Our adult Christian formation during Lent will be a book discussion group on the book The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto" by Tavis Smiley and Cornel West.  The book focuses on poverty in the United States and proposes concrete ways to address it.  It also challenges the ways we think about poverty in our country.  We will be using a study guide prepared by a team of priests from our diocese, including Thomas Brown, the rector at Epiphany Winchester, a parish in our deanery.  The class will begin on Monday, February 25, and will continue for four consecutive Monday evenings.  We will meet from 7-8 p.m.  To sign up for the class, call the parish office, see Rev. Scottie, or sign up on the sheet outside the sanctuary.

This book was suggested by Bishop Thomas Shaw for congregations around the diocese to read together during Lent.  In part, the idea of diocesan-wide discussions on poverty--and on poverty as a kind of violence--came from the murder of Jorge Fuentes, a young man from St. Stephen's Parish in the South End, who was shot to death as he walked the family dog.  Bishop Shaw, who knew Jorge from the time he was a young boy, has commissioned a task force to identify concrete ways of addressing poverty and violence; the book group was suggested for congregations to do together as the task force forms action plans.

Copies of the book are available for purchase in the office, for ten dollars.  Several parishioners have reported that the book can be checked out in the library as well.  We hope you can join us.

Chuck and Ginny Barthel, Dorothy Brown, Christine Camper, George Chace, Betty Fraser, Bernice Herrick, Allan Johnson, Deborah Katt-Lloyd, Lisa Kimball, Robert Knoettner, Mary Anna Krause, Tony Lopes, Carole Lutton, Maureen Manzelli, Jim McCallum,  Lynn McDonald, Rheta C. McKinley, Mike Morgan, Sara O'Brien, Rhonda O'Keefe, Carolyn Poor, Eleanor Schott, Kevin Smith, Ron Smith, Anita Webb and Ashley Westerman.