2025 Year-End Recap

Hello Friends,

Another year is ending, so it’s time to take a moment to reflect.  I confess that every year when I sit down to write this letter to you my mind initially goes blank—I know we’ve been busy, but what have we been doing?  After that moment of panic, it all comes flooding back, and I find my heart is filled with gratitude.

As I look back on all that 2025 has brought us, I want to say a huge THANK YOU to you all.  Through your time, talent, and treasure, Sts. Clare & Francis continues to be a place that proclaims dignity and welcome for all.  In our fractured culture, that is no small feat, and I am grateful for your self-giving and partnership with the Spirit of Love moving through the world.

It has been a busy year filled with good, community-centered ministry.  Thanks to your gifts, this year we have been able to:

• Share our story with new members and begin planning for the future by bringing in Rev. Dr. Julie Strassman to lead our visioning convocation

• Reach a nation-wide audience with our USA Today Special Easter Edition advertorial

• Share Ash Wednesday, Holy Thursday, and Good Friday services with our host community, First Congregational Church

• Provide Iftar meals to our recently immigrated and elderly Muslim neighbors

• Celebrate the Resurrection with a joyous Easter Vigil celebration

• Assemble more than 20,000 shelf-stable meals for hungry folks around the world with Rise Against Hunger

• Affirm God’s love for folks struggling through hard times by assembling and distributing 150 Blessing Bags

• Help international students survive the summer by collecting canned goods for Webster University’s food pantry

• Expand our Mass experiences and build new relationships with guest preachers, speakers, and musicians

• Provide recital space for our music school neighbors

• Spread God’s love to animals in shelters in the St. Louis region through our Feast of St. Francis pet item donations

• Fund loans to small business owners in the global south through our KIVA program

• Build a livestreaming ministry, which has been a lifeline for many folks in our community in this season of illness and healing

• Increase opportunities for connection and joy at bar-b-cues, Mexican Feasts, potluck meals, and other fellowship gatherings

• Co-host a back-to-school event for LGBTQ+ youth, their families and friends, and support systems

• Help lead the Webster Groves Community Thanksgiving Service

• Partner with local organizations, such as: Legal Services of Eastern Missouri; Epworth Children & Family Services; The Women’s Safe House; LGBTQ+ Faith Alliance; Webster Groves Clergy Alliance for Racial Justice; Patterson Performing Arts, and Franklin County Animal Shelter; and St. Louis Winter Outreach

  
  

None of these things would be possible without you and your dedication to the community of Sts. Clare & Francis.  Thank you.

We have already been planning for 2026 to be a year of joy and celebration.  We are kicking the year off with three baptisms!  The remainder of the year will have lots of fellowship and service projects, occasions to continue strengthening relationships with First Congregational and the other ECC communities in our region, and an opportunity to welcome Presiding Bishop Pablo Burson for our Feast of St. Francis Mass.  If the last three years are any guide, 2026 will be another year of laughter, good work, and deepening relationships with God and neighbors. 

It is a blessing to be able to dream and scheme with you about how to be people of faith in this world.  I am beyond proud to be your pastor, and I look forward to all that God will do among us next year!

Peace and Advent Blessings to you all,

Pastor Maggie