When people say, “The church really ought to be…” I take notes.
Next week we begin construction on showers at church. The idea for the showers arose out of listening to the community and trying to be the church so many prophetic voices are calling it to be.
As a church, we are trying to address the housing crisis through advocacy and action. We try to be loud, a prophetic witness in community.
But we also provide actual shelter. We house multiple people at the church.
Our vision is to continue to shelter people and expand our sheltering.
Showers are essential to making our shelter truly habitable and life-giving.
Many people will use these showers, from all walks of life.
We are also welcoming and sanctuary congregation. Given the very real likelihood that immigrants will be targeted in our political landscape in the foreseeable future, preparing to be an even better sanctuary is an additional reason to build showers. Like many churches we already have kitchens and bathrooms. Adding laundry and showers makes us more of a “home.”
We’ve raised close to 80% of the total cost of the project. We are so close to raising the full $150,000 needed to complete it.
This Holy Week, it is my hope that neighbors, friends, and members will be responsive to our appeal and help us complete the final push to fully fund the showers.
If you have the capacity, would you consider a significant gift today to help us build these showers?
As we prepare for Holy Week, I’m reminded of the phrase I’ve heard a lot over my life, that we are “Easter people.” Typically that has meant we live in hope, mindful of the solidarity Christ showed humanity and all of creation in and through the cross, mindful also that for Christ death was not the end, in Christ death is not the end.
Instead, we are showered in God’s grace, participants through the waters of baptism in Christ’s death and resurrection, alive now together as a new kind of people. Easter people.
Increasingly I’ve become convinced, as I listen to the prophetic voice of many calling the church to be “the church,” that although Easter flowers and egg hunts and breakfasts and worship are wonderful and inspiring and fun, the authenticity of the church as an Easter people is grounded in how it cares for the people Christ came to serve and love.
Let us make this a Holy Week indeed, bearing witness to the life, death and resurrection of Christ in how we live together. Let’s build these showers and continue to meet our neighbors’ needs.
In Christ,
Pastor Clint