Father Ben's pledge campaign letter — October 2024

Dear parishioners,

I encourage you to think about how far we have come in a short time. 

Between 2020 and 2021, we lost almost a quarter of our pledged income and nearly a third of our pledging families. The pandemic, our inability to hold in-person services and a very divisive political and social landscape made it nearly impossible to hold this community together. I can honestly say that it was a vocational low point. I felt all the responsibility and could not figure out how to hold the whole of our community together.  

Four short years later, we have clawed back. The numbers are only one outward sign of how remarkable a community we have here at Saint James’ and what an abundant, graceful and faithful God we follow. 

Our Sunday worship is at pre-pandemic levels; we are repairing homes in this area and in Hurley, Virginia; resettling a new refugee family; providing and advocating for quality preschool education for the economically disadvantaged; forming more and more children and young people; welcoming and engaging countless visitors here at Saint James’; and so much more. Our school is thriving and embodying their mission. AND we are enjoying breakfast together each week thanks to our Café volunteers. 

I also cannot begin to tell you how grateful I am for the remarkable and deeply committed staff we have here at Saint James’. I can’t think of a time when I felt more equipped to thrive. Our staff is a treasure worth celebrating and investing and so are each of YOU! 

Church, becoming the kind of community that shines so brightly — that is so quick to be kind and makes such haste to love — is worth sacrificing our time, talent and treasure. We have something special here. I count myself so far beyond blessed to be the rector.   

If I snapped my fingers and the church suddenly vanished, I would lose so much more than a job and a purpose. Saint James’ has raised my children to be kind, resilient and faithful people. I cannot begin to share with you how much joy and pride it brought me this past summer to be sweating alongside them on the mission trip work sites. I see my daughter, Lauralee, week in and week out sitting in the pew, and I know she is here because she is loved and knows this is a rock to which she can cling. I know that if it were not for Saint James’, my son, Elliott, would not be seeking out church in Knoxville, Tennessee, when he is adjusting to a new place and a new life. You have taught him that church is where you belong, where you are loved, where you know it will be OK. And you have done the same for me.  

Several times each week I worship with preschoolers and people flirting with their second century of life and everyone in between. I am shaped by God, by hearing and responding to God’s Word, by giving and receiving Christ’s love poured out in bread and wine, by interactions with you, by walking together. I am shaped and sanded and buffed and filled by the life of Saint James’ and the way God works through this church. 

Whether you are still finding your bearings here, attend sporadically or your car always seems to head toward 73 Culpeper St., I encourage you to step a little further from shore into these waters.  

Attend more regularly, stop by Wednesdays at noon or Thursdays at 7:30 a.m.  Attend a Bible study or study group, serve in some way within and outside our doors, and give more generously, more sacrificially. Shape your life more squarely around this church and I pray that you will find staggering returns, a cup filled to overflowing not just when life is going well, but most profoundly when it isn’t. 

You will be asked to make a financial commitment to the 2025 program year. I encourage you to think about it holistically. How can I step deeper and further into the water? I pray it will bless your life the way it has mine.

God's blessings,

The Rev. Benjamin Wells Maas