As Fall settles in, we move from a focus on Creation Season at St. John’s (celebrating God’s gift of Creation and God’s call to steward it well), to a season of reflection on other dimensions of stewardship: First, discerning how we might best serve God and neighbor with our time, and our talents, and our treasure in response to the many blessings of our lives; and, second, discerning how God calls us as a parish to use our collective time, talent, and treasure to help bring Jesus’ life-giving, liberating love to the hurting world around us.
By now most of you have heard of our new digital tool at St. John’s called “Ministry Match.” This is a simple tool that’s arrived just in time to assist each of us with the first part of our stewardship reflection this year.
The purpose of Ministry Match is to help each of us explore our unique interests, talents, and skills, and consider specific ministry opportunities through St. John’s that might be fulfilling for you. If you haven’t taken the survey yet, it’s not too late. In fact, the tool is now permanently accessible via our website at www.stjohnswf.org/serve, so you can use it now, or six months from now, or any time you like.
Our new Ministry Engagement Team at St. John’s will soon follow up with a note to those who have completed the survey in this initial launch phase. This note will invite you to consider your next steps in response to what you learned through Ministry Match. A member of the team will offer their help (or the help of one of our priests) if you’d like to explore your “matches” in conversation with someone who knows the parish well and can help you consider options. Maybe your survey results didn’t seem to match you well at all. Maybe they hit the nail on the head. Either way, we are available to help you think about your part in our ministry together at St. John’s.
If you have completed the survey and aren’t already serving in several different ways at St. John’s, you may receive a call or email inviting you to consider a specific ministry opportunity to which you may be well-suited. We hope you will consider these calls an honor and a recognition of your gifts and abilities. We hope you will take or return those phone calls and consider these opportunities prayerfully. You will not be asked to say “yes” or “no” right away. You can try some things out and explore for a while before making a decision; and you should always feel empowered to say “no” or “not right now” or “I’d really rather be involved in X, Y, or Z” or “I said yes, but once I got into it, it doesn’t feel like the best fit.”
If you don’t receive a call, it may be that there is not an immediate need for more people to serve in the areas for which you are best suited; but that doesn’t mean you are not still welcome to serve in that area. If you want to serve, please, please, please reach out to the Ministry Engagement Team at serve@stjohns.com and let us know your interests, even if you don’t receive a personal call or invitation.
As you consider how best to be a part of our life and service together at St. John’s, you are in the driver’s seat of your own involvement. We just want to invite you to take a look at where we’re moving as a church, as if it were a map. The Holy Spirit powers the engine of the vehicle. There are instructional signs and traffic officers along the way to help you make informed choices. But you get to choose which route(s) you will take as we move forward in our life and service together.
If you don’t want to wait for a notecard or a call and are ready to talk to someone on the Ministry Engagement Team now, send us an email at serve@stjohns.com!
This comes with Love,
Mo. Sarah+