Opportunity to purchase a paving brick for the All Saints' Walkway: order form
Past letters from the Restoration Committee
The Restoration Project at Grace Church
The Restoration
Project Prayer
O God, you brought forth the universe.
Our lives and all our gifts are of your making. In your great love, you have
named us as members of Christ’s risen body, and you now call us to the revival
and restoration of Grace Church. Inspire us to answer with joy. Let generosity
mark our faith, and may we welcome in your name everyone who seeks your abundant
and life-giving blessing; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.
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Opportunity to purchase a paving brick for the All Saints' Walkway: order form |
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Past letters from the Restoration Committee |
Tthe Book of Common Prayer states that, the mission of the church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.
Many members of Grace have dedicated their time, money, labor, imaginations to the renewal of our parish community. Through the efforts of three capital fund drives, the Tower Campaign (1996-98), the Stained Glass Windows Restoration (1999-2001), and Vision of Grace (2001), we have repaired the glass, granite and mortar of the church, and we have refurbished and dedicated the Parke House for Christian Education and the Parish Hall for parish and community meetings.
Grace Church has a calling to be a place where God’s love can be known in myriad ways: through worship, music, teaching, discussion, recovery meetings, healing, outreach, and pastoral care. All these are the ways through which God restores the world. God’s Spirit is overflowing in our hearts. Our buildings cannot adequately serve the overflowing desire God has put into this community to serve and bear witness to the Light of Christ.
Responding to the Holy Spirit’s ceaseless bidding to renew our bond with God and each other in Christ, we find that we are called to restore our buildings in order to rebuild our ministries.
We choose not to call the work ahead of us a “capital campaign” because we are about ministry and mission, and not merely bricks and mortar (capital) nor do we want to reflect the coercive ways of the world (campaign). Instead we are embarking on this exciting Restoration Project at Grace Church, because there is so much God is calling us to renew, re-create, and re-imagine as co-creators with God in God’s Household.
The Goals of the Restoration Project
To restore our identity as living participants in the commonwealth of God, the Holy Trinity. We see ourselves as being Christ’s body, Christ’s living presence in the world, and through Christ we extend God’s love, healing and justice for the life of the world. This means cleaning up and restoring our Church Sanctuary and restoring the Chapel in the Undercroft.
To restore our bond with God’s Creation by decreasing our consumption of natural resources and to honor the natural and architectural beauty of our surroundings. This means tightening up those places that leak heat, and revising heating systems for the Connector. We will also redesign the Garth, perhaps including a labyrinth or a garden to be a place of meditation and refreshment for those seeking God’s presence and solace.
To restore our meeting spaces so they are welcoming, accessible, dignified, and safe. We want to re-establish ourselves as a place where people of many devotional, artistic, and humanitarian endeavors can meet and carry on their work of building a loving, just and peaceable world in our community. We will restore the dignity of any person who needs to use the bathroom or who needs to get from one level to another! This means putting in new lavatories in the space that is now the Connector and creating additional meeting and teaching spaces in the Undercroft.
To restore our community as one that worships, works, serves, and plays together. This project will call us to share more deeply our individual resources. We will be asked to share our skills, our physical labors, our financial resources, our selves for this task. We hope to use our own labor to assist in the construction and beautification of our Church. The Restoration Project will mark a renaissance--a spiritual, physical, and artistic rebirth of Grace Church.
O
God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity
of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled
himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with
you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen
