An Important Advent Letter from Amy

NEWS FROM OUR CO-RECTOR — December 13, 2022

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The Third Sunday of Advent 2022

Dear People of St. Francis:

Through the grace of God, St. Francis Episcopal Parish and Community Center is a new creation - a new Episcopal parish and community center – incarnated as one worshiping community in its current location for the first time in January 2020.

While the history of St. Francis as two separate parishes is deeply meaningful to many of us, in truth much of what St. Francis needs to focus on is caring for and tending this new community now.

The forming and re-forming of Christian community is holy and sacred work. Our Scriptures attest to this. The letters of St. Paul, the entire book of Acts… these are stories of early followers of Jesus finding their way as communities through navigating decisions about identity, money, resources, worship practices, and leadership transitions.

How shall we pray together? What shall we sing? How shall we care for one another? How will we pool our resources and use them for God’s purposes? What will we do when natural conflict arises? How will we proclaim and practice Gospel values in a culture that does not welcome such values?

Discerning faithfully how to be the Church in Rome, Ephesus, Thessalonica in the ancient Near East is not so different from discerning faithfully how to be the Church in Timonium in 2022 and beyond.

St. Francis - A New Community with Resources to Use and a Community to Nurture

How will St. Francis Episcopal Parish and Community Center proclaim and practice the Gospel now?

St. Francis has rich resources to support this discernment. Beautiful grounds and gardens that nurture body and spirit, a spacious building undergoing a kitchen renovation, worship spaces, gathering spaces for community both in-person and on-line.

And, through the sheer grace of God, St. Francis Episcopal Parish and Community Center was born in 2020 with three investment funds: the Heritage Fund, the Growth Fund and the Mission Fund.

The Heritage Fund is designed to hold principal for long-term investment and to use income for maintaining and caring for the building and grounds of St. Francis.

The Mission Fund is designed to use principal and income to support and sustain the mission of St. Francis. 10% of pledge income is designated for the Mission Fund, and St. Francis accepts gifts of any size to the Mission Fund to support continued resources for God’s mission in the world through St. Francis.

The Growth Fund is designed to use principal and income to support congregational vitality, leadership development and strategic growth of St. Francis, with the expectation that this fund will be depleted within five years.

The use of these monies - these gifts from God for St. Francis to use for the mission of God in Timonium today and into the future - is for the development and growth of this new community’s proclamation and practice of Gospel love of neighbor and justice and mercy.

You all have begun to see and taste the fruits of this work and experienced what they make possible when combined with your gifts of money, your pledges of support, and additional funding from outside grants, such as the one making possible the kitchen renovation which will enable St. Francis under the leadership of the Food Ministry Team to feed more people and build closer community ties and relationships.

Funds from the Growth and Mission Funds have made the following possible:

-- the hiring of Molly Phelps as Community Organizer;

-- the hiring of Sara Yoe as assistant Rector of Children, Youth and Families;

-- the outside program evaluation of legacy community center programs;

-- a portion of the outside audit of St. Francis Episcopal Parish and Community Center financial operations;

-- a review of current technology usage and assessment of technology needs to meet and proclaim the Gospel and care for one another, including but not limited to: cameras and livestreaming capacity, appropriate and functional computers for staff, a functioning database for communications and tracking of financial gifts, other software, and more

-- support and nurture of ministries that come out of deep listening to the mission field now: hunger and food ministry, including indoor choice food pantry, Welcome Table Wednesdays, relationship development and community building, educational justice in the wake of COVID-19 disruption; and care and stewardship of creation and environmental justice in the face of climate change.

I give thanks for the abundance of gifts and resources that St. Francis Episcopal Parish and Community Center holds and stewards and uses for the mission of God.

I give thanks for the abundance of ways that you all give of your money and resources to co-create with God this new community of Jesus followers now and into the future.

In this season of Advent, as we prepare as a community for the birth of Jesus among us and in us, may we marvel again at the newness that God promises through the prophet Isaiah: I am about to do a new thing. Now it springs forth - do you not perceive it? (Isaiah 43:19) Our God is always making things new, bringing new life, stirring up new energy and power among us and in us.

Peace,

Amy

The Rev. Dr. Amy Slaughter Myers, Co-Rector