Members of the St. B's Creation Care Committee attended a local kick-off retreat with A Rocha this past weekend. Read more below!

WHAT'S HAPPENED RECENTLY?

This past weekend, August 16-17, three representatives from St. B’s Creation Care Committee, Gretchen Abernathy, Katherine Bomboy, and Watson Danford, attended a local kick-off retreat with A Rocha (an ecumenical, international creation care network). St. B's and five other area churches are part of a year-long experience focused on fellowship, education, and support as creation care teams from each church identify and carry out two projects at their respective churches. The Creation Care Committee asks for your prayers for health, time management, open hearts and minds to learn and grow, and discernment about which projects would best bless St. B’s at this time!

St. B's is delighted to offer our first Community Volunteering Open House on Sunday, August 25 (this coming Sunday) from 9:45 a.m. to 11 a.m. We will have St. B's members and guests representing 11 local organizations. Some of these are Mission & Outreach or Justice partners who receive funding from St. B's and some are newer, parishioner-supported groups. There is something for everyone - gardening, literacy, meal delivery, food distribution, healthcare, refugee response, foster family support, homeless services, and more! Join us this coming Sunday on the porch between services!

Join us for our regular volunteer opportunities! 

September: We serve at ShowerUp, a mobile shower site that assists people experiencing homelessness, on September 8, 2024 at 1:30 - 3:30 p.m. Sign up here! (Please know that we are working hard with ShowerUp to ensure that there are not volunteer redundancies when we serve.)

October: We serve at The Branch of Nashville, a food distribution and language center in Antioch, on Saturday, Oct. 12, 9:30 a.m. - 12:00 pm. You can sign up here. Please fill out their volunteer form here if you have not done so before.

You can also view a list of current volunteer opportunities with St. B's partners here.

St. B's Justice Ministries shares that NOAH (Nashville Organized for Action and Hope) is offering a Text Banking and Postcard Feast on August 22, 6-8 p.m. at Edgehill UMC. Dinner will be offered. This is a non-partisan opportunity to remind Nashvillians to register to vote and make their voting plan (e.g., registration status, early voting/day of voting options, and researching candidates) for the upcoming November election. You can register at this link.

WHO ARE OUR MISSION & OUTREACH PARTNERS?

During 2024 we are highlighting mission partners each month in this email. The Mission & Outreach Committee gives funds, provides volunteers, and prays for our partners. M&O is a Vestry Committee. The full list of M&O partners for 2024 can be found on our website.

St. B’s financial support for The Village of Glencliff began at its inception several years ago as an off-shoot of Open Table Nashville, now a housing advocacy group. The Village of Glencliff was founded to provide a healing community for medically vulnerable, unhoused Nashvillians to safely recover and stabilize their lives. The Village of Glencliff provides them with bridge housing through 12 tiny homes and basic services in an effort to raise the equity of healthcare in Nashville.

If you would like to check out the latest Instagram update from St. B's missionaries, Susan and Mark Powell, you can request permission here.

School supplies are expensive!  The finance company Credit Karma conducted a survey online in mid-to-late July, surveying more than 1,000 U.S. adults. The company found that nearly one-third (31%) of parents said they are unable to afford back-to-school shopping for their kids this year. Half (50%) of parents said they plan to sacrifice necessities, such as groceries and bills, to ensure their kids have what they need for the school year.

Undivided: The Quest for Racial Solidarity in an American Church is a forthcoming trade book by political scientist Hahrie Han. In it she documents the story of evangelicals in Cincinnati struggling to bridge racial divides in their own church, their community, and across the nation. You can read more here. Publishers Weekly named it to one of their 10 Noteworthy Nonfiction Debuts for Fall 2024.