Dear sisters and brothers in Christ,

We love our people, we love our building, we love our grounds. – Micah Kurtz

These eloquent words were a concise summary of the St Columba’s Bishop’s Committee mutual ministry goals for this year and where we choose to focus our work.

We love our people

The St Columba’s Bishop’s Committee chose to start this year’s mutual ministry goals with our people as this is the beginning of our community.  Our first goal this year is to support mothers Meghan and Alissa in the development of a staffing plan that will best serve our congregation.  This includes addressing both our short-term needs and long-term strategies that will keep our community served for years to come.  

The St Columba’s community begins with our congregation and extends to all those whom we share space with, those whom we impact and those whom we are impacted by.  Our second goal is to engage with our larger community with a series of events bringing together our West African communities, our Community Gardeners, our neighbors, and other outreach/in reach.  We were given a generous Diocesan grant to support these events and they will include the St Columba’s day celebration on June 26^th in addition to events planned and lead by other community groups.  These will help develop relationships with new neighbors who will begin arriving to the south and nurturing their relationship with our parking lot tenants in need of a safe space, as well as our West African and gardening communities.

We love our building

Our beloved church is where we come together to worship both physically and remotely – it is also in need of repair. Our third goal is to begin replacing exterior doors to better secure the building from the intrusion of critters.  This will help us keep our space clean and ready to support the needs of our congregation and community.

While the torrential rains of last autumn brought much needed water to the earth, it also brought with it leaks and damage to our building. Our fourth goal for this year is to assess and repair the water damage our building has accumulated.  These repairs will serve our community both in eliminating the short-term inconvenience of leaks over the winter but also in keeping our building healthy long into the future.

We love our grounds 

As we are stewards of our people, community, and building, we are also stewards of our grounds.  We all want St Columba’s to be a place where people want to be and a place that is pleasing to look at.  Our fifth goal is to develop a plan for regular grounds maintenance. This includes plans for regular recurring work parties and what will need to be done as well as plans for more regular maintenance like mowing the lawn and removing trash from the parking lot.  

Our congregation, our community, and those who we want to be in community with want a safe space.  As such, our sixth goal for this year is to add security cameras to observe our parking lot entries and grounds.  This will help further protect us and our community from theft and vandalism but will also encourage those who intend to use our grounds for less legal activities to move elsewhere.

We also look to the future and what our grounds could/should be to support our community.  Our seventh goal is to develop a plan for the lawn to the south of the memorial garden.  The Bishop’s Committee has discussed ideas to add play structures to this area to provide a safe/fun space for the kiddos from our congregation, our community gardeners, and our neighbors.  

These discussions invariably include many thoughts for how best to serve our community.  Our eight goal is to plan for the future of the community garden. This includes ideas for how to maintain relationship with our gardeners, where plots should/shouldn’t be, and how we can respect these boundaries together.  

It feels fitting to close with plans for the beloved departed members of our St Columba’s church family.  Our ninth and final goal for this year is to finalize plans for completion of the memorial garden.  Generous donations have given us the ability to complete this sacred space and the work is back underway.  It will be exciting to see this space change with interment and garden beds being built and the land shaped to completion.

On behalf of the St C’s Bishop’s Committee and in His service and yours,

Stephen Olfert