First Presbyterian Church Asheville NC

06/08/2026

"But Now... Take Heart," says Rev. Dr. Patrick Johnson in this week's message about doing the work God has set for us.

Watch now on YouTube.

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

06/07/2026

Good food, great company, and grateful hearts. Today at our annual church picnic we celebrated the end of a wonderful program year and gave thanks for the momentum of our Building a Wider Welcome campaign. Together, we’re growing a community where everyone can find a place to belong—with dessert by and worship and celebration music by Appalachian Consort!

06/05/2026

Every now and then in ministry, we get to share in something that is so clearly good and right, so overwhelmingly positive and affirming, so beyond our hopes and plans for depth and meaning, that we just have to sit back and say out loud to the Holy Spirit: "THANK YOU! Thank you for taking this idea and making it work."

That is what happened, at our "Evening with Holy Fools," presented by the FPCA Youth Group last week.

THANK YOU to the youth who put so much of themselves into making this event meaningful and memorable by sharing their ideas and wisdom and learning with both vulnerability and confidence, both courage and insight.

THANK YOU, parents, for showing up to reinforce that what we are doing together matters and has value, and is worth celebrating, as our youth grow and get to teach us and proclaim who they are and what God is doing in them.

And THANK YOU to every person in the congregation who showed up. (There were just shy of 100 of us in the Sanctuary together on Friday night!)

We are so proud of our youth — for their work on the projects they, and even more for the ways that they engaged with and were willing to share the complex ideas we've been wrestling with all year!

06/04/2026

Summer Book Club is back! 📚

Choose a book, take it with you on your travels. Read it, reflect on it, and then we will come back together on Aug. 30 for a luncheon where you will be invited to sit at tables with others who read the same books.

This summer’s books have been chosen through the lens of radical hospitality — what it means to truly see one another, welcome one another, and create spaces where people can belong, heal, and grow.

🗣 How to Know a Person by David Brooks
🪶 Theo of Golden: A Novel by Allen Levi
🐙 Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
✨ Wonder: 52 Conversations to Help Kids Fall in Love With Scripture by Meredith Miller

Learn more about each of these titles at https://fpcasheville.org/2026-summer-book-club/.

06/03/2026

Back in the 1950s, First Presbyterian Church said, "We need to have parking." And they thought they would be able to build a parking garage. That was the plan for more than 50 years.

A couple of years ago, we thought we would wake that plan up. We were able to do an engineering study, and we learned that we couldn't actually build a parking garage on our lot.

While the session was digesting that news, a piece of property at 46 Aston St. became available. It felt like a miracle because here we had a piece of property just a couple of minutes' walk from our sanctuary that would more than double our parking capacity.

On January 4th, our congregation met and voted to purchase 46 Aston Street, which includes 61 parking spaces and a 4,000-square-foot building. Now, we weren't looking for a building, but it was an added blessing of this property because this building gives us incredible flexibility and potential for the future to expand our mission here in downtown.

We are about to finish the Building a Wider Welcome campaign. We have nearly reached our $5 million need, and we've had incredible participation. It's not too late to join in! Learn more at https://fpcasheville.org/widerwelcome/.

06/01/2026

God is the one who organizes the chaos.

Watch Rev. Shannon Jordan's sermon on the Creation Story, available now on YouTube.

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

05/31/2026

Let's celebrate! The FPCA Church Picnic will be held on Sunday, Jun. 7, following 11 am worship.

We will provide the main dish (hot dogs, hamburgers, and veggie burgers) and dessert (from Sunshine Sammies!). You're invited to bring a side dish to share.

Enjoy live music by Appalachian Consort (also playing at 11 am worship), and take a tour of the newly completed shower stalls.

05/30/2026

In our atrium right now, there is a banner illustrating every capital campaign that has happened in the life of this congregation for 190 years. Some of these stories are amazing...

In 1841, the first sanctuary was built in this place to serve First Presbyterian Church. After they built it, they carried some remaining debt for a few years until the women of the church decided they were tired of the debt, and they raised the money to pay it off.

The sanctuary that we worship in today was built in the late 1880s for a total cost of $8,000.

The campaign that was done in 1999 and 2000 was called “For the Future at First,” and it was important, not only because of the spaces it added, but because the congregation had been through a really hard period, and they wanted to say, “We're here, and we can do this.”

All of the projects that we're doing in our current campaign are important. But what's really inspiring is this congregation coming together to invest in the future, as every other generation has done for 190 years.

And Patrick has said, our prayer is that every household in our church who is able will participate in this campaign to say, "I'm here, and we're doing this together."

Visit https://fpcasheville.org/widerwelcome/ to learn more and participate today.

05/29/2026

Looking for a great way to connect with others from the congregation? These groups are great for long-time members and newer folks alike!

Groups can be food-based (meals in each other’s homes or in local restaurants), more activity-based (think game nights, or outings in town), or a combination of both, and will meet 3-4 times this summer.

Email [email protected] with questions, and sign up here by Jun. 9: https://fpcasheville.org/summer-social-groups/

05/28/2026

Nothing says building a wider welcome like a working elevator.

We have four levels to our facility in downtown Asheville, and from this elevator at the parking lot, you can access the sanctuary, the fellowship hall, and the top-floor education rooms. That means we need to have a working elevator to provide access to our building for all people.

This elevator has reached the end of its working life, and elevators are pricey. That’s why part of this capital campaign is replacing this elevator to be sure that we have continued access for future generations to every level of our building.

Building a Wider Welcome has tremendous momentum and energy. Three-quarters of our congregation has already made a commitment. We are so close to our $5 million need.

If you would like to learn more, please go to our website and look at all of the information. https://fpcasheville.org/widerwelcome/. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to Patrick or one of our campaign co-chairs at [email protected].