greeneville, Tennessee. With a text by his wife, Jane Griner, inspired by the story of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, it places us squarely in the role of the disciples who are unable to stay awake.

Arts Series: Mark your calendars! On Sunday, April 3, soprano Cheryl Parrish, accompanied by Vicki Fey, will sing a varied program of familiar works by Mozart and Schubert, and perhaps less-familiar songs by Italian composer Stefano Donaudy, Canadian composer William Jordan, and American composer Richard Pearson Thomas. Cheryl has had a successful singing and teaching career, from having sung on a live telecast with the late tenor Luciano Pavarotti to singing with the San Francisco and Houston Opera Companies and teaching at Southwest Texas State University. Suggested ticket donation is $10 for adults and $5 for students from age 6 through college.

Paul Warhurst at our talent show.

Paul Warhurst is an FPC elder and a Senior Lecturer in New Testament and Theology at King University. He did his PhD work at the University of St. Andrews on Sųren Kierkegaard's writings on the Sermon on the Mount. His wife, Amber, might say he also earned a second degree in golf! When not teaching, he enjoys being with Amber and their three children, hiking on the Appalachian Trail, drinking coffee, and (sometimes) working on his house.

 

Becky Busler

Jude Chambers

Amelia Cordon

Jane Crewey

Dorothy Dollar

Mark Dollar

Fred Frazier

DeeDee Galliher

Bill Goforth

Ron Grubbs

Will Hankins

Gene Haskins

Sharon Hatcher

Vivian Hill

Andrea Hyde

Nancy King

Alice Moore

David Moore

Nancy Preston

Lila Ray

Mary Rice

Brenda Rogers

Virginia Rutherford

Faye VanNostrand

Herb Van Nostrand

8:30 a.m.       Worship, Fellowship Hall

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

9:45 a.m.       Sunday School

10:20 a.m.     Called Session Meeting to Receive New Members, Chapel

11:00 a.m.     Worship, Sanctuary

4:00 p.m.       Evangelism & Outreach Committee, Room 117

5:15 p.m.       Jubilate Youth Choir

6:00 p.m.       Student Fellowship, Youth Wing & Fellowship Hall

4:45 p.m.       Administrative Committee, Room 117

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

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

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

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

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

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

7:30 p.m.       8:30 Worship Team Rehearsal, Fellowship Hall

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

4:00 p.m.       Fusion Prepares Seder Meal, Big Kitchen

7:00 p.m.       Maundy Thursday Worship, Sanctuary

Church office closed

7:00 p.m.       Good Friday Worship, Sanctuary