by Susan Fazio, Senior Warden
The St. Stephen’s and The Vine Requiem or Renaissance team met on Saturday, June 14 from 10 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. with other teams from across the Diocese.
We began with prayer and a beautiful rendition of “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” led by The Rev. Jared Moore from Hope Episcopal Church in Town & Country on guitar and vocals.
Next came a prayer walk in our neighborhood where we had opportunities to engage with and pray for our neighbors.
We also participated in a building listening exercise where we walked around our building, inside and out, in an effort to see it as a newcomer or stranger would see it, and we were asked to ponder the question “What is our building saying to people who visit it?”
Discussions and exercises followed on holy hospitality, community engagement and reimagining mission, being a holy presence in the neighborhood, and walking gently through change. These are all things we can work on to further develop our outreach ministries of The Vine.
At. St. Stephen’s and The Vine, we had identified our food ministries as our “ministry of passion.” This means that moving forward we will continue to focus our time and resources on supporting and developing our food pantry and Clay Cafe’ meals.
Our final Requiem or Renaissance meeting will be in September and by then we will have a plan in place to present to the congregation. In the meantime, if you have ideas on how to better support and develop our food ministries please reach out to a member of our team which includes: Deacon Loretta Go, Susan Fazio, John Kavanaugh, Sandy Schmidt, Ginger Simmons, and Laura Watt.
Learn more about the Requiem or Renaissance program from the Diocese of Missouri.