"What Might God Be Calling Us To Do With Our Building? 

Dear Friends of St. Matthew's:

We were surprised and pleased by the amount of interest in our building that emerged at the 2016 Annual Meeting, including the desire some of you expressed to "go green."
We have been praying and thinking about how best to follow up, and think it is time for a season of deep discernment. While as followers of the Way of Jesus we are engaged in ongoing discernment about God's leading of our faith community, every three years or so your vestry has found it helpful to do some in-depth discernment with you around a particular question, challenge, or opportunity.

While thanks to the help of many volunteers and your financial generosity we have kept our church, parish hall, and classrooms well maintained, our church is 100 years old. In the next five years we will need to come up with about $180,000 to maintain it as is. We are at an important juncture, and we need your help! We would like to gain more clarity about what God is calling us to do and be at this particular moment in our life as faith community, and how the building fits into this vision.

In order to have time and space to do true, agenda-free discernment, we would like to divide our communal discernment process into Phase A and Phase B. During Phase A the question we will ponder prayerfully together is "knowing we are followers of the Way of Jesus, what might God be calling us to do with our building?"

What we learn from you/hear during Phase A will determine Phase B of our discernment process and who will participate (in addition to members of St. Matthew's). If, for example, we hear repeatedly that God might be calling us to share the building with another faith community, nonprofit, or group with a specific ministry focus, we will then ask you what faith communities, nonprofits, and other groups should participate in Phase B of the discernment process.  

 

Each discernment session will include prayer, dwelling in scripture, and time to ponder the question listed above in italics, and will last no more than 1 ½ hours. Opportunities to participate include:  

  • Sunday June 26 at 11 am (after church),
  • Wednesday, June 29 at 1:15 pm (right after the Wednesday Eucharist and lunch),
  • Monday, July 18 at 7 pm.

All of these sessions will take place in the St. Matthew's Library. If you are unable to participate in one of these sessions please either post your feedback on The City (the italicized question listed above will be posted there) or email your feedback to Blair Pogue and she will forward it to the vestry.

Notes will be taken at each discernment session and major themes, ideas, and emphases will be communicated to the entire congregation via The City, Tidings, emails, and Sunday announcements.

Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

With gratitude for you the people of St. Matthew's, and the opportunity to participate in God's generous life with you,
John Lawyer, Senior Warden, Judy Johnson, Junior Warden,
Ron Matross, Heidi Gordon, Barrett Fisher, Yusuf Shalita, Sherry Latty, and Bernon Lee (vestry members), and Blair Pogue (rector) 
 
Please share your news and photos with us: tidings@stmatthewsmn.org 

Visit our website for the prayer list, calendar and sermons