When the Vestry met in retreat on February 9, 2008, to envision the future of Grace Church five years from now, here, in narrative form, are the things we dreamed.
Grace Church will be a center within Norwalk and the surrounding locale for spiritual exploration, spiritual growth, spiritual transformation and spiritual redemption. We will be continually seeking ways to have the Gospel refine our worship and ministries to be of service to all regardless of where they may find themselves in their spiritual journeys with Christ. We will be reaching out beyond the confines of our sameness, our pains, our wants and needs to join in communion with those not like us who seek the kingdom of heaven.
We will use our building and grounds to host services that are relevant and beneficial to the community at large.
We will partner with the diocese to make our building totally self-sustaining, no longer funded from the operating budget. We will find ways to use the church building to realize revenue to offset the building operating and maintenance costs, without jeopardizing our not for profit status. We will have a staff person who recruits rentals, manages the traffic of rentals and other building uses in accord with our Gospel objectives, who is here for all major events and who knows the ins and outs of the heating, the crazy alarm boxes, the leaking downstairs and all our other building quirks, and who works in conjunction with a vibrant, energetic property committee committed to the Gospel imperatives in our vision.
We will continually search ourselves for assets we have that are not being put to use – Grace Church’s assets, and our own personal skills and talents. We will be realistic about what is not there and pray for those things to be supplied by a God who gives us everything we need right now to do what God wants us to be doing now, in this time and this place.
Our nave will be transformed to be able to be used for a multiplicity of purposes – from meals to blood drives to music schools’ recital hall. That means movable furniture.
In five years there will be three services on Sundays, one of them at 7:00 p.m. in the evangelical style of worship. They will serve more than 300 persons among them. We will have an active Sunday School of 50 or more children, with 25 teachers serving on rotation, engaging in stimulating, creative education under the direction of a full time Coordinator of Christian Education. There will be a strong component of stewardship in the children’s formation, year round, focusing on time and talent as well as treasure, exploring outreach and the community.
We will house a separate organization, which we found, a Center for Religious Inquiry, or a Center for Spiritual Inquiry, as an entry point for those who do not want a church but who do want to engage the deep spiritual and doctrinal questions of their lives. There will be late evening programs, beginning at 7:30 p.m. for young, single, working people who want a place to explore their deep questions about life and to encounter the Almighty.
We will also become a cultural center, housing an art gallery, hosting concerts, maybe even housing a small museum. We will host a flower show every year.
We will become a place for story hour every week, in the late afternoon, partnering with the library to make it known. It could be for children but doesn’t have to be exclusively for children. Storytellers tell stories to adults as well, and we would like to have plays read in this place. Puppet shows, and magic shows where the children become the magicians are part of this dream.
We would like to become the Welcome Wagon center of Norwalk.
We have the ability to house a home for gay youth who are homeless, with a housemother to look after them.
We envision all of you taking turns in rotation to be volunteer hosts and hostesses, day and night, so the building can be open and unlocked round the clock to those who need a place to pray, or just a place to rest. We envision people coming here into this room to eat their lunch while the organ is being played, or others in the congregation or the community give free noontime concerts. We intend that we should strengthen our partnerships with Families and Children’s Agency, and Covenant to Care for Children to spend time getting to know the hurts and hopes of their clients and structuring safe ways in which we and they can get to know one another face to face.
We know we have all we need to meet their needs, but we will not forget that the Jessie Ball DuPont fund, while it is not intended to do all our work for us, is there as well to supplement what we are able to do with community based initiatives that allow people to have fun as well as feel useful.
We envision the area in front of the front doors and the tower doors becoming a plaza with picnic tables and benches, and bicycle racks and potted plants that soften the fortress like appearance and don’t just make us look inviting but are inviting.
We envision strengthening and enhancing our relationship with the Haitian Baptist and Temple of Deliverance congregations, in conjunction with Families and Children’s and Covenant to Care for Children to provide a coming of age program and annual ceremony for youth in this community, especially boys, but some girls as well, who tend to look to gangs to fill this gap in our society.
Easter, Christmas and Mother’s Day are “must-attend” services, even for non-churched people. We envision having up to seven more of these kind of community services.
We host one of the Haitian Baptist churches of Norwalk here. But did you know there are Haitian Anglicans here who need connections with Episcopal Churches? Right now, Elena, the deacon at St. Paul’s on the Green is the liaison for their needs. And there is a huge Latino population that falls between the desire for a Roman Catholic expression and a Pentecostal one. Right now there is only one Episcopalian option for them, Iglesia Bettania, housed at Christ Church. We desire to partner with St. Paul’s and Christ Church to embody the best of the founding of Grace and Christ churches as offspring, in one way or another, of St. Paul’s, uniting us while retaining our individual expressions.
We want children on these grounds all the time. We envision year-round short Bible schools, in the park across the street, or in the church in cold or inclement weather, a Good Friday camp for children as a three hour event, the realization of one person’s dream in the near future for short term music camps for young children.
We are committed to pouring our life and our resources into this community for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
In five years we will be a congregation energized and motivated because we find that we are truly needed and useful at whatever age. And in five years, everyone in Norwalk will know that there is one Grace Episcopal Church in Norwalk, and to what denomination we belong.
God has given us all we need to do what God wants us to do in this place and time. Our building, our grounds, our off street parking, a strong, committed vestry, vibrant worship, location, dreams, and a people who make no hierarchical distinction between class or socioeconomic condition.
This is a huge vision. And it can come true. None of it is outside our grasp even in a shorter time than five years. Some of these things are in the works right now. Now, more welcoming and inviting parking lot signs, and a ramp for handicap access to the altar and choir area are being looked into and seriously planned. And today, to help us come closer together, we have retired from service the back three pews on both sides, until the day when we need them again.
No comments:
Post a Comment