Life is busy. Let me help you know what is going on in the life of St. John’s.
1. Once again, this year, the churches of Elizabeth are gathering at noon on Wednesdays during Lent. We will gather in the sanctuary of St. Martin’s Episcopal Church. Lunch is served following worship ST. JOHN’S WILL LEAD THE SERVICE ON WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26.
2. Our Finance Resource Team will be presenting our Financial Ministry Plan Budget for 2025 in the next couple of weeks. Due to priorities being discussed by church leadership groups and deacons, it has taken a bit longer to develop the budget this year. However, there is intentional effort focused on moving toward a balanced budget in the near future.
3. Cooperative Baptist Fellowship joined with several Quaker groups (Society of Friends) and the Sikh Temple of San Diego, to advocate for religious freedom to provide sanctuary and safety for people who are immigrants and refugees Dr. Paul Baxley, Coordinator of CBF explained, “From our very beginnings in 1991, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship has been a community of congregations and individuals deeply committed to religious liberty, local church autonomy and church-state separation.
We have held these convictions consistently and have done so amid a wide diversity of theological positions, worship practices, missional emphases, geographic settings and even heart languages. Our congregations overwhelmingly continue to express these commitments that have been core to our Fellowship’s life since its inception to the present.
Cooperative Baptists have been committed to ministry among immigrants and refugees from the beginning of our participation in Christ’s mission in the United States and around the world. This is not a new commitment for us—it has been faithfully present in our global mission engagement and in the mission engagement of our partner congregations.
As a Fellowship, we have experienced a clear and unmistakable calling to be a community that is more racially, ethnically, generationally and geographically diverse as we believe this reflects the mission of God and the character of Jesus. The revocation of sensitive location status for houses of worship has also harmed our capacity to live into that divine calling.
Because the sensitive location policy was abruptly reversed by the Department of Homeland Security and because there is urgency in seeking relief and restoration to what previously existed, legal intervention is our best path. We have posted signage at our entrances to help individuals know of our safe space.
4. On Sunday, March 23rd, we will observe Heritage & Hope Sunday. Our Worship Resource Team is planning creative approaches to worship for the Lenten season.
5. The North Carolina Cooperative Baptist Fellowship will gather at Pritchard Church on Thursday, March 27 and Friday, March 28. If you want to know more about what Baptist churches similar to us are accomplishing across North Carolina and beyond, plan to attend a session or two. Register by March 16 here.
