Historical Context of our Discernment Process
John Lawyer
St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church was formally organized as a parish of the Diocese of Minnesota in 1888, which would take us backto the first Cleveland Administration. At that point the British Empire controlled a quarter of the world’s land surface and a third of its people; the Austro-Hungarian Empire ran from Poland to the Mediterranean; czars still ruled in Russia, and the Middle East was at peace under the firm hand of the Ottoman Empire. Our present building was dedicated in October 1914, two months after World War I broke out in Europe and those venerable empires began to crumble.
Since then we have seen the rise of the U.S. to world power, the birth and death of the Soviet Union, the creation of the State of Israel, the emergence of modern China, the advent of Elvis, the arrival of the Beetles, Facebook, Uber – the world keeps moving on. Through it all this unpretentious outpost of the Kingdom of God has been faithfully holding up the light of God’s love for the world from our quiet corner at Carter and Chelmsford while empires have come and gone. Wow!
So where are we today? We did our last major discernment about the building some 20 years ago. As a result we added the library, office area, classrooms, and developed the undercroft art gallery. It was something of a leap of faith at the time, but I can’t imagine our life together today without these spaces. About five years back we entered another discernment season around the nature of our life together out of which we developed the Way of Jesus.
Two years ago we commissioned a major survey of the physical plant, which showed us what needs we could expect to arise in the next five to ten years, with results presented as part of last year’s Generosity Campaign. It should be notedour present physical plant is in generally good shape and largely adequate to our needs. We face no emergencies, the sky is not falling, though the roof needs some routine attention. Finances are also in good order, and there is every reason to believe that this fall’s Generosity Campaign will be successful. More importantly we are debt-free, and you would be surprised to know how few churches in the Twin Cities can say that. In other words, we are building on success.
We thus thought it would be wise to take advantage of this breathing space to consider more broadly where we are as a congregation, what God seems to be calling us to in the coming years, and how our present building helps or perhaps limits that work. Our fundamental premise is that the building serves the mission, and is not an end in itself. Yes we need to keep the roof in good repair, yes we will need a new boiler sooner rather than later, and both are expensive items. But what else is going on? What is God calling us to in and through our building needs?
The current process started with an animated discussion at the Annual Meeting last year. A series of meetings and informal conversations continued across the spring, followed by three all-parish gatherings in early summer. These sessions identified several clear centers of energy, with the results summarized in the September 4 issue of Tidings. Our collective efforts will continue across the fall. We hope to have reached a reasonably clear common vision by early next year so we can begin to think about funding it in the spring.
John Lawyer,
Senior Warden