Pleasant Grove Union Church

This Sunday Pleasant Grove Union Church will join with many other churches across the world in celebrating Holy Communion.  In addition to our normal offering, we will also collect fund to go toward scholarships to help prepare the next generation of church leaders worldwide.  Last year, the methodist church collected 13 cents per member. We could double that if we all gave 25 cents for every member of our family. 

Here’s a little bit about this collection from the United Methodist Church website:

HistoryIn 1940 the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America established World-wide Communion Sunday—originally a Presbyterian observance—as a global, interdenominational event. Prompted by the impact of World War II, the Methodist Church received an offering on this Sunday for the Fellowship of Suffering and Service. It aided the work of the Methodist Committee on Overseas Relief (now the United Methodist Committee on Relief), the Commission on Chaplains and the Commission on Camp Activities. In 1971, The United Methodist Church changed the name of the observance to World Communion Sunday and redistributed the offering to support the Crusade Scholarship Program (begun in 1944), the Ethnic Minority Scholarship Program and the Division of Chaplains and Related Ministries. In 1980, Chaplains and Related Ministr

Just a reminder that our Annual post-VBS cookout will be Saturday, July 7 2007 at 6PM. It will be preceeded by a video for the kids (and young at heart). The video will begin at 4:30PM

Vacation Bible School will be held this year June 25-June 29th, the material will come from 1st Samuel chapters 1-16. (Hannah’s Prayer and Samuel’s Calling, God Chooses David, David fights Goliath, Jonathan and David, and Praise the Lord in Song will be the daily themes.) No pre-registration is necessary, we expect to hold class from 9AM- Noon each day (Monday-Friday of that week.) Also, look out for an announcement of the date of the cookout that usually follows VBS by a few weeks. If you’re interested in the outline for this years VBS, You may download the daily_plan.pdf here.

With the sudden passing of Rev. Harris, it was decided to ask Rev. Ray Bailey to fill the 4th Sunday service as well as his current 2nd Sunday. He agreed to this, however Ray’s schedule is such that the worship service will need to be at 11AM and for that reason, we have moved ALL Worship Services to 11AM and moved Sunday School to 10AM. That change took place effective June 10th, 2007.

The Rev. Robert E. Harris passed away suddenly May 14th of this year. For over 50 years he had held service on the 4th Sunday of the month at Pleasant Grove and held a Wednesday night service as well as a yearly revival in November (the week of Thanksgiving.) “Bobby” as many of us knew him, was devoted to Christ’s ministry through his entire life. What strikes me is how many different ways of spreading the good news he adopted. For years you could find him, with his horse, dressed as a Circuit Riding preacher from the 1800s, maybe at a rest stop on I-40 handing out leaflets, or maybe at other places that were likely to draw passers by. His dial-a-prayer phone line was still running last I knew as a simple pre-recorded phone message that could lift a day. For some years he had a radio show, has had a tv show, had messages broadcast on shortwave in some years. He had compiled stories in a couple of books and I suppose the bottom line is he was not afraid to try new and different ways to get the message across. He established the “drive in Church” in Asheville, holding service in a local parking lot.

Continue reading →

I’ve taken a while to post his passing here, but one of our recent ministers, Rev. Dan Bowers passed away April 21st of this year. He held preaching service one Sunday a month from 1994-2005/6. We are a unique Church in that (for as long as I can recall) we have three Ministers. I remember fairly early on in his tenure, we had a change in Methodist ministers and I remember Dan going out of his way to help the new minister meet everyone in the community. I sincerely appreciated that, he sang with our group of singers for quite a while as well and don’t think I will forget his tenor voice. Nor shall I forget his sense of humor. He already has been and will continue to be missed here. An obituary through the Asheville Citizen-Times is available here.

For those that have been through Pleasant Grove Road in the last week, you’ll notice that our Adopt-a-Highway signs were placed in the last 2 weeks. We’re planning another pickup on Saturday April 14th at 1:30PM. We’ll meet around back at the Church to get set for the pickup.

This year there are a number of services going on in celebration of Easter. Everyone is invited to attend any or all of these services:

Good Friday, April 6th at 6PM
Easter Sunrise Service, April 8th at 7:15AM
(Followed by a Fellowship Breakfast)
Easter Sunday School, April 8th at 10AM
Easter Sunday Service, April 8th at 11AM
(Followed by an Easter Egg Hunt on the Lawn)

Just a quick note to mention that we will have a community visitation on Saturday March 31, 2007 from 2-4PM.

There will also be a new Bible study starting in February of 2007. I will add more details when available. Update:: The start of the new Bible study has been postponed until around April, those interested in participating should contact Deb Patterson so that she will know how many books to order.