St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church in Keller is featured prominently in an Episcopal News Service story headlined “Episcopalians across the world help others to celebrate Christmas.”
St. Martin’s is featured along with congregations in Buffalo, New York; Shrewsbury, New Jersey; Miami, Florida; Atlanta, Georgia; and Kansas City, Missouri as well congregations as in the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania and the Episcopal Church Women of the Diocese of Pittsburgh along with all the Episcopalians giving gifts from Episcopal Relief and Development’s Gifts for Life Catalog.
About St. Martin’s the story says, “Children, youth and their parents have also been delving into the deeper levels of Advent and Christmas at St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church in Keller, Texas. That exploration has been happening through the parish’s continuing relationship with the Union Gospel Mission of Tarrant County, which since 1888 has been dedicated to helping homeless people.
“The parish has a year-round targeted monthly giving campaign, meant in part to help teach children to understand that others need some basic things the children might take for granted. It fits in well with the religious education curriculum’s goals of pray, give, worship, serve and love.”
The story quotes Corrie Cabes, the parish’s children and youth minister and chaplain to St. Martin’s Episcopal School, who explained why the parish focused it’s Christmas efforts on Union Gospel Mission: “because we had such a strong connection and relationship.”
“It began the drive in late October and ended it on Dec. 6 because ‘we really wanted folks to anticipate Advent and start getting mindful and getting ready for the journey we were about to take,’ Cabes said. The early December cutoff meant ‘people could really dig into Advent,’” the story said.
Each Sunday of Advent featured a different activity, many multigenerational, related to the relationship with Union Gospel Mission.
The story reports that “The parish recently received a large package from UGM filled with ‘amazing’ thank-you cards but, Cabes said, the thanks ought to go the other way because ‘they minister to us and they change us, they transform us; what we do is so small compared to what they give to us.”
“And the gift for St. Martin’s younger members is that “it’s really good for them to see that it’s a powerful thing for everyone to focus their energy on goodness and helping people.'”