June 2022 Vineyard

June happenings
New “Walking Together” survey
Walking Together: We came together, and we listened.
What happens next?
In March of this year, we held four “Walking Together” listening sessions,
where members bravely and openly shared their personal stories. The
summary of those sessions, shared with Council at their March meeting,
highlighted three themes common to all the sessions:
• the importance of assuring St. Mark’s as a welcoming church, in both name and practice
• the need for our members to be committed to and caring for each other
• the desire for members to have a way to feel heard, acknowledged, and validated
Participants also asked for additional safe ways to gather and connect to the larger community of St. Mark’s
to become more unified.
The next step is to consider how we can support and empower our congregation to continue to move
forward. The Walking Together Committee believes it is important for members to be part of the decisionmaking
and has created a short survey asking, “What activities you would like to see at St. Mark’s to create a
more welcoming and inclusive safe space for all?”
We hope you will help by filling out a short survey. It will only take a few minutes, but your response matters!
You can pick up a printed copy at the Welcome Center or click here to get the survey online.
Thank you to those who came to the listening sessions. We sincerely hope that they provided some healing,
closure, and connectedness. Looking forward to continuing our walking together.
—The Walking Together Committee
World Refugee Day is Monday, June 20
In the past decade, the global refugee population has more than doubled.
According to the UNHCR (the UN refugee agency), over 84 million people
around the world have been forced to flee their homes. Among them are
over 26.6 million refugees, the highest population on record. The invasion of
Ukraine alone has created more than 6.8 million refugees. That’s approximately one-quarter of that country’s
total population!
This global crisis isn’t going away. It’s here, and it’s something the world is going to have to address.
Throughout scripture, God’s people are called to love the neighbor. But God is also particular in naming who
that neighbor is in our midst: the widow, the orphan, the stranger, and the alien.
In the aftermath of WWII, churches banded together across denominational lines to welcome refugees and
immigrants into the United States. The Church is called to do something similar today. St. Mark’s is banding
together with our local World Relief organization that welcomes and resettles refugees in Aurora. This month,
we donated $2,000 toward the World Relief ministry of providing for the world’s most vulnerable population.
We will continue to work with World Relief to find ways to welcome “strangers” to Aurora.
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