St. John’s is an energetic, joyful, mission-minded parish growing in diversity, depth of faith and engagement with the world around us. We are a big tent: Black, white and bi-racial, LGBTQI+, gender-diverse, progressive and conservative, young and not-so-young. It’s rare these days, but we truly do aim to stay in loving relationship with one another, despite the tensions that sometimes accompany this kind of diversity. We don’t always do it perfectly, but we try.
Together we cultivate a life of faith and hope, practice hospitality and inclusive community, and inspire all to grow as agents of Christ-like love, generosity and justice in the world.
During the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, like everyone else, St. John’s learned a ton of new digital ministry skills and found new ways to worship, gather for daily prayer, learn and enjoy fellowship in cyberspace, but one of the greatest gifts of this pandemic year was reimagining the creative potential of our church yard and other spaces beyond our physical church grounds.
We extended our 10-week Summer Nutrition Program and took it to a street corner to serve more than 100 nutritious meals per week, along with fresh produce, home-made reusable masks and take-home casseroles, every week since March 2020 – and we haven’t stopped yet.
We hosted mid-week outdoor worship under the River Birch trees when the weather allowed. We put together a drive-thru animal blessing for St. Francis Day and tied colored ribbons around posts in the breezeway to remember pets who had died. We put together an “all saints” scavenger hunt for our children who searched for St. Teresa of Avila under the bird feeders in our Native Teaching Garden and found St. Teresa of Calcutta nestled into the lilies by the parking lot.
Our columbarium – with its marble-faced niches for cremains – is formed around a circular area of grass and natural landscaping that cried out to be used in ways we’d never imagined before. On All Saints' Day, we lined the columbarium with luminaria and pillar candles, each white bag decorated by our parishioners to remember a fellow parishioner, loved-one, saint or notable figure for whom the whole world grieved last year, and we invited folks to come that night to light a candle, walk the circle and pray (while masked and six feet apart, of course). (Pictured) During Advent, we turned our circular columbarium into a garden-sized Advent Wreath, constructing four large life-sized fabric candles to mark the weeks, and, again, each week we gathered there to walk the circle and pray. During Lent, the columbarium became a labyrinth, and we hosted a COVID-19 Memorial for the Wake Forest community there. At Easter, it became a hunting ground for Easter eggs.
As one parishioner quipped: “We learned this year that the columbarium isn’t just for dead people anymore!” In a year that was dominated by death at every turn, this is how we walked in the light of resurrection.
- By the Rev. Sarah Phelps
