Montreat summer worship series begins June 4

Amos Disasa to preach Pentecost message at summer staff dedication service

by Tanner Pickett | Montreat News Release

Amos Disasa will preach during the opening service of the 2017 Montreat summer worship series. (Photo provided)

MONTREAT, N.C. – One of the highlights of Montreat Conference Center’s year-round programs is the summer worship series in which leading preachers from across the country join with visual and performing art professionals and volunteers in a service of worship open to the surrounding community. All are welcome and all are invited.

The 2017 Sunday series begins June 4 with the Rev. Amos Disasa as guest preacher. He is the organizing pastor of a new Presbyterian church in downtown Columbia, South Carolina — a church that is living out new ways to understand worship as community-gathering and offering innovative opportunities to become part of the service.

Disasa was born in Ethiopia, immigrating to the United States with his family in 1983. He is a graduate of Presbyterian College where he met his wife, Sarah. After college, Amos went to Brazil to work with children living in the streets, then returned to the U.S. and graduated from The Divinity School of Wake Forest University in 2006. Downtown Columbia was the first neighborhood he and Sarah called home. Two years ago, they helped organize Downtown Church, a lively Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) congregation in the city center of Columbia.

One of the challenges Disasa faces, as he put it, “is finding ways to grow and stay small at the same time. Our ministry … is oriented towards people who work, eat, learn and play downtown.” Downtown Church is not a typical sanctuary, he says, but it is still a sacred place. He describes how a Columbia developer bought an old downtown building that used to be a community center, but over years of disuse and neglect had fallen into disrepair. After renovations, it became a thriving arts center and provides rental space for community events. It is, says Disasa, “a historic building with a story to tell, and we are honored to be a part of it.”

Disasa is no stranger to Montreat. He has participated in and led a number of events as well as vacationed there with his family.

He chose little-known passages from Numbers for his June 4 sermon, titled “God Got Out the Tent.” Not only is June 4 Pentecost, it is also the occasion at which Montreat summer staff and volunteers are recognized and dedicated: “I’ve never preached from this passage in Numbers. And for Pentecost, I thought the challenge of an unexpected text, at least for me, would present a healthy challenge and hopefully a fresh word.”

Montreat summer Sunday services begin at 10:30 a.m. in Anderson Auditorium, just off Assembly Drive in Montreat. Child care is available for children 6 months through kindergarten at the Updike Child Care Center on Texas Road.

As is the summer tradition, the community is invited to the lunch buffet at 11:45 am in the Assembly Inn’s Galax Dining Room following worship. Lunch tickets can be purchased at the Assembly Inn front desk.

For further information or to learn about other worship, educational and recreational opportunities at Montreat, visit www.montreat.org or call 828-669-2911.