Our congregation views community outreach along three branches: visibility, food, and facilitating conversations. The church financially supports Churches Assisting People and the Shepherd’s Table, both non-profit organizations that focus on supporting individuals experiencing hardship or homelessness within our community. Our congregants also volunteer at Conway Medical Center, work with other churches to provide food for unhoused people on Saturdays (when the Shepherd’s Table is closed), and also participate in activism in support of the LGBTQ+ community.
Our church has also hosted joint services, Bible studies, celebratory events, and lectures with other congregations, such as a faith discussion series with Palmetto Missionary Baptist Church, Blue Christmas services with First United Methodist, and shared Christmas Carolling with Conway congregations. Several members of our congregation have also participated in the South Carolina Episcopal Diocese’s racial reconciliation program Sacred Ground.
We wish to expand our adult education series, Education for Ministry, to include members from other churches, and utilize this group’s readings to facilitate open discussions. For example, inspired by the sermon of Dr. Rev. Stephanie Sellers, we are hosting a collective discussion of her book, The Church Cracked Open, as we discuss what it means for our congregation to participate in the Jesus Movement.
Strengths
- Our congregants are already involved, through the church and in their lives, in multiple ministries and community work.
- Our church’s culture hosts and encourages intellectual and educational discussions within our congregation.
- We have many gifts of expertise and connections within our congregation.
Future Directions
Our short-term goals are to focus on increasing the visibility of our congregation, from ensuring we are listed in all church directories to renewing our focus on our social media plan. In conversation with our new website, we will be working on developing new marketing materials and tabling opportunities to offer our new physical space as a safe space for those looking to worship with a congregation where all genders, races, and sexualities are affirmed and loved as their whole selves. To do this, we will need to form a working group that will focus on discovering and developing these opportunities for the congregation.
Our congregation has expressed interest in creating programming inclusive of LGBTQ+ and allied communities, Black and Hispanic populations, young families, college students, and the aging population around our church as populations for outreach. Rather than engaging in community outreach for the purposes of recruiting (though growing our congregation is helpful), the congregation wants to be a dialogue partner and grow in its allyship. This includes hosting open discussions, dinners, and speakers that will do the work of fostering an open and inclusive space, especially for those who are not members of the congregation.
Responding to the initiatives of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, St. Anne’s is working to educate ourselves on the tenets of racial reconciliation through the Sacred Ground education series. Over 90% of our congregation identifies White, and 85% of survey respondents expressed an interest in developing more relationships with our Hispanic and Black neighbors through community events and conversations.
Long-term goals also include utilizing our outdoor space for more community events like the PFLAG festival. Many congregants also expressed a hope that they can open their homes to build relationships over meals.