Sing to the LORD a new song, for God has done marvelous things!
Psalm 98:1
2007 was surely a banner year for St. John's!
We got off to a rocky start. The Capital Planning Committee learned in late winter that our estimators for the Parish School Project could not come up with a renovation plan for the amount we had budgeted. After a period of consternation and discouragement, we re-opened a conversation with Pyne Construction, who produced a scaled-back, affordable plan for building out the basement.
Demolition began on August 1, and by mid-January was nearly complete, excepting the finish work to the second egress, which must wait until spring. We added the "mural room " back into the design plan in mid-construction, and we are now blessed with new, clean, safe, and lovely spaces for our Church School and possible tenants. A number of parishioners contributed thoughtfully and faithfully to the project management and detailed decision-making, under the conscientious leadership of John Cipolla.
The basement renovation represents the culmination of years of hopes and dreams, hard work and sacrificial giving, flexibility and creativity, vision and revision, commitment and prayer. This is an accomplishment that belongs to all of us who have contributed time, talent and treasure to the Capital Campaign, and of which we may be most proud and grateful. Our rebuilt basement is a concrete symbol of our commitment to our parish family now and in the years and generations to come. It is "an outward and visible sign of inward and spiritual grace," and in that sense it is sacramental. Let us treat our new space with appropriate gratitude and reverence.
In 2007 St. John's celebrated our 125th Anniversary of our building. We marked this anniversary with a number of festive events, most signally a worship service, program, and open house on October 28th. Bishop Shaw attended and spoke warmly of our community spirit and achievements, our remarkable growth, and our reputation in the diocese as prophetic, inclusive, and active in the realm of social justice.
And in that realm of social justice, we rejoiced deeply at the legislative defeat, on June 14th, of the anti- marriage equality ballot initiative. The struggle to secure marriage equality was fought long and hard since the Goodridge decision in November of 2003 supporting same-sex marriage. We hope that marriage equality is now secure for the foreseeable future, and that our victory in Massachusetts can be carried forward into other states and throughout the nation.
Gretchen and I, and so many of you, were deeply and passionately involved in the effort to secure marriage equality, and the heartfelt, prayerful, and practical support of the parish undergirded all that we did. This, too, is a triumph of which our entire parish community can be proud and grateful.
Our parish leadership has been extraordinary throughout this demanding and exhilarating year. Tom Ward and Georgia Buck, our wardens, Andrew Shieffelin, our treasurer, and Gretchen, Grimshaw, our Associate Rector, have been a joy for me to work with and have provided inspiration and guidance for all of us. The Vestry members have worked together in a spirit of co-operation and diligence to insure the successful completion of the basement project and to fulfill all other responsibilities of leadership.
We begin 2008 in a spirit of gratitude and celebration. At the same time, we have financial challenges ahead of us if we are to maintain our renovated spaces and continue to expand our numbers and our ministry and mission. We are entering a time of discernment, as well. Now that we have achieved these major goals for our parish and for the Commonwealth, what does God have in store for us here at St. John's?
Faithfully,
Anne