By Rebecca Gurney, Pastor, Reems Creek-Beech Presbyterian Church

Two days after Hurricane Helene ravaged Western North Carolina, the roads in our Asheville neighborhood were clear enough for us to pick our way out. My oldest son and I set off to see if we could get to our church, which is situated about thirty minutes outside of town in the Reems Creek Valley. 

Making our way around fallen power lines, chunks of missing pavement, tree trunks, and small landslides, we arrived about a mile from church. At this point, uncertain about how our little sedan might manage the rocky, uneven terrain, we parked on the roadside and walked. 

The single road out of this small community, which is ringed by mountains on three sides, had been completely washed out where it crossed the creek. The first person we met as we walked was a church member carrying a load of gravel in his tractor bucket. For the previous two days, church members had carefully scraped the gravel from the church lot and used it to rebuild the road. When we arrived, the swollen creek was still flowing through people’s yards. Mailboxes, fenceposts, trash, even trout, were scattered all over the valley, but the road was repaired. People could get out and supplies could come in. 

That image, a Kubota and a couple of John Deeres moving back and forth to repair the destroyed road, remains rooted in my imagination. It’s a working picture of what it means to be the church. These commitments were set into sharp relief in a crisis, when putting the resources of the church at the service of the community was truly a matter of life or death. But this church and its people had cultivated these habits long before the storm. The church was already working to reimagine how its building might be used. It had created a space for law enforcement officers and first responders to find respite during their shifts—a place to do paperwork, eat a meal, or use the bathroom. After the hurricane, that space was occupied non-stop by first responders and officers from all over the southeast. The church had envisioned its grounds as a public space, working with the county to make a picnic area by the creek, putting up a basketball court and hoop, and unlocking the parking lot so anyone had access. So, it was natural that the grounds became a staging area for road crews and the teams working to restore power to the region. It made sense to offer an empty room in the education hall to a local artist whose studio had been destroyed in the storm. I’m grateful to be a part of a church community that is eager to be flexible and generous. 

This work of giving is never easy. Our instincts often prompt us to look after ourselves and our institutions first and foremost. There is some wisdom in those desires—a healthy, thriving church can serve its community well. But over time we can grow so intent on self-preservation that it becomes our chief, and only, concern. We do whatever is necessary to keep things running just as they’ve always been. Our gaze shifts inward, and the church becomes an end, not a means. We look to ourselves, not God, for sustenance and forget that our call involves a larger vision, loving God and loving our neighbor. Our Presbyterian Book of Order exhorts us: the church is to be a community of faith, entrusting itself to God alone, even at the risk of losing its life. That’s at the heart of generosity, a deep trust that it is God who sustains, upholds, and provides, and that our work is simply to follow Jesus, whatever the cost. 

The same parking lot, which provided much needed gravel, served another purpose that weekend after the storm. It was the location for Sunday morning worship. There was no electricity, no water, plenty of chaos and uncertainty, but word spread, and the people who could get there on foot gathered to sing hymns and read the Psalms on the ground where we have worshipped for over a century. They started with Psalm 46, God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. They could not explain the storm or why it happened, but they could come before God in their confusion, grief, gratitude, and anxiety. Worship was an anchor to something that no storm could take away. And worship restores our focus: when we see Jesus marked by the wounds of love, crucified and raised to new life, we’re invited into a world that is bigger than our own fears and uncertainties. 

I doubt our church members were ruminating on some concept of generosity or love as they removed our gravel. They certainly didn’t consult the church board. They just took what we had and put it where it was most needed. But their work reflects a habit, one that patterns itself after the God we gather before each week. It’s a practice of seeing every resource we have as something that’s been given to us. From that vantage point, everything we have is available to be moved, re-purposed, or given away again, as needed. It’s loving because you know yourself to be loved, because you know that the gravel you stand on as you worship doesn’t belong to you anyway, but to the one who made all gravel, and who would have all things, every last pebble and rock, in the service of his redemptive, restorative work. 

Rebecca Gurney is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church USA. She has served as the pastor of Reems Creek-Beech Presbyterian church since 2020. She lives with her family in Asheville, NC.