Dear saints,

Yesterday we held our annual parish meeting in Ellis Hall. A new slate of vestry members was duly elected and a presentation was made of our financial health as a church, which I am pleased to say is excellent. We are an incredibly generous parish, both in terms of annual pledges, which for 2026 has surpassed $3.5 million, and in our legacy giving, with our endowment now valued at over $16 million. Thank you for making All Saints’ a priority in your philanthropic life. 

You are welcome to browse our 2025 Annual Report here to gain a fuller sense of the year we have shared as a parish:

During my state of the parish address yesterday, I also offered thanks for the good stewardship you offer here through the many and varied ways that you give to the life of this church as teachers and ushers, as core ministry volunteers and as members of our choir, and on the wide array of governance bodies that make All Saints’ such a smoothly run operation.

Among those governance bodies are the two that are most active with regards to the block: the Egleston task force (whose remit is to bring to the vestry a costed design for Egleston) and the block development committee (whose remit is to oversee all phases of the block’s development over the next several years). You will have a chance to engage with the Egleston task force this coming Sunday April 19 at a town hall forum starting at 10:20a.m. in Ellis Hall. During that meeting we will hear together about the conditions assessment of Egleston Hall and have plenty of time for your questions. I do hope that you can make it.

At the heart of all of this good labor offered to the glory of God in this place is of course the vestry, a leadership body in our church that I find to be a source of life and confidence. As I shared at the annual meeting, All Saints’ vestry members work tremendously hard on your behalf and do that work grounded within a culture of trust that enables them to lead rather than micromanage, entrusting a wide array of tasks to an incredibly talented set of committees and task forces, most centrally at this time with all of the work we are doing with the block.

You may have read our press in the Atlanta Journal Constitution recently, seen other online articles elsewhere, come across websites not belonging to All Saints’ that are dedicated to preserving our buildings, or have received communications from parishioners passionate about Egleston’s historic status. Of course, people are and should be free to express their views openly and clearly. We are not a church that has ever been of one mind about anything. Just ask a pew full of Episcopalians what they believe about the resurrection. You’ll get as many answers as there are people sitting there, and probably more! That diversity of thought is one of the things that I love most about the Episcopal Church. 

We’re not going to start all thinking the same way now, and so it is almost certain that we will not all agree about whatever decision we arrive at on Egleston. And we don’t have to in order to be the church. The tradition we belong to as Episcopalians is one that chooses to be the Body of Christ together, accepting our differences not in spite of them. 

Let me offer, though, a distinction that I shared in the room in Ellis Hall yesterday. We should welcome spirited debate about the future of the block but I caution us against transitioning from spirited disagreement to oppositional campaigning. 

I offer that caution because at the end of this season of work in the development of this block it is essential that we will have remained the church. The strength of this church is the depth and quality of the relationships that we share with one another. 

All Saints’ has never been afraid of tackling difficult questions. And while we all share sadness that the difficult question we now face is precipitated by damage done to a beloved building, we all must confront the question of what represents the best stewardship of the future of this church. 

Let us do that together trusting that there many people among you working on committees and task forces and on your vestry who care deeply for this church, who are listening to you, and are seeking what is the best for All Saints’. Yet even more, let us do this work believing that our faithfulness to one another, to our neighbors and to the God who calls us onward is the measure of who we aspire to be as God’s church no matter what we decide to do with our buildings.

So, dear saints, let’s stay in conversation with one another, openly and directly. If you have a view on Egleston, on the block more broadly, or on anything else for that matter, please call me, or ask for a time for us to meet, or chat with Meg Fogel, Sheldon Taylor or Briley Brisendine, who I am delighted to share is our new senior warden. We want to hear from you. 

As we listen to one another, let us listen also to the Holy Spirit’s guidance trusting that in the end this is God’s church and that the One who calls is faithful indeed. I offer you this prayer as we walk this path together:

Loving God, 

maker of the heavens and the earth, 

we give thanks for the gift of the life 

that we share as your church. 

May your Spirit of wisdom inspire our hearts and enrich our minds. 

May we discern your will for the church in this place 

with audacious courage and a lively hope. 

And may all that we seek to be and do 

be offered with humility to your glory, 

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Peace,