Is this what 'community' feels like?
The locks were changed on St. James Home of Fresh Start Ministries' $1.65 million campus on Tuesday. The church, in bankruptcy, couldn't come up with a reorganization plan that the bankruptcy court would approve.
The church's not having a place to worship this Sunday bothered the folks at St. Paul The Apostle Catholic Church, who, less than 24 hours later, are hoping to offer its sanctuary, when not in use, to the church. Oh yeah: St. James is predominantly black and St. Paul is predominantly white -- not that it really matters, but I wrote a story on a study that said there's often a distrust between races in this city. I guess this speaks volumes.
I wanted to know what prompted the church to respond, so when I returned an early morning telephone call from Colleen Assal, the church's pastoral associate, I asked.
Simple, she said. A parishioner emailed her and sent a link to the News & Record story. Gosh, the parishioner said, with all our space, can't we reach out to this congregation and help? Now 30 years ago, the founding members of St. Paul's gathered to worship, they met in a number of places, including a funeral home.
"We jokingly referred to ourselves as 'St. Forbis and Dick,'" Assal said.
Priest Bill Ruhl supported the idea, and Assal began trying to track down St. James' pastor.
The church doesn't need the publicity about this good deed -- members already do lots of outreach and foot work in the community, such as volunteering as one of 16 churches in the local Interfaith Hospitality Network, which helps house and support homeless families.
"We just feel we're all in this together," Assal said.
Comments (3)
To report abuse of the comment feature on this site, please use the feedback form at the bottom of any page.
We need to help one another.
One never knows when they may need help.
Working togeather is the answer regardless of the skin color.
Character is the most important thing.
When one helps another person it makes both feel better
Posted on March 2, 2005 5:06 PM
I think it's great to hear this story of reaching out to help others who are going through a bad time in their lives. And it's good to know that not everyone in the city gets bent out of shape over race. Cheers to the people of St. Paul's!
Posted on March 3, 2005 8:02 AM
There is a number of churches in this same predictament - Almost half the big churches in New York are empty and could stay alive if they were to allow the up and coming new churches to rent space. God bless those who help out.
Posted on June 3, 2008 2:48 PM