“The cup is overflowing” at St. John in the Wilderness, White Bear Lake! St. John’s is the oldest church in the community of White Bear Lake. Over the past five years it has moved from a pastoral to a program congregation. Its rector, Mark Kelm, speaks of how the work of the BCMS has provided St. John’s with a focus for the growth of its mission and ministry. This story shows some of the ways in which BCMS concepts have been — and continue to be — applied in individual congregations, through the work of the people themselves.

Getting out into the community

“We are undergoing an expansion in understanding what it means to be church,” says Kelm. This is manifesting itself in a number of ways. On June 22, St. John’s cosponsored a pet parade as part of White Bear Lake’s Manitou Days celebration. After the parade (and the awarding of prizes!) clergy were available in front of the church for animal blessings.

Once a month in the summer, services are held on the front lawn of the church, where a walk in the form of a Celtic cross creates a special worship space. The liturgy — and the love — are visible to those who drive or bike or walk by. “This helps the parishioners remember that ‘church’ is not the building,” says Kelm. “The building is nothing more than a tool for the Church to do its worship and its works with its spiritual family and within the greater community.”

Other work has involved new types of outreach, from participation in Operation Minnesota Nice (a cell phone recycling project in which donated phones are made available to troops overseas so they can be in contact with their loved ones) to the current shoe drive now underway at our diocesan level. St. John’s has also started Kids’ Hope, a nationally-recognized mentoring program in which church members spend one hour once a week with one child in a local elementary school; and is leading a Habitat for Humanity coalition with other area churches of various denominations, enabling them all to do something together that they might not have enough resources or personnel to do as individual congregations.

Putting networking to work

Episcopal churches in the area are taking the initiative in the networking that is emphasized in the BCMS report, Kelm says. He gives some recent cooperation with Ascension, Stillwater, as an example. Ascension’s interim rector, Paul Shaffer, was planning to take some time off in August. The clergy of St. John’s made themselves available for pastoral calls, and Kelm officiated at a recent funeral at Ascension.

In addition, Marilyn Baldwin, St. John’s associate priest, took Ascension’s Sunday service a few weeks ago. The two churches worked out this arrangement on their own, Kelm points out, and Ascension also did not have to pay for a supply priest.

New understandings

The fresh look at mission and ministry has not ended with the above accounts. St. John’s is also trying to look beyond its own identity and traditions to experience other ways of worship, as well as looking beyond “church politics” to sisters and brothers in Christ. Voices of Praise, an African-American choir from an inner-city Baptist church in Minneapolis, has been invited back for its unique presentation of “singing the Gospel” in place of the Liturgy of the Word. At these services, according to Kelm, “we expand our understanding of what it means to be Christian, and especially an Episcopalian Christian.” He adds that people also come to understand that there are other ways in which to worship.

St. John’s is also continuing its work with African Friends in Need, a network in Uganda that helps give impoverished women and girls an education so that they can begin to lift themselves and their families out of poverty. St. John’s commitment remains despite the recent boycott of the Lambeth Conference by Ugandan bishops. In both cases, Kelm emphasizes, the people of St. John’s are doing the work they are called to do with their sisters and brothers in Christ.

“Fuller participation in God’s mission”

The heading above is from Goal One of the BCMS report (along with “spiritual transformation”) and can be a description of the work that is going on at St. John in the Wilderness in White Bear Lake. “It can be easy to fall asleep and rest on our laurels,” says Kelm, “but now it is as if St. John’s has awakened. We are re-envisioning and looking at our mission.”

Mark Kelm was asked what the effect of the BCMS work has been on the mission and ministry of St. John in the Wilderness. “The letter to the Galatians speaks of the fruit of the Spirit,” he says. “That fruit is already here. All we have to do is use the BCMS report as a lens to focus on the good fruit that already exists. Our resources may be limited, but God’s grace is not. The BCMS helps us to see that grace. The glass is not half empty or half full. It is overflowing!”

by Susan Barksdale