Articles

  • All-Church Mission Trip to Banner Elk, NC
    Tuesday, April 30, 2013 - 12:53pm

    July 28-August 3, 2013.

    Holston Presbytery Camp and Retreat Center is a place where people come to know Jesus, grow in their faith in Christ, and build Christian community.  We are excited to be doing God’s work in the vicinity of Banner Elk, NC for the first time.

    Our goal has always been the same, to heed the call of God and to tangibly be the body of Christ.  We’re excited for another year of hard work, summer heat, long days, and lots of laughter and fun.  This annual mission trip is open to the entire church family.  We hope that you’ll join us.  We promise you’ll be thrilled that you did!

     

    Cathy
    Banner Elk, Children, High School, Middle School, Mission Trip, Missions, Youth
  • Middle School and High School Retreats registrations are now being taken.
    Tuesday, April 30, 2013 - 12:09pm

    So, here’s the deal.  This is going to be an amazing trip and it would only serve to make the trip even more awesome if you were there.  We will be going to the Lake Harmony, PA area. 

    The plan is to enjoy the a vacation together!  We will be staying at our own lodge at Lake Harmony, PA

    Not only that but we will be visiting the Hickory Run State Park to visit the famous “Boulder Field”, a water day at CamelBeach water park, and make full use of the pools, rock walls, and obstacle courses near Lake Harmony!

     

    Cathy
    High School, Middle School, Retreats, Youth
  • DAY 40
    Saturday, March 30, 2013 - 12:00am

    Saturday, March 30, 2013

    Submitted by Nikki Passante, Associate Pastor

    Prayer: 

    Lord, we are tired spiritual wanderers.  Help us to accept the full truth of Your Gospel message: that rest comes through accepting the Gospel of Jesus Christ through faith.  Teach us to work for Your accomplishments, not our own.  

    Scripture: Hebrews 4:1-16

    Today’s Devotion:

    This particular passage speaks a lot about ‘God’s Rest.’  For Israel, Rest initially meant a tract of land they could call their own.  Yet, the conquest generation under Joshua discovered that true rest was not to be found not in the land of Canaan, but is of a different order.  The coming of Jesus Christ inaugurates a different kind of Rest.  We begin to move beyond the idea of land to that of a condition in which we can cease from our ‘works,’ i.e. trying to accomplish grace (an oxymoron). 

    It may be somewhat disquieting to grasp the full truth that we don’t have to do anything. As a society and culture, we are more oriented to human accomplishment than God’s accomplishment on our behalf.  Yet we live in a culture that is desperate for rest. The type of rest that human beings most deeply long is that of rest from the anxieties of this world.  Fear and worry require so much energy, and we slowly begin to learn how totally exhausting these things are.  Over each weight and worry, Jesus repeats the resounding benefit: I will Give you Rest.

    Matthew 11:28-30: "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” 

    Put away all those fears.  You are not called to a Spirit of fear.  You are called to a Spirit of Love and a Sound Mind.  Know your calling.

     

    Cathy
    Lent, Lent 2013, Lenten Devotional
  • DAY 39
    Friday, March 29, 2013 - 12:00am

    Good Friday, March 29, 2013

    Submitted by Deborah Krabbendam

    Scripture:  Genesis 22

    Today’s Devotion:

    “God told Abraham:  ‘Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering...’  So Abraham rose early in the morning...”  Gen. 22:2-3.

    Why do we find this story so appalling? God seems to go against his very nature, not to mention our own desire to be comfortable with our lives and our faith, and a man simply . . . obeys.  For those who extol Abraham’s example of faith and obedience, can they disregard the human cost - to Abraham, to Sarah, to the young man Isaac?

    To even try to understand this story, it’s important to consider it within  the context of the whole book of Genesis, as the recent sermon series  demonstrated – including God’s creation of a good world, the fall, the interactions between God and Abraham.  At bottom, this is the starkest possible illustration of what it could mean if a person truly believed that God is God.  Somehow, Abraham had faith that God was and would remain God, that from God’s perspective, this would all make sense.  Abraham was no passive yes man – he pushed God hard in Chapter 18.  And, he was no saint – in chapter 21, he was willing to sacrifice his  first born simply to keep the peace.  But when faced with the hardest test of all, Abraham would not cling to anything temporal, even his beloved son, his hope for the future. (Perhaps, after his treatment of Ishmael, he realized that what God requires of us is not necessarily more difficult than what we inflict on ourselves.)  

    The apostle Paul captured this message centuries later:  God “made the world and everything in it,” and created humans “so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us; for in him we live and move and have our being.”  [See Acts 17:24-28].

    In the end, God did not require Isaac’s sacrifice, and renewed his promises to Abraham.  But I doubt that erased the pain for Abraham, much less for Isaac.  And, it certainly does not mitigate the horror of the story for a human reader today.  We live in hope that God indeed “is not far from each one of us”, but we cannot gloss over the tensions, either in Scripture or in our present world. 

    Prayer: 

    Lord, help us to grope for You, and find You, though You are not far from each one of us.

     

    Cathy
    Lent, Lent 2013, Lenten Devotional