St. Paul’s — by a combination of necessity and good fortune – developed web skills in-house. We were able to do this only because we found the open source community and built on the powerful tools it provides. The internet is a complex structure involving many very different skill and knowledge sets. We make no claim to broad, general expertise – only to some useful knowledge in certain areas of considerable utility. The following is an analysis of where we are and where we’re heading. Comments, as always are welcome.

The web can be used in many different ways to support the parish and parish ministries. The most obvious – and certainly a very important use — is for storing and transmitting information relevant to the parish. This function can be expected to grow in importance as more people get comfortable with the web. It also will be made easier by the ongoing trend towards computing and data storage on the web (“the cloud”) rather than on your PC.

The other obvious use for a website is to show people looking for a church home what they can expect from the parish. It’s like having a giant, greatly expanded yellow page ad – but the problem is that there aren’t very many people out there looking for a church home! And it’s those not-looking people we need to reach…

Among others, this includes all of the people working to support the greater local community. Willi has lots of people in this category – and they’re doing all kinds of different things. Some are more or less tied to the religious communities (eg via WAIM, First Baptist suppers, Covenant Soup Kitchen) and some are not. So what should we do?

• The first thing is to support the people and organizations in any ways that are open to us – and without consideration of any return. Support of various WAIM programs is an obvious example.
• Develop connections with the various communities and the individuals that make them up. We need to know more about who’s doing what and they need to know what we are doing and what we can offer.

As an indirect result of this kind of activity people with assorted spiritual needs will see what we have to offer – and some likely will be attracted to our community. Some may see enough worthwhile programs to justify providing some financial or other form of support whether or not they’re attracted to the spiritual aspects of St. Paul’s. (Remember that our 2011 budget calls for us to find almost $9,000 of additional income just to continue our present level of ministry.)

By that fortunate combination of circumstances we do have rather extensive internet capability. For some time I have considered ways to offer this capability as support to the community – and in the process develop and strengthen connections to a wide variety of people. Our website provides significant opportunities for this with the forum a prime example. It’s open to everyone and discussion categories are easily added. Andrew Seeling is the forum’s general caretaker and posts very regularly. However, it’s very difficult to get discussions started without a core of regular contributers so he needs help – we really need more participation by the parish to make this an effective tool.

We always are looking for ways to make our website more effective. Our concentration generally has been on providing solid content and clear ways to find it. In our latest rebuilding effort we tried to add a little excitement in order to get people’s attention when they hit the home page. I am grateful to Jean Henderson and Andrew Seeling’s for taking on the “flash rotator” module now showing images related to Black History Month. In the near future I expect we’ll be seeing some of Jean’s gorgeous photography in this position.

Last May, after a good deal of discussion with some young community activists, we created the WilliTalks subdomain (willitalks.stpaulswillimantic.org). This was conceived as both a vehicle for communication and a source of directory information for Willimantic area nonprofits. Jason Ortiz, a UConn student leader with ties to the Willimantic support community, was going to take the lead in developing the site. However, he decided to run for the vacant Mansfield Representative seat (he lost with a respectable showing) so there was not enough time and energy left to develop WilliTalks. In retrospect, the plans for the site were vague and undefined enough to make successful development difficult at best.

For now the WilliTalks site exists but is undeveloped. As we work in the Willimantic community the kinds of services this site could provide become clearer. A simple example: we need easy ways for a church to invite the local church community to special services and events. When the appropriate opportunity arises – and we find the time – we will continue the development of this site.

A different, easy – and significant — opportunity did arise. A few months ago, Tom Ford co-founded the Connecticut Coalition of Gay Adults (CCGA), a social and support network. The LGBT community has been and still is mistreated by many churches. We have parishioners who came to St. Paul’s because they were made unwelcome in their previous church. If you look at the list of Connecticut “Believe Out Loud Episcopal Congregations” — those that officially welcome LGBT people – you’ll only find one parish – St. Paul’s Willimantic. Those issues that are tearing some congregations apart were settled at St. Paul’s years ago – well before the time I arrived. As a result, we are in a unique position to welcome this community.

LGBT people have spiritual needs just like everyone else. However, the church’s history in this area does generate suspicion. This is especially true for people with fundamentalist background as well as older people who remember that for the most of their life the church was telling them that their basic nature was sinful. They are safe to be themselves at St. Paul’s — but we need to do whatever we can to convince them that this really is true.

Supporting Tom’s new network gave us an opportunity to do just that, to reach out and demonstrate our sincerity. This is a small organization that needs some basic web presence – so we gave it to them. We created another subdomain, ccga.stpaulswillimantic.org, and put together a simple independent site with their information. (Subdomains are treated by search engines and such in much the same way as an independent domain. We can create as many as we want at no cost.) Our blogs have an LGBT category so we linked that to give them some more content and us some more exposure. St. Paul’s is part of the site URL so to make sure there is no confusion we added a site link, contact link and explanation on the CCGA page tops: “St. Paul’s Willimantic is providing web help to CCGA as part of our ministry – working with and supporting Willimantic area communities; need help? Contact us”. A bonus for us: CCGA generates its income through ads in its monthly print information guide and has decided to donate a portion of the net income to St. Paul’s. Thanks Tom…

Sharing knowledge is another form of ministry. At some point after we get settled down in our new Community Room offices we probably will get the opportunity to offer lessons in basic computer skills. It could be a program analogous to the Thread of Warmth ministry, very useful for many in the Soup Kitchen community – as well as for a number of our parishioners. Beyond that we could offer more sophisticated web related knowledge particularly targeted to the local provider community. That probably would be web based, maybe use WilliTalks, but at this point is just a collection of vague ideas.

Jean and I have been putting together “how-to” notes to support both future web knowledge sharing ministries as well as our own need to develop the long term capability required for our web efforts. Building the CCGA site provided a little bonus in this area. Usually I start on a site with stuff from a previous site and dive in without much of a plan. The CCGA site is completely new and small enough to be manageable so we could start with a clear organizational plan – an ideal way to develop a “lesson plan” for the how-to notes. They aren’t completed yet, but the notes and other web related conversations are available by joining the ww listserv.

The first thing we have to realize is that being gay, lesbian or transsexual is not a lifestyle choice. The Lake Wobegon motto fits: “Sumus Quid Sumus” – we are what we are. Does anyone really think that someone would choose to be gay with all its disadvantages and risks just because it would be fun? How about those gay people in places where it was or is extremely dangerous? In some parts of the world it’s the death penalty if you’re found out! Furthermore, there is evidence of physical differences in the brain associated with homosexuality. Animals have been known to display homosexual behavior (New Scientist, Biological Exuberance). The claims that gay men can be made straight by proper training are nonsense – they merely show that there are circumstances under which we can suppress our true nature – at least for a while – and usually at considerable cost to ourselves!

If we accept God as a loving God then would this God create a whole class of people who are doomed to spend their life suppressing their own God given nature? This hardly is a vision of a loving God!

If we look to Jesus, we see someone who often hung out with assorted marginalized people to the scandal of the proper and respectable citizens. He suggested that one had better be careful before judging someone else. Who did he condemn? It’s summarized in the judgment section of Matthew 25: It’s not gays and lesbians – no, the fire and brimstone are reserved for people who ignored those on the bottom. “I was hungry and you didn’t give me food, thirsty and you didn’t give me drink, a stranger and you didn’t welcome me, sick and in prison …..” Not a word about “you were gay…”

The sanctity of marriage issue also is subject to all sorts of distortions. The view that the “one man one women” marriage is a sort of universal concept is nonsense. Marriage is a social construct that varies with time and place and can have many forms. Marriage evolves – look at the changes in our own society in just the last hundred years. How many people want to go back to the form of marriage in Jesus’ time? One man and possibly many women; the women basically property; different definitions of, and punishments for, adultery applying to husband and wife….

The bit that gay marriage is a threat to traditional marriage also is pure nonsense. Yes, the institution of marriage in our country has major problems – but these problems have nothing to do with civil unions or gay marriage. For children one can see some advantage to having parents of different genders – but the advantage of having two parents instead of one is of much greater importance. Research in this area has been distorted by some on the right. In any case, the difference between individuals far outweighs everything else.

The argument that the purpose of marriage is to have children – be fruitful and multiply – may have had some substance a few thousand years ago. However, we are supporting our present population levels through the unsustainable consumption of resources such as oil, gas and water – all combined with enormous environmental damage. Therefore it is in the best interest of God’s creation that we stop multiplying! (See our blog, The world in transformation, on this subject.)

In July the Vestry and I agreed that I would come on board as 1/3 time Priest-in-Charge. That enables me to provide spiritual leadership and pastoral care for 20 hours a week.

One of the reasons I believe the Lord has put us together is because we have both lost a defining part of ourselves. I lost my husband and all that it means to be defined as a married woman and you lost your building and all that it means to be defined as a worshipping community attached to the edifice of a beautiful stone building at 220 Valley Street in Willimantic Connecticut. I was with Bill for 30 years and I know that some of you have claimed St. Paul’s as your home of worship for that long or even longer.

Together we must discover what God intends for our new lives. We now worship as guests of the Soup Kitchen who owns the building. I am about to move out of the home that Bill and I built 13 years ago and intended to share for the rest of our lives. In the many changes that we will experience there is one thing I know for sure. The love of God has always been with us, it is present to us in this very moment, and it will always be with us! This love is faithful, compassionate, merciful, patient, creative, joy filled, and generous – to name a few attributes. We can count on this Spirit to lead us into our new way of Being.

Abraham was 75 when God called him out of Haran (Genesis 12:1-2). God said: “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. Through his faith and trust in God Abraham became the father of the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian religions. God promised Abraham that if he would follow and obey, God would bless him and make him into a great nation so that he would be a blessing and all the peoples of the earth would be blessed through him (Genesis 12:2-3).

In the book of Hebrews the author describes faith this way: “…faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1) They go on to say “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going… For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”(Hebrews 11:8&10) As children of God we are children of Abraham and as we walk in faith as he did God will bless us to be a blessing.

I look forward to our journey and the blessings we will bring each other and those God calls us to care for.

In Christ love,

Amma Jackie

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