Holy Cross Episcopal Church, 420 N. Main St., Poplar Bluff will celebrate its new status as a Jubilee Center, 6:30 p.m., Friday, April 28, at the church. Joining the celebration will be Superintendent Scott Dill, Brown Chapel AME, Mount Calvary Powerhouse Church, First Presbyterian, St. Andrew ELCA, First United Methodist Church, and John Fuller, president of the Non-Profit Alliance. Invitations also have been extended to Matt Winters and Lively Stone and volunteers from the Holy Cross Food Pantry. More importantly, the celebration is open to the public and everyone is welcome. "We are hopeful of a large turnout," the members said.
In order to qualify as a Jubilee Ministry, the church must be doing these five marks of mission: proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom, teach, baptize and nurture new believers, respond to human need by loving service, seek to transform unjust structure of society, to challenge violence of every kind and to pursue peace and reconciliation; and to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.
Rev. Annette Joseph, rector of Holy Cross, explained, "When I was hired as priest at Holy Cross, the congregation wanted the priest more involved in the community." For over 20 years, Holy Cross has had a Lenten partnership in our community. To comply with the wishes of the congregation to become more involved in the community, a partnership which was led by Holy Cross Episcopal, Brown Chapel AME, First Presbyterian, St. Andrew ELCA, First United Methodist, Lively Stone, and Mount Calvary Powerhouse created a Downtown Churches gathering which promoted a cross into a deeper understanding with one another. "The Downtown Churches have started a Mob Worship," Rev. Joseph added. "This worship experience closes down our partner congregations and we all go to worship at Brown Chapel AME or St. Andrew ELCA depending on whose turn it is. At some point in the service you should feel as though you have been to your own service. The components of Word, Spirit, Communion, and Fellowship all fall into the liturgy with readers from one church, the opening being done by another, hearing testimonies from Lively Stone, and sharing communion with Episcopalians or Lutherans. Because of this we have been able to talk with one another more deeply. Studying together about Dismantling Racism, having honest conversations, and trusting we are hearing one another. This has been a blessing of our communities reaching out to one another.
"As a Jubilee Ministry," she said, "everyone thinks we are doing something different than we are already doing or we are doing something new and that is not it. We are being recognized for what we already have been doing in the community of Poplar Bluff for years. When did we start being a Jubilee Ministry is more along the lines of the right question to ask. You could say it was when years ago The Rev. Dick Bamforth decided it wasn't right to have a separate time for the black people to go to the pool, or you could say parishioners here were working on desegregation even before he came here and were already used to eggs and mud on their doors. You could say it was when Reva Arnold decided to feed people for a week and would deliver groceries to their doors. You could say it was any number of things. The fact still remains Holy Cross has and always will reach out its doors to our neighbors, the only difference is we get to call ourselves a Jubilee Ministry. "
Rev. Joseph recalled, "In Luke Jesus returns to his hometown and preaches from Isaiah declaring 'to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to liberate the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor' (Luke 4:18-19). So in the Episcopal Church we celebrate those churches who are striving to do these things with this title and we celebrate it. We celebrate the fact we are willing to risk going outside of our doors. We celebrate we are risking speaking up for the marginalized. We celebrate we are willing to grow into this in new ways.
"The food pantry now operates out of our church instead of being delivered to homes. We have good relationships with our Downtown Churches coalition which gets together not only for our Lenten series on Wednesday nights, but has expanded to an Advent Walk, a Good Friday CrossWalk, and Worship Mobs. We have parishioners who have joined boards and work for the United Gospel Rescue Mission, Rotary, Chamber, Ozark Foothills Community Foundation, and others. We have a start up ministry to women at the Vandalia prison called Life Leadership and it is expanding into offerings here in the community. We have a vibrant Vacation Bible School lead by youth of the church and partnering again with our Downtown Churches. St. Andrew ELCA contributes financially to this as well as our own Julia Kraft Guild. We have just started participating in Bright Futures with Poplar Bluff Schools. We collect box tops for education for Eugene Field every year as well as school supplies.
"It is little and big. It is small and great. It is celebrating all we do together as a community. All of Holy Cross' partners are invited to attend and stand with us as we commit to continuing our work with one another. Come and join us as we celebrate this wonderful designation at 6:30 p.m., Friday, April 28, 2017. We want to celebrate what we can do together in this world."