WTZQ AND SUNDAY MORNING HYMN TIME PRESENT
THE CHURCH BULLETIN BOARD
Local and out of town announcements for special services and gospel concerts are listed – along with local church and club announcements for regular weekly or monthly events.
If you have something you would like listed on WTZQ’s Church Bulletin Board send it via email to wtzqchurchbulletins@gmail.com
Special Notice: If your church has special services or singings coming up that you would like to promote on the Sunday Morning Hymn Time Page of WTZQ.COM and to have announced on the Sunday Morning Hymn Time Radio Program –please send an e-mail to: wtzqchurchbulletins@gmail.com
Friends of Music & the Arts Series: Present New Year’s Concert features African American Composers and Spirituals
The first 2026 concert from the Friends of Music & the Arts Series at the Episcopal church of St. John in the Wilderness will be held at 4:00 p.m., Sunday, January 18 in the historic church, 1895 Greenville Highway in Flat Rock.
Lucy Owen Hoyt, lyric soprano and Charles Frost, Organist and Conductor, will bring together their love of music in a program celebrating African American composers and spirituals. The two knew each other a few years back while attending Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey but this is their first concert performance together.
A gifted teacher who recently retired from James Madison University Voice faculty, Lucy founded the Valley Voice Initiative to support emerging artists. She has sung across the Carolinas and the Shenandoah Valley. She also performed in Scotland at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Charles, a native of New Jersey, earned his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees at Westminster Choir College. He has served as Minister of Music at many churches and performed in concerts across the country. Currently, he leads the Sea Island Singers in Beaufort, South Carolina. He is also President of The Hymn Society based in Washington, D.C.
Their shared artistry promises an inspiring afternoon of powerful music rooted in faith and tradition.
The music concert is free and open to the public, but donations are encouraged to fund the ongoing series. Reservations are not necessary.
Free parking and accessible parking are available. For more information call the church office at 828-693-9783 or visit www.stjohnflatrock.org.
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One of the oldest churches in the mountains, St. John in the Wilderness in Flat Rock, has opened a new trail system called The Trails of St. John located at 1895 Greenville Highway, approximately two miles south of downtown Hendersonville. The Trails of St. John is open to the public from dawn to dusk each day with information posted at kiosks on the property.
The expansive wooded setting in the heart of Flat Rock recently revealed long hidden historical and archaeological secrets. The new trails meander along the west side of Greenville Highway intersecting the nearly disappeared “Old Jerusalem Path” which connected the parsonage with the church in the 1800s.
These discoveries and the proximity to nearby Carl Sandburg National Historic Site suggested a ripe opportunity for a new trail system featuring the “New Jerusalem Path” at the Trails of St. John, now available to church and community members for recreation and contemplation. Reverend Joshua Stephens, church Rector, prays that “our community will find inspiration as well as rest and renewal here on this holy ground.”
Long before the railroad opened up Western North Carolina, Charlestonians endured a week-long carriage ride on rough dirt roads to escape the heat and disease of low country summers. They made Flat Rock their “Little Charleston of the Mountains” each May through September. In 1827, Charles and Susan Baring built their summer home and a chapel which became St. John in the Wilderness, the first Episcopal church in WNC, now on the National Register of Historic Sites. The church witnessed the tribulations of slavery and Civil War as well as the joys and sorrows of the last two centuries while growing and serving Flat Rock and the larger community.
For more information, visit the website: www.stjohnflatrock.org/trails.
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Learn about Flat Rock History: Tours Continue for St. John in the Wilderness
Exploring local history is available this summer on select Saturday mornings with tours of the Episcopal Church of St. John in the Wilderness in Flat Rock.
The guided tours of the church are led by church docents. The historically significant churchyard contains graves of distinguished political figures and local citizens as well as those of unnamed 19th-century enslaved people.
Tours start inside the Carriage Door entrance of the Church promptly at 11 a.m. and last about an hour. They are available on the first and third Saturdays of the month through September. October through December, tours will be held on the third Saturday only. There will be no rain dates and participants are encouraged to wear comfortable shoes.
“One of the joys of attending a beautiful holy place like St. John in the Wilderness is sharing it with our visitors. Our history is intertwined not just with the history of Flat Rock, but with that of coastal South Carolina, the home of our founders and earliest congregants,” said lead docent Polly Morrice.
The tours are free, but reservations must be made online through the church’s website, www.stjohnflatrock.org/tours. Space is limited for each tour.
“As docents, we strive to communicate the sweep of what happened and how it shaped us, the good and the sometimes painful,” Morrice reflected. “We do like to remind visitors that St. John is not a museum, but a vibrant, welcoming church. We’re still moving forward and welcome all who would like to make more history with us.”
The church is located at 1895 Greenville Highway. For more information call the church office at 828-693-9783 or visit www.stjohnflatrock.org.
St. John in the Wilderness History
In 1827, Charles Baring, a member of the Baring banking family of England, built a home in Flat Rock. He and his wife, Susan, wanted a summer place to escape the oppressive heat, humidity, and malaria of the South Carolina Low Country where they lived.
The Barings built a chapel on the property of their newly constructed home. Soon after it was built, the small wooden structure burned down in a woods fire. In 1833, work began on a second church built of handmade brick.
In August 1836, the Barings deeded their chapel to the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina, and 20 members of the Flat Rock “summer colony” of Low Country planters and merchants formed an Episcopal parish. In the 1890’s, St. John in the Wilderness became part of the Diocese of Western North Carolina; it is the oldest parish in that diocese.
With almost all its congregation traveling home to the Low Country after the summer season, the church operated mainly during that season for its first 120 years. So rapid was the growth of the Flat Rock summer community during the 1830’s and 1840’s, however, that the parish membership outgrew the small chapel. In the early 1850’s, the decision was made to rebuild the church, doubling its size. The English chapel-style structure that stands today is, with only a few minor modifications, the church that was completed in 1852.
The tours are free but advance reservations must be made online through the church’s website, www.stjohnflatrock.org/tours. Space is limited for each tour.
The historically significant churchyard contains graves of distinguished political figures and local citizens as well as those of unnamed 19th-century enslaved persons. “As docents, we strive to communicate the sweep of what happened and how it shaped us, the good and the sometimes painful,” Morrice reflected. “We do like to remind visitors that St. John is not a museum, but a vibrant, welcoming church. We’re still moving forward, and welcome all who would like to make more history with us.”
The church is located at 1895 Greenville Highway. For more information call the church office at 828-693-9783 or visit www.stjohnflatrock.org.
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