Tag Archives: Grace Church

Disruption and the Call to Mission: Rector’s Annual Report for 2022

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Whether or not you have an account on Twitter, you’ve probably heard something about the turmoil in the company and on the platform since its sale. I’ve been on twitter since 2011 and over the years, I have taken advantage of the ability to connect with diverse people across the world and with varied interests. I have gotten to know Episcopalians across the country and Anglicans all over the world. I’ve been able to connect with thoughtful Christians from other traditions, with academic communities like historians and religious studies scholars. I have learned a great deal, received and offered support in challenging times. In spite of the disinformation and toxicity often prevalent there, I have also used it as a primary source of news, especially as events unfolded in real time. Like many others, I am worried about the future of the platform, and of those communities of which I was a part. Will I lose touch with many of those people? Will the knowledge I gained from them no longer be available to me? Will I stay, or like so many others, will I seek out different means of making connection, learning and growing as Twitter changes and perhaps collapses?

It strikes me that there are lessons for the church in the collapse of Twitter. For many of us on the platform, we were active in spite of the challenges it presented—the racism, the trolls, the bullying, the lies. In and amongst all of that, there emerged places of joy, fun, support, wisdom. And we feel the uncertainty and the loss as we wonder whether other venues might offer similar opportunities for relationship, connection, joy, and learning. Likewise, we are beginning to discover that in the wake of all the disruption caused by the pandemic, the church, Grace Church can continue to be a place of spiritual sustenance and deep, meaningful relationships, that we continue to attract newcomers who are seeking connection with others and with Christ, and that there are new opportunities to reach out into the community and the world to share the Good News.

I would like to express my immense gratitude to Grace’s staff—first and foremost to Parish Administrator Christina. We all know how hard she works and her deep commitment to Grace’s ministry and to its members. Her administrative skills and her deep knowledge of Grace make my job much easier. Our musicians, Berkley and Mark contribute so much to our worship and to our congregation. Their flexibility and creativity over the last years have helped to make our worship a means of encountering Jesus Christ, whether in-person or remote. We have learned over the course of the pandemic the importance of continuing to offer a live-stream experience, and our tech team, led by James Waldo with the assistance of Steve, Marshall, and Clay, help us connect with our members who are unable or uncomfortable attending in-person worship. Mary Ann Nannassy, who is working in the kitchen today, has helped to build community by organizing coffee hour each week and providing space for relationship-building. George Decker, who came on board this year, and some of you are meeting for the first time today has been an invaluable addition to staff as our Communications Coordinator. Vikki Enright and her team of volunteers continue to feed the hungry through our Food Pantry. Her hard work, resilience, and adaptability have led the pantry through these difficult years and she is a powerful witness to our church’s commitment to outreach and to serving the most vulnerable in our city and county.

I would also like to extend a word of thanks to our clergy. Deacon Carol continues to support my ministry and the people of Grace in countless ways, small and large. Her pastoral gifts help us all to keep connected and her contributions to our worship are often noticed by me only when she is away, as she has been several times this past year supporting Bishop Lee’s visitations to other parishes. John Francis has brought energy and creativity to our team. The relationships he has developed in the past have brought new experiences and new visibility to Grace, through the visit last month of Shane Claiborne, and on Friday night of Bill Miller. With the help of volunteers, he has successfully restarted our Christian Formation program for children. I look forward to supporting his ministry and growth in the coming year.

Among the transitions that we will experience this year is David Lyon’s stepping away from active leadership in parish administration. A Vestry member, then treasurer for three years during an especially difficult period, then Senior Warden for two, and in 2022 a return gig as Treasurer. I think we can all say, “Well, done, Good and faithful servant”—and that he deserves his rest from the labors and spreadsheets. Tom Felhofer has served as Assistant Treasurer for the last year and will be moving into the Treasurer spot.

At the heart of our common life and ministry are, the people of Grace. Our lay leadership continues to excel. I’m deeply grateful for Jane Hamblen’s leadership as Senior Warden. Her wisdom, sensitivity, and attention to detail complement my own strengths and make up for some of my weaknesses. As junior warden, Kara Pagano has put her unique stamp on the position and on Grace. She has led the effort to create a Parish Life Committee and to offer opportunities outside of Sunday morning for people to connect with each other. I would like to thank outgoing vestry members: John Johnson and Mike Edwards who have helped to lead the parish over the last years, asking challenging questions, offering the wisdom and insight of many years of work in complex organizations outside of the church. Thanks as well to Suzy Buenger, who was elected to fill a partial term and could have stepped down but agreed to run for a full three-year term. 

There are challenges ahead. As detailed in the report from the Roof Committee, we are looking at a significant fundraising and construction project in the next few years. We don’t know exactly how much time we have but the wise course forward is likely to move ahead now rather than wait. We have the expertise in the congregation and connections in the community to help us achieve our goals, to hand down to future generations a structurally-sound building and to ensure that our beautiful church will remain in excellent condition as it approaches the 200th anniversary of its construction. 

We are discerning what God is calling us to in the coming years. The departure of the men’s shelter at the beginning of the pandemic left not only empty space in our building but also meant that a ministry at the heart of our identity, and our standing in the community left our hearts empty as well. The conversations that have occurred over the last month with widespread congregational participation will help us listen to the Holy Spirit and discern new opportunities. The changing fabric of the city, new patterns of work and life caused by the pandemic, the deep racial and economic inequalities, and the challenges of affordable housing are issues shared by many cities throughout the country and world. How can Grace Church be model of Christ’s love in the heart of the city?

One way we do that is through our space. Once again, we opened our doors to the community on this past election day. Thanks to the spontaneous efforts of a group led by Steve Webster, we offered Grace as a place of spiritual respite and comfort on a very stressful day. Even if only a few people came through ours that day, it was an important witness and gift to the community. We don’t know how many lives are touched by our presence on the square. The gardens, now expertly overseen by John Andrews are a place of welcome for all.  

I recently had a conversation with Christian Overland, Director and CEO of the Wisconsin Historical Society during which he updated me about plans for the new history museum. They hope to begin construction a year from now. That project promises to bring new life to the top of State St. and our block of N. Carroll and we will be involved as planning for the museum proceeds.

In your Annual Meeting packet is information about Land Acknowledgement. To talk about our property without reference to its history before the lots were purchased in 1847 is to erase thousands of years of earlier human presence on the land and the forced removal of the Ho-Chunk. As you know, over the last two years we have been learning about Native American history and about the Native American communities of Wisconsin. That work continues as we will welcome Mark Charles, co-author of Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery for a series of events in January. We are also exploring what sort of restorative actions we might take that would support the thriving of Native Americans in Wisconsin.

Another area where I have spent considerable time and energy over the last year and will continue to demand my attention in the coming year is the Wisconsin Episcopal Trialogue. The three dioceses of Wisconsin are discerning the future of the Episcopal Church in this state. I am helping to lead one of the task forces involved in these conversations: The Parish and Regional Engagement Task Force. Considerable work has occurred behind the scenes and in the next few months, much more information will emerge. A decision on whether to move forward on re-unification will probably come some time in the spring of 2023. If the decision is to move ahead, votes will be taken at the three conventions next fall. 

We may mourn what we lost over the past three years; we may struggle to understand all that is taking place in the world around us, we may worry about what is to come. I think it’s appropriate that our Annual Meeting takes place on Christ the King or Reign of Christ Sunday. Just as it brings to an end the liturgical year and looks ahead to the Season of Advent, it is also a reminder that Grace Church, is held in God’s hand, under the reign of Christ, that whatever might come, Christ will continue to reign. May we go forward into the new year in the sure and certain faith that Christ reigns, and may we commit ourselves and Grace to work toward the coming of his reign in our lives and in our city.

The End of an Era: The departure of the men’s shelter from Grace

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The End of an Era. What is God’s call for Grace Church now?

The news reports this week made public what had been clear to many of us since the beginning of the pandemic. The men’s homeless shelter that has been at Grace since 1984-5 will have a new permanent home funded by the City of Madison and Dane County. While the announced location fell through today, the City and County remain committed to finding a new, permanent location.

When the lockdown began in mid-March, Porchlight the agency operating the shelter, the city, and the county scrambled to find a suitable alternative. On March 30, shelter operations were moved to the Warner Park Community Center on the north side. The close quarters of Grace and the overflow shelters at St. John’s Lutheran and First Methodist simply couldn’t provide adequate space for social distancing and for the health and sanitation protocols that were necessary to prevent widespread infection. Within a few weeks, it became clear that the space at Warner Park was much better suited for shelter operations and in spite of the transportation challenges, both staff and guests preferred the new facility.

As time went on and the pandemic continued, the possibility that shelter operations could return to the downtown churches became more and more unlikely. The city began seeking alternative locations for a permanent shelter and we at Grace began thinking about a future without the shelter. The announcement this week brought this period of uncertainty to an end.

There’s an enormous irony here. I have been at Grace since 2009 and for much of that time, my ministry has involved work with homeless people and around advocacy. Some years before I arrived, efforts to find a new location foundered on neighborhood opposition and political apathy. In the early 2010s, it took several years and several failed attempts to find a suitable location for a day resource center; a process that culminated with the opening of the Beacon in October, 2018.

At Grace, we had begun talking about the need for a new shelter. After extensive renovations funded by Epic in 2010, the shelter again was beginning to show signs of wear and tear. Beyond that, the small size of the facility, its minimal accessibility to people with mobility issues, the fact that guests were forced to wait in the elements before entry, were ongoing problems that no amount of money could solve. For several years, we had conversations internally and approached downtown partners, city and county staff, and elected officials about the inadequacy of the current facility and the need for others to step up and take responsibility for solving the problem.

Our conversations were always cordial and supportive but they were also inconclusive. The former mayor asked us when we entered his office, “What’s your deadline?” Everyone agreed that a new shelter was desperately needed; but no one seemed willing to expend the political capital, or the time and energy to see it through. Finally, we began to work on our own. With the help of an outside consultant, we gathered a group of advocates, elected officials, and downtown stakeholders to begin the process of working toward a new shelter. The group had its first meeting in November 2019. In March 2020, the pandemic arrived in Madison.

The pandemic accomplished what we couldn’t. It demonstrated the inadequacy of the facility and raised to the level of emergency the urgency of developing an alternative. I’m enormously grateful to local governments, to the mayor and County Executive, to alders and supervisors, to county, and especially to city staff who have been working on this. A process I anticipated would take at least five years has reached a first, important milestone in a little over six months.

This does mark the end of an era. We received notice a few weeks ago that Porchlight would be terminating its lease as of the end of 2020. A relationship that has continued for thirty-five years with Porchlight and its predecessor agencies is coming to an end. Our identity as the church with the shelter is also coming to an end. Even as we celebrate the new beginning and look forward to a new purpose-built facility, we also take great pride in those people whose vision first welcomed the shelter to Grace, and the volunteers who supported it over the decades—the thousands who prepared and served meals over the years. For us at Grace, homeless ministry became part of our core identity; it attracted members and it shaped us as a congregation. We did more than welcome homeless people to the shelter; we welcomed them to our services and to our fellowship activities.

The shelter’s departure comes at a time of crisis in Madison’s downtown. The pandemic and protests have transformed our neighborhood. The downtown with its many restaurants, shops, the vibrant arts community, all have been devastated over the last six months. Despair and fear are palpable as one walks the empty sidewalks. 

Grace Church has been a presence on Capitol Square for over 175 years; our building dates from 1858. We have seen a lot over that time and the square has seen enormous change. This is a time of great uncertainty as we don’t know what life will look life after the pandemic. We don’t know whether many of the changes we have seen will be permanent. But as we look into that uncertain future and ponder what Grace’s identity and mission might be in the years to come, we must respond faithfully and creatively to the opportunities that present themselves. The departure of the shelter frees us to imagine new possibilities for our spaces and to explore new ways of connecting with our neighbors, including homeless people who will continue to live among us downtown.

Coincidentally, I had organized a meeting for tonight of our mission/outreach committee and our newly re-formed Master Plan Steering Committee, to begin a conversation about future ministry and mission at Grace and how our space might contribute that work. The public announcement of a new location underscores the importance of these conversations.

Reflections on a decade of shared ministry 2: Homelessness, Part 1

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Among the things that attracted me to Grace Church was the presence of the men’s shelter and the possibility of re-engaging with ministry and advocacy around homelessness. Back in the 1980s when I was studying for the MDiv, I did my field education at First Baptist Church of Boston (this was long before I became Episcopalian). Part of my work there was to help the congregation think about how it might engage the growing homeless population in Boston’s Back Bay and to make connections with other churches and social service agencies who were responding to people experiencing homelessness. As my journey took me away from ministry and toward academics, and as we moved away from urban Boston, those experiences faded into the background and I was interested in seeing how things had changed in the 25 years that had passed since my time at First Baptist.

A couple of months after arriving at Grace and after learning about policies and procedures at the shelter and beginning to explore the larger context of homelessness, service providers, and advocacy in Madison, I made a phone call to an old friend back in Boston. Jim had been a classmate of mine at Harvard Divinity School and with another classmate had founded a shelter in the basement of a Harvard Square church while students. 25 years later, he was still running a shelter, this one in another church on the other side of Cambridge Common. I described to him what I had learned and said that it seemed like Madison was in a time-warp, that service providers, government, and advocates were doing and saying the sorts of things that we saw in Boston in the early 80s. Jim confirmed my suspicions and shared with me what he was doing in the shelter he operated and what a more humane system, focused on the dignity and improving the lives of the guests might look like.

In February 2010, 6 months after I arrived at Grace, an article describing conditions in the shelter at Grace was published in Isthmus.It unleashed a storm of controversy at Grace and among supporters and staff of Porchlight and homeless advocates. It caught the eye of people at Epic Software and eventually Epic funded a long-overdue and much-needed renovation of the facility.  They upgraded the kitchen, showers, repainted, replaced the flooring, provided new bunks and storage lockers. It was an transformation.

What it couldn’t was solve the underlying problems of the shelter space. It was and remains a church basement. It is minimally accessible for disabled people (a jerry-rigged system allows access via wheelchair). It isn’t large enough to accommodate the number of men seeking shelter there, so every night, a group walk from there several blocks to St. John’s Lutheran Church on E. Washington Ave., where they sleep on mats on the floor. In the winter, First Methodist Church also serves as an overflow shelter on weeknights. All guests pass through Grace for intake and the evening meal, returning for breakfast as well. When the doors of the shelter open in the evening, the men line up in Grace’s courtyard, where they wait unprotected from the weather.

The shelter came to Grace in the early 1980s on a one-year, temporary basis and has remained there because of complacency and the difficulty of developing alternative solutions. Over the years of my ministry, I have struggled with my own and Grace’s role in all of this. I have made mistakes as I seek to advocate for improved facilities while supporting the important work that takes place here. I have been the target of neighbors’ and community members’ ire because of the presence of the shelter at Grace and also the target of advocates’ anger and criticism because of the conditions in the shelter and the treatment of its guests by Porchlight staff.

But what has been most heartbreaking for me are the memories of the tragedies. One Christmas Eve early on in my ministry, I came out of the early service to find churchgoers standing around a homeless man who had been dropped off from a hospital stay. He was immobile, having seizures on the sidewalk. Shelter staff refused to help because he wasn’t ambulatory. We called 911 and when the ambulance and police came, they told us that while they would take him to the ER, it was very likely he would be brought back here that night.

Then there was the Polar Vortex of 2014, when a man died on the steps of Grace’s tower entry. He had come in to the shelter in -20 temperatures, and with a companion was walking over to one of the overflow shelters. He collapsed and died of heart failure. His death was a tragedy, but it also should have demonstrated to everyone the inadequacy of a system in which necessary and permanent shelters were labeled “overflow.”

You can read all of my blog posts on homelessness by clicking here. They are in reverse chronological order. If you’re interested in how my views have changed (if they have changed, you should start at the very beginning). I will continue my reflections on the last ten years in later posts, including the long struggle for a day resource center and what the future may hold.

Walking the Stations of the Cross in Downtown Madison, April 7, 2017

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At the entrance of the Dane County Jail

This is the fourth (I think) year we’ve walked the Stations of the Cross in Downtown Madison. It’s a strange, uncomfortable experience in that for me, I’m walking streets I walk nearly every day as I go to and from work or grab lunch or run errands. This year, as in past years, I encountered familiar faces as I walked, among them two elected officials of county and city government.

This year, in addition to the usual distractions of city traffic and people going about their business, we had to compete with construction on Capitol Square and with the Solidarity Singers, who seemed to be a larger group than they had been in recent weeks.

To be honest, I wasn’t really looking forward to today’s event. For whatever reason, my spiritual focus has been elsewhere, and my energy diverted to other matters. If it hadn’t concluded at Grace, I doubt whether I would have participated.

I was surprised how quickly I was caught up in the experience. It wasn’t just the familiar stations, and the meditations that connected Jesus’ suffering with the suffering on the streets of Madison. It was also about making Christ’s suffering present on these streets, at the door of the Dane County Jail, opposite the Wisconsin Veterans’ Museum, and at the steps of Grace where a homeless person died in the winter of 2014, and where so many homeless people have sought refuge over the last thirty years, and hungry people have been fed.

We do so much to protect ourselves from the knowledge and experience of human suffering on the streets of our city. The homeless and panhandlers are harassed and shoved out of sight. The inhumanity of the Dane County Jail is at its worst several stories above the room in the City County building where Madison’s Common Council and the Dane County Board of Supervisors deliberate.

To walk the way of the cross in Downtown Madison is to bear witness to the blood on our streets and in our city. It is also to see in that suffering and pain, the suffering and pain of Jesus Christ.

Today I realized that our little Stations of the Cross, walked as we’ve done it every year on the Friday before Palm Sunday, has become an essential part of my preparation for the drama of Holy Week.

 

For background on the devotion of the Stations of the Cross and how we do it here in Madison, follow this link.

Movement on the homeless shelter?

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The long-awaited and overdue feasibility study commissioned by the City of Madison has finally been completed. Architects are proposing several alternatives for using a city-owned property on S. Fairchild St. for a permanent men’s homeless shelter. You can read about their ideas here.

We’ve been waiting for this report for months and its completion is another step in what might be an exciting and very different future both for homeless men in Madison and for Grace Church. The Men’s Drop-In Shelter came to Grace in 1984 on a one-year trial basis and we’ve hosted ever since. Over the years, there have been numerous attempts to find alternative locations and better solutions, but nothing ever came of them.

A recent series of articles in the Madison State Journal have provided a comprehensive and troubling overview of Madison’s homeless problems and the inadequacies of our shelter system. Those articles are available here.

This is truly a wonderful opportunity but there are significant challenges still to come. The neighborhood meeting on Monday night will be an opportunity to hear about the possibilities and to provide feedback to the architects, city staff, and elected leaders. Perhaps the greatest challenge will be financial. While the city is willing to provide the property, there are no public funds available for renovation of the space. At this point, we don’t have any idea of what those costs might be, and whether the private sector can produce the funds necessary.

Nonetheless, I am optimistic about the future. We have found a location that could work which is an important step forward and in conversations and meetings I’ve been with other stakeholders, there seems to be a great deal of excitement about the possibility of a new shelter designed for our current needs.

But that leaves a final question. What does all this mean for Grace Church. We have hosted the shelter for over thirty years, and over that time, ministry to and with the homeless has become part of our identity. We have created enormous good will throughout the community because of the shelter’s presence here, and when there is negative publicity, we suffer as well.

If and when the shelter moves, the effects of that move on Grace will be significant. We will have to think about how we might continue to engage in ministry with the homeless; how we might continue to support the work of the shelter and its current operator Porchlight. Beyond that, Grace will have to discern anew what the best uses of our space might be and how best we might share Christ’s love with our neighbors. Those conversations will be exciting as well and I look forward to them.

 

Proclaiming the Year of the Lord’s Favor: A Sermon for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany, 2016

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As I’ve walked around our building the past few weeks, trying to negotiate my way around painters, tilers, electricians, and carpenters, I’ve noticed that my own feelings of anticipation and excitement are growing. I’ve heard others express similar feelings. Everything we’ve worked so hard for over the last years, all of the meetings, the conversations, the fund raising, the visioning, all of it has brought us to this point. It seems like the closer we get to completion—2 or 3 weeks away, the more our excitement is spiking as we look forward to taking ownership of and living into our newly-renovated and expanded spaces. We’re almost there.

At the same time, as I walk around Grace, I notice all the things we didn’t do, the product of decisions we made to limit the scope of our project to keep within our financial resources. In a way, I think that’s a positive thing, because even as we celebrate and enjoy all that we’ve done, we will have some very visible reminders of the work that remains ahead, the work we have to do in the years to come. We won’t be able to sit back and relax. Continue reading →

Abiding in the presence of Christ: A Sermon for Proper 16, Year B

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Today is a historic day for Grace Church. As we break ground officially on our renovation project, it’s important to acknowledge all of the hard work and vision that have brought us to this moment. We’ve been working on this for three years. As I’ve said before, there have been countless meetings, hours and hours of conversation and debate. Almost everyone involved at Grace has participated in some way in the work as we’ve developed, revised, revised, and revised again the Master Plan, saw our Giving Light, Giving Hope capital campaign to its successful conclusion, and helped us prepare our facilities for construction and the move. Continue reading →

A Holy Place for Compassion and Rest: A Sermon for Proper 11, Year B

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After hearing today’s readings, you might suspect that I selected them for the occasion, as we make last minute preparations for the beginning of construction today and over the next few days. But that’s not the case. As you know, we follow the lectionary and so the fact that we heard the story of David’s desire to build a temple, and the famous image of Christ the cornerstone from Ephesians, are only coincidental. Continue reading →

Torn-Apart Heavens: A Sermon for the Baptism of Our Lord, 2015

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Today is an exciting day in the one hundred and seventy five year history of Grace Church. It is also a day tinged with just a little bit of sadness and regret. We are celebrating the success of our Giving Light Giving Hope capital campaign that has raised nearly a million dollars and laid the foundation for renovations to our spaces that will equip us to engage in mission and ministry in the coming decades of our rapidly changing world. Continue reading →

The Burning Bush and Grace Church: A Sermon for Proper 17, Year A

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Most of you know that we are embarking on a capital campaign in a few weeks in order to renovate and upgrade our facilities. We’ve been talking about this for several years now, gone through several iterations of plans, but now we’re on the brink of the campaign itself. Excitement is building and over the next few weeks you will hear more about the campaign itself, how you can be involved, and more about what precisely we hope to do as we renovate our historic facilities. Continue reading →