Dear Beloved,
In 1996, one of our parishioners, Dr. Wayne R. McKinney, began The Well in the Desert as a ministry of the Church of St. Paul in the Desert, believing the most vulnerable in our community deserved to be fed. He continued this work alongside other parishioners and it affectionately became known as “The Well”. As it grew, The Well in the Desert, became its own 501c3 non-profit organization, managed and led by Arlene Rosenthal. The Well continued all these years to cook meals for over 200 people out of St. Paul’s “little kitchen that could” five days a week! The Well then transported those meals four of the five days to other church locations throughout the city—The United Methodist Church, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and Our Lady of Solitude—and served the meals on Wednesdays at St. Paul’s. Many of our parishioners helped in those early days, almost 30 years ago.
In recent years, The Well has gone through its own changes through leadership and focus. St. Paul’s has offered support to this most valuable service by continuing (as has always been the case) to provide the use of the kitchen and Parish Hall rent-free. We also hosted Arlene Rosenthal’s funeral when she passed away last year and have continued to be in conversations with Matt Naylor, the new acting director of the Well, about how to best support one another and, more importantly, what to do about homelessness in Palm Springs.
At the same time as all of this, those of you who attended one of the yearly Patio Parties this past Fall know, we have been discerning what to do with the Parish Hall. It is an aging building with a lot of history that could use a bit of a facelift as we dream about the life and ministry of St. Paul’s in the future. We shared with Patio Party goers that the Co-Rectors and the Wardens consulted with an architect that works with the city on whether it would be most cost efficient to tear down the building altogether and build something new or tear it down to the studs and rebuild on the structure. After walking with us on the premises, the architect noted that it would be more cost efficient to tear it down. When given the dollar amount for the cheapest this would cost, we quickly realized this option was out of our financial capacity at this time in our church’s history. Instead of putting the church in massive debt that would be difficult to pay off in a short amount of time, the decision to explore what it might cost to give the Parish Hall a bit of refresh was agreed upon by the Vestry and Co-Rectors. You’ll read more about what this entails in next week’s Abundant Life.
Back in February of last year, before we knew that a complete rebuild was out of the picture, the Co-Rectors and Wardens met with Matt Naylor who is the acting director of The Well, to discuss how we might incorporate The Well’s mission in our shared space, especially wondering if they might be interested in an expanded fully commercial kitchen (our current kitchen is not). We also talked about what might happen to The Well in those weeks (or months or years) when the building wouldn’t be usable. Much to our surprise, Matt was enthusiastically hopeful about The Well’s desire to have its own building, sharing about the challenges faced in transporting meals from St. Paul’s to each of the three additional locations. This also made it difficult for the homeless who had to caravan to a different meal site each day of the week instead of at one central feeding location. When the Parish Hall was to be worked on, Matt said The Well would not return after the remodel, and would find its own building. While this would certainly change the identity of both organizations in their longstanding partnership, it made sense. The most important thing was figuring out how we could support one another in our shared vision of helping the homeless while working out the logistics that worked best for both of our organizations.
As the Parish Hall refresh project has come to fruition (and MANY thanks to the feedback from Patio Parties and the work of the Wardens, Vestry, and the Vestry’s Parish Hall Task Force), St. Paul’s has been in communication with The Well about timelines. In April, then in August, conversations continued about The Well’s desire to have its own building. In September, The Well was notified that a Parish Hall refresh project would likely start in January, and they began to plan their exit from St. Paul’s building. On January 3rd, The Well cooked its last meal at the church, and cleaned out to head to its next cooking location.
While The Well is still figuring out all the pieces of its next move, our parish has made every effort to continue supporting both the Well and those whom we both serve. Meals will continue to be served five days per week throughout the city, with the United Methodist Church taking up the Wednesday feeding responsibility. The Co-Rectors met with Matt just before Christmas to talk about the larger issue in the city of feeding the hungry and we are working on how we might continue conversations with city officials about larger structural issues that hinder the homeless from receiving the support they need. The Vestry voted at their December meeting to give a farewell monetary gift to The Well to support them in their dreams for a permanent location for feeding people. We are open to considering being a feeding location after construction is completed on the Parish Hall, but we will not be cooking out of the kitchen given its limited capacity (unfortunately, we cannot do major work on the kitchen due to structural and budget limitations). We also commit to working toward a long-term solution for a centralized feeding location in Palm Springs that is open to anyone who is hungry.
As we continue to move into a new chapter in our parish, this raises a much larger question. What is our mission and outreach identity? Our core outreach identity for 30 years has been the ministry of The Well in the Desert. It has been feeding the hungry. However, over the past seven years, clothing the naked has become and more our central identity. Is that where the Spirit is leading us? While still helping to feed the hungry in an assisting manner, maybe our primary outreach identity will become clothing the naked? If other churches like the United Methodist Church are leading the charge on feeding the hungry, maybe our unique charism, or grace gift, to the wider Palm Springs community will be clothing folks? Or maybe it will become something else? Regardless, we are committed to spending the season of Epiphany and Lent doing the difficult, but deep work of discerning where God is calling us to next so that we can be good stewards of the people, talents, buildings, and money we have been entrusted with. We do all of this to share the abundant love of Jesus Christ with everyone in our community, especially the marginalized. God has a preferential option for the poor and needy and so should the church.
The Parish Hall Refresh Project will cause all of us to get comfortable with loose knees (click here to watch the sermon from this past Sunday: https://www.youtube.com/live/4cWsIcnmq1k?si=j53IjLdefM9xOyxk&t=2164). In many ways, we have learned a lot from The Well over the years on how to be an adaptable organization. That is one of the gifts they have given us in our time together. The Parish Hall Refresh forces us to rethink where classes will meet, where the 12 Step Groups will meet, and what St. Paul’s Mercy Ministries (formerly Social Justice) will look like with limited space available on the campus. (And note that we’ve been working with the 12 Step Groups who will still creatively meet on our campus during the refresh).
This past Wednesday, the St. Paul’s Mercy Ministries set up its last Sundries Distribution (for the time), giving away clothes, shoes, socks, and toiletries to any folks who showed up. Since it takes time for word to spread through the community that the feeding location has changed, we weren’t sure if people would still show up thinking it was a regular Wednesday meal offered, too. The Mercy Ministries went above and beyond and served meals to 40 people who came not knowing there would be a new location. We also handed them flyers letting them know where the feeding sites would be moving forward. After the distribution, we were able to donate another 160 meals to the Well in the Desert (we overprepared) who will be able to use the sandwiches, chips, and drinks on Thursday and Friday.
We do not know exactly what this new season will look like, but we do know that it will be continuing to figure out how to be in relationship with the most vulnerable in our society. Our mission is not changing, but how we do our mission is. Thank you for reading this far and thank you for continuing to pray and do the deep work of spiritual listening as we chart a path forward. If you want to talk with us more about this major change, please reach out to us via email and we would be more than happy to set up an appointment to hear what is on your mind. Please also continue to pray for and support The Well in the Desert as they seek to pursue a dream of a central feeding location in Palm Springs that is open to any and all.
Epiphany Blessings,
Rev. Jessie Thompson & Rev. Dan Kline
Co-Rectors