The Matthew 25 Gathering
Restoration,
A few years ago, a generous donor made a grant to our province, The Anglican Church in North America. The purpose of the grant was to kick-start works of justice and mercy all over North America. The vision was that Anglicans would become known as Full-Gospel People who proclaim the Good News of God’s rescue through His Son, Jesus and who serve the marginalized and vulnerable in acts of justice and mercy. This grant became known as The Matthew 25 Initiative (M25i).
One of the first M25i grant recipients was Restoration Immigration Legal Aid. This generous kick-start grant allowed RILA to hire their first staff person and to pursue the administrative requirements of becoming a new organization. We are so grateful for this grant and so grateful for the good work that RILA is doing.
Along with the grants, Archbishop Foley Beach asked if the province could host an annual gathering of Anglicans who are doing works of justice and mercy around North America. The first gathering was in Austin, the second was in Phoenix, and next year, we are hosting it here, at Restoration.
I am so excited that we have this opportunity to host The Matthew 25 Gathering! I want to answer a few questions about it and then make a BIG ASK.
When is it? The Matthew 25 Gathering will be February 19-21, 2019. It starts around 3pm on Tuesday and ends after Eucharist at 12:30pm on Thursday. We will use every inch of our facility!
How many people are you expecting? We are hoping that 100 people will attend.
What is the purpose of the Gathering? We created it as an opportunity for Anglicans from across North America to network with each other, to share and learn best practices in the work they are doing, and to be renewed in their call to their vocation. As you know, Restoration seeks to ‘refresh the workers’ in all of our outreach efforts and this is a very practical way that we can ‘refresh these workers’ who are serving the marginalized and vulnerable.
How will you refresh them? The Gathering is structured around 4 plenary talks that will feature speakers talk about contemplative activism- how can we grow deeper with Jesus as we serve? We will also have 15 workshops that share best practices from people around our province. In the middle of the Gathering, we will bus down to the Lincoln Memorial and prayer walk to the MLK memorial. There is a ‘pre-Gathering’ retreat offering through our friends at Corhaven and a ‘post-Gathering’ tour of the Museum of the Bible and the National Museum of African American History.
I am excited by the confluence of prayer in DC, prayer with our friends at Coracle, and prayer from people at Restoration.
Our church gets to serve and I can’t wait to join you in it.
So here is the BIG ASK.
We want to host the Gathering participants well. We will do that through a smooth registration process, vigilant on-site hospitality, and gracious lodging. In the future, we will offer opportunities to help with registration and logistics. Right now, I am seeking people who want to offer gracious lodging.
Many of the participants do not have budgets for this type of an event. One of the ways that we make it affordable is by providing them a free room and breakfast. Would you consider hosting some of these participants on Tuesday and Wednesday nights (Feb 19 and 20)? We would love them to have their own bed, some breakfast, and a ride to and from the church. We are seeking 30-40 spots.
Would you consider it?
When the Gathering was hosted in Austin, the church that provided this gracious lodging LOVED it. They had breakfast with people from far away who were doing really cool work and were so appreciative of having a free place to sleep. Their household was blessed and the participant was blessed. I believe that can happen for us too!
If you are interested, please fill out the form below. Kathy Kenyon is coordinating our gracious lodging and she will be in touch soon to talk about your situation.
Thank you so much,
David
