A Note From Our Stewardship Committee

Dear St. Peter’s Family, 

It has been a most unusual 6 months since we’ve gathered together at St. Peter’s on Ashland Terrace. We’ve learned to navigate a new world with church and Sunday school and even coffee hour via virtual platforms like Zoom and YouTube. Ms. Linda and Ms. Lauren created a take-home Vacation Bible School and there have been other regular opportunities for the kids and youth (Thank you, Kelsey!) to stay connected via the blessing of modern technology. While we’ve missed celebrating the Eucharist, we’ve been introduced, either again or for the first time, to the liturgy of Morning Prayer, which was long the most practiced form of liturgy in regular Sunday worship in the Episcopal Church.
 
Father Quinn and Deacon John have been the steady faces leading our worship, while Tim and a number of choir members have recorded music for our virtual gatherings, and many have volunteered to read the lessons. Quinn, Lauren, Kelsey, and others have helped us experience the beauty and simplicity of Compline with three weekly evening online offerings. CREATE has continued its good work online too, and we have been encouraged to donate needed supplies for our neighborhood Dupont Elementary School. The Women’s Group has continued to provide an opportunity, Hollywood Squares style, for women in the parish to stay connected, and the Centering Prayer members have supported each other through online meetings as well. And, thanks to porches and patios, Father Quinn has even visited many of us right at home, nurturing the personal relationships that are vital to our lives as Christians.
 
In this unprecedented time, and as we slowly, carefully begin to see what safe in-person church can look like in a pre-vaccine pandemic world, we have been living an important reality—the building is not the church, of course, WE ARE THE CHURCH. Despite the uncertainties of the pandemic, we are continuing to live out our call to be the church in the world through prayer, worship, and support for others and one another. By staying connected, and through actions of service, we continue to BE THE CHURCH.
 
And so, as we gather this fall to learn yet another new form of worship (outside, masked, and socially distanced), we celebrate the fact that we, all of us together, are the church. Come what may—pre-vaccine, post-vaccine, pre-election, post-election—we will continue to serve God and our neighbors in the parish, down the street, and throughout the world in ways both big and small. Your treasure, represented by your financial commitment to St. Peter’s, provides the resources that help make all the ways we serve possible. Please go here to complete a digital pledge form or you may choose to fill out the paper pledge card included in your gift bag or mailed to you. On Sunday, November 15, we will have a gathering to collect and acknowledge your pledges and bless them all as we move forward in a year of anticipation, of hope, and of continuing on, because WE ARE THE CHURCH whatever the circumstances.
 
Thank you for your prayerful consideration.
 
Faithfully yours,                   
 
Terri Williams                       
Stewardship Co-Chair    

Meredith Rivers
Stewardship Co-Chair

Matt Rivers
Stewardship Co-Chair