St. John’s
has now completed her one hundred and fifty-fifth year of worship and ministry,
and 2014 has not only been one of great grace and blessing, but will be marked
in the annals of our history as one of the great benchmark years.
Over the course of St. John’s history
several periods stand out as benchmarks.
Our founding in 1858, the opening of the chapel in 1859 and the opening
of the church in 1861 marks a glorious start of this parish. The 1880’s saw the first major cosmetic
renovation of the church sanctuary as well as the building of our former parish
hall building which for 90 years saw heavy use by community, diocese, and
parish groups. The 1890s brought a
renovation of the church sanctuary to make it deeper, taller, and to contain
our now famous altar reredos and supereredos.
The 1910s & 1920s saw the church neighborhood morph from residential
to commercial, with the church beginning to be dwarfed by large buildings. In 1936 and 1937 the church and chapel were
moved, placed onto a new foundation, and steel beam reinforced during the
widening of Woodward Avenue. Having
survived the depression years the church was called to service by hosting
soldiers during WWII. The neighborhood began changing again with the growth of
the suburbs, resulting in the degradation of the area immediately around our
edifice in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. The
decline began to reverse at the end of 1988 when the Fox Theatre reopened after
it was renovated by the Ilitch family, who also moved their pizza empire
headquarters into the Fox building. The
opening of Detroit Tigers Comerica Park in 2000 solidified the remaking of our
neighborhood into a destination for sports and entertainment and began
providing appreciable income through our parking lot.
I am grateful to have come into the
history of the parish at that point. The
renewal of the neighborhood provided opportunities to revitalize this grand old
parish, which had seen a decline in attendance and membership since the 1920s:
from a high of 2500 to an average of 45 people on Sunday just before I
arrived. By grace, average Sunday
attendance is almost four times larger than what it was in 2000, income from
pledges and other sources is up considerably, and after having had to use it out
of necessity since the 1930s the parish has been able to not use the endowment
for her operating expenses for the past two years.
This past year we have had glorious
worship, opportunities for education, and have renewed the Sunday School
program. We’ve hired a minister to
Young Adults, our fastest growing demographic in the parish. After today’s election 1/3 of our parish
vestry will be under 38 years of age, something I don’t think any other congregation
of the diocese (other than the college missions) can claim. We now offer a service at a nursing home in Plymouth which
has become a wonderful opportunity for ministry. 10 people were baptized this year, 6 couples
married, 7 people confirmed, and 4 buried.
Pledge income surpassed the budgeted expectation and was just .3% below
last year’s record high amount. I am
most grateful for the generosity of the congregation, dedication and leadership
of the wardens and vestry, and the daily diligence of the office staff and
volunteers. In particular, I want to
commend Cathy Morgan for her dedication as treasurer of this parish as she
underwent 6 months of chemotherapy. And
I also thank God for all the time and effort put in by the volunteers at the
Altar, in the Sacristy, at the Narthex doors, in the Kitchen, and everywhere
else people have pitched in to make their parish the wonderful place it is.
And I would be remiss if I did not
mention with sadness the death of two of our pillars in the parish, Mary
Bedford and Barbara Frisby. They are
both greatly missed.
But 2014 will be remembered most as
the beginning of a new era through an opportunity with the Ilitch family’s Olympia
Development. At the end of July, with
the public announcement for the building of the new hockey arena across the
freeway from St. John’s, we also began a discussion with them about development
plans closer to us, including the building of apartments on a portion of our
property. The vestry began these
discussions, committees comprised of members of the vestry and others in the
parish were formed, and the parish met twice (once informally in September for
dinner, once formally for a vote in December) as negotiations progressed. At one point over 30 people had been
involved at some level in the committee discussions and negotiations to bring about
a long term lease. The terms of that
lease are almost completed, and God willing its signing is imminent. I particularly want to commend and thank our
Senior Warden, Bruce Burton, for his business and negotiation acumen. In consultation with both a real estate
development and legal expert, Bruce and I went into the meetings with Olympia’s
representatives well prepared. Bruce was
able to put very large dreams for the parish onto their radar, was patient when
they wanted to move quickly, and negotiated those dreams into what is about to
become a 49 to 99 year lease reality.
At a vestry meeting in the Spring of
2001, my first year here, there was concern about money and the budget. At that point I proclaimed, “there are no
money problems we have today that can’t be solved by 100 more people in our
pews.” Then I continued, “of course, we
will have new, different money problems then.”
Within a few years we had those new people, and as predicted, new
problems as well. Looking at the
expected windfall of a new lease with Olympia Development, we once again have a
new ”money problem”. Instead of the question of “how are we going
to get more money to pay the bills?” we now have the problem of “how is God
calling us to use these new funds to glorify Him and to be the parish He wants
us to be?”
The common thread for those early years, which we will now
weave through solving this new “problem”, is that we put First Things First. The First Thing is to put God first: Faithfulness, right doctrine,
and desire to grow in holiness. When we
concentrate on those things, the money solution comes as a result of grateful
hearts motivated by the Holy Spirit.
This has been the guiding principle for this parish during my tenure. The
exception was a few years of the economic recession, when we got distracted and
focused on the money. We seemed to
forget that if we are faithful, He is faithful.
We got back on track to First Things
First in the past two years.
So now we move forward in a new era at St. John’s. The faith and doctrine will not change, nor
our adherence to traditional Anglican worship which precisely, and expansively,
embodies both. But our neighborhood will
change, our ministries will expand and change as God leads us, and as the congregation
grows it will be as exciting as it will perhaps be scary at times. But grounded in a solid foundation we boldly
go forward in faith! God has, and will
continue, to provide.
With the
abundance of blessings God is bestowing upon us, we have to continue to put First Things First. Now is not the time to rest on our laurels,
become complacent, or think we no longer need to financially support the parish
with our tithe and talent. WE NEED to keep our hands to the plow and keep
working toward the building up of the kingdom.
WE NEED to be generous in our giving to the parish; not because God
needs it but because WE NEED to give as a spiritual discipline. And we need to work together, avoiding negativity
and other temptations that would prevent us from keeping focused on our
mission. And please, if you hear
anything about this project, past or present, which is novel to you, or contradicts
what has been published, please come to the Senior Warden and to me right away
so that we can clear up any misinformation.
God has given us a goodly heritage and a hopeful future. Let us respond in Faith, Hope, and Love, to
His greater honor and glory.
