Stories & Sermons

Eric can’t really not draw a crowd. I’ve taken a seat by him on the blacktop and, subsequently, two teenagers and their parents have as well. He’s showing us how Johnny Cash made that chuka-chuka percussion sound by strumming with a piece of folded-up loose-leaf paper. He’s spilling all the trade secrets before we’ve even exchanged a...

Eulogy for Nancy Bennett Written & Delivered by Rev. Brian Combs, 6/16/2021 Adopted at birth, Nancy Bennett grew up with autism in Connecticut before boarding school in Lenoir brought her to Western North Carolina.  Strolling the boardwalk at Myrtle Beach and skiing the Black Diamond at Cataloochee Mountain were her favorite pastimes.  But when life wasn’t an...

I often see Michael from my office window; sitting, smoking, waiting patiently until it is time to pick his two-year-old daughter up from daycare. For our staff, who care tremendously for Michael and his family, it has become painful to ask if they’ve been placed in housing yet. We’ve been asking for four years. The...

Eulogy for Edward Written and presented by Rev. Brian Combs We are decedents of wandering Arameans.  Beginning with Adam and Eve in Genesis through the book of Revelation, salvation history narrates a people who spent much of their lives as homesick itinerants, on the road East of Eden in search of something lost, praying to be...