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Companion Orientation on March 4th
The next Companion Orientation is March 4th at 5:00 pm. Make sure to invite your friends and family to join us!
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Guest Speaker Phillip Cooper, Wednesday, February 28th
Join us for worship at 12:30 this Wednesday to welcome Change Agent Phillip Cooper as our guest speaker!
He has been in the Behavioral Health field since 2009 and has created a specialty Community Health Worker for the workforce development space, supporting those with barriers to employment. Philip has committed his life to helping others "level up' and says that he continues to reach back to help others because the only way to keep what he has is by giving it away.
Philip serves on the Board of Directors for Just Economics of WINC and Buncombe County Justice Partners. He is a leader with the National Association of Community Health Workers and leads jail ministry efforts for his church, Elevation Church Asheville.
See more of Phillip's bio HERE.
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Building Maintenance Help
Our building, like any other, is always in need of some TLC. We have a lot of projects going on and would love your help on Tuesdays and Thursdays! Currently, we're looking for skills for flooring repair just outside the kitchen, as well as help installing 2 deadbolts on a couple of doors.
If you would like to help in this way, please let Tiffany know, and we will get you started!
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HSCD Gift Match Opportunity!
The Wanda and James M. Moran, Jr. Foundation has presented Haywood Street Community Development with a $250,000 matching gift challenge as we enter the new year! Help us keep the momentum going and double the impact of your gift by donating HERE!
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Free Tax Resource
Learn more HERE.
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Asheville-Buncombe Continuum of Care
The CoC Program is designed to assist individuals (including unaccompanied youth) and families experiencing homelessness and provide the services needed to help such individuals move into transitional and permanent housing, with the goal of long-term stability.
Most importantly, the hope is that the CoC Program will help with city-wide planning and strategy around addressing homelessness. With the participation of voices from diverse backgrounds, the city will be able to coordinate the allocation of resources better, and have more knowledge on to tailor programs that are best suited for vulnerable folks in our city.
It's essential that we have diversity within the CoC. If you are interested in participating and becoming a voting member, you can learn more and apply for membership here.
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On-going opportunities to participate at the Welcome Table:
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Have a meal! - Join us on Wednesdays to enjoy a meal with our community!
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Dining Room Clean-Up On Wednesdays at 12 pm - As always, clean-up is one of the places where we need companion support. We promise to make it fun!
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Kitchen Clean-Up - On Wednesdays from 12:00-2:00, we would love for a couple of companions to help us clean up the kitchen and help serve the folks who come in during that time for a meal. You can sign up for this role on the sign-up sheet below!
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On Wednesday, our community blessed the ground that will, in time, be deeply affordable homes for 41 families. Together, we left our blessings and prayers for fullness, peace, and rest, and we remembered the beloved who left us before a key "home" was placed in their pockets.
This project has been years in the making. And as we've said goodbye to friends who dreamed of a home of their own within community, we've only become more earnest in our pursuit of deeply affordable housing that’s built with dignity and sustained through community.
Thank you to all who came out to the ground blessing. And thank you to all who have walked beside us and supported us along the journey this far. We couldn’t have made it this far without each of you.
~Click HERE to see more coverage of the Ground Blessing~
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Dorothy is feisty, bold, and resilient. Unhoused again and battling cancer, this has taught her the importance of advocating for herself.
“You gotta do your homework before ‘class’ cause no one is gonna do it for you!”
This particular time, the ‘homework’ was for court. After confidently and enthusiastically rehearsing her defense, she proudly exclaimed, “Welcome to MY courtroom!”
Before a plea could be made not to say that to the judge, Dorothy was out the door!
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Construction has begun on what will be a new porch for our Respite guests! The porch is being added on the back side of the building overlooking the Blue Ridge Mountains. | |
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Weekly Ministry Opportunities:
Worship: Wednesdays at 12:30 p.m. in the sanctuary
Tuesday Haywood Street Holy Ground Keepers: 8:30 a.m. in the parking lot. Walk the grounds of the church campus and our local neighborhood, cleaning up along the way.
Tuesday Prayer Group: 12:30 p.m. in Room 6. Gather for a time of communal prayer.
Wednesday Art Ministry: 8:30 a.m. in the Sanctuary. Join us for a time of fellowship, prayer, and art-making.
Thursday Card Making: 10:00 a.m. in the Sanctuary. Gather together to make cards for our community and friends in prison or in the hospital.
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Weekly Sermons
Read each week's and the previous week's sermons on the sermons page of the website.
~Preaching Schedule~
February 28th:
Guest Speaker, Philip Cooper (Change Agent)
March 6th:
Pastor Brian
March 13th:
Guest Speaker, Rev. Mary Brown (Pastor of Central UMC)
March 20th:
Pastor Jody
March 27th:
Pastor Brian
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Community Resources
Click below to see a list of places in the community to donate and find clothes, and when recovery meetings are held.
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Fresco Viewing Hours:
Monday - Thursday, 10 am - 2 pm (with the exception of during our worship service, which is 12:30 pm every Wednesday).
Contact April if you would like to make an appointment to see the Fresco outside of those hours.
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A Ground Blessing Invitation | |
Pastor Brian invited the attendees from of the Ground Blessing Ceremony on Wednesday to participate in offering a prayer and/or blessing for the ground that will be the future W. Haywood Street Apartments: | |
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“There are hundreds of ways,” wrote the Sufi mystic Rumi, “to kneel and kiss the ground.”
Moses was east of Midian, shepherding his flock off the map, staying one step ahead of the jailer. Haunted by his act of vengeance and terrified of the punishment, he had every reason to be distracted. Still, when God’s fiery presence engulfed a bush, Moses turned in reverent attention toward the blaze and removed his sandals.
Designating a plot as holy ground five thousand years ago, ancient herders, pagan priests, and Celtic wayfarers likely arranged 25-ton rocks vertically into a sacred architecture of concentric circles and double arches. They erected an open-air tabernacle, a gathering place for the solstice we now call Stonehenge.
In these primordial Blue Ridge Mountains, wanderers in the wilderness organized smooth limestones into shrines standing at attention, one balancing on the other. They left stacked cairns across the verdant landscape to memorialize the dead and remind us that heaven often invades earth from the ground up.
Today, following our spiritual ancestors, we bless this tract of ancestral Cherokee land by building a live altar together. Co-creators encircling this hallowed moment, X marks the spot.
Pastor Brian Combs
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The poem, "Wild Geese," by Mary Oliver was read by Pastor Jody:
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
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A witness to include the most excluded, Haywood Street not only welcomes every child of God–especially sisters and brothers of every mental illness and physical disability, addiction and diagnosis, living condition and employment status, gender identity and sexual orientation, class, color, and creed–but we celebrate your presence, certain that the kingdom of God is coming closer because you are here.
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