02/24/2022
My name is Rick Chamiec-Case. I am a member of St. Johns and attend the 10 am English-speaking service.
I am one of our parish members who represents St. John's with CONECT (https://weconect.org/), the organization that brings together 37 congregations in Connecticut from many faith traditions (Christian, Jewish, Muslim, etc.) to work together on social and economic justice issues of common concern in our state. Over the past 10 years, CONECT has worked with congregations to live out our faith to address issues like: gun violence, improving mental health services, police reform, advocating for immigrant rights, etc. St. John's has been a member of CONECT since it started 10 years ago.
At this current time, CONECT is challenging all of its member congregations, including St. Johns, to hold “house meetings” with parishioners so that we can let CONECT know what we feel are the most important social and economic issues in our state today. We would like to hold at least one or two 60-90 minute house meetings in March with each of our congregations (that is, our English speaking, Spanish speaking, and Creole speaking congregations).
So far we have the following house meeting dates scheduled at St. John’s:
· Sunday, March 20th right after the 10:00 am service in English (so about 11:30 am)
· Sunday, March 20th right after the 5 pm service in Creole (so about 6:30 pm)
· We are still working on scheduling a house meeting for our Spanish speaking congregation – so the date and time are still TBA
If you are interested in having a voice and to give direction to CONECT’s social justice work this year and would like to participate in one of these house meetings, could you let us know via email so that we plan our house meetings accordingly?
If you are interested in being part of a house meeting on Sunday, March 20th right after the 10:00 am service in English (so about 11:30 am), please email me at [email protected].
If you would like to be a part of a house meeting on Sunday, March 20th right after the 5 pm service in Creole (so about 6:30 pm), please email Kettie at [email protected] or Pascale at [email protected].
If you are interested in being part of a house meeting in Spanish on a date/time still to be announced, please email Sonia at [email protected].
We hope many of you plan to be a part of one of these house meetings so that parishioners at St. John’s can have a strong voice in influencing the shape and direction of the faith-based social justice work of CONECT in 2022. We are not alone, and together, let us be the change for not only the city of Bridgeport, but for the entire state of Connecticut.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Peace and blessings,
Rick Chamiec-Case