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Dear saints,
As someone whose vocation has been spent listening to people’s stories of their lives within the context of church communities, I have always marveled at how much history keeps on coming round again. Take, for example, the Boy Scouts. Back in 1921, the attic of Egleston Hall was where a troop of scouts made home as All Saints’ stepped forward into a long history of being a church that wishes to open its doors to all sorts of people. Fast forward to the 1990’s and the front cover of Scouting magazine shows a picture of members of our own Atlanta Troop 42, an extraordinary community of boys and the men who led them drawn from across the parish and across the freeway to the west, young men who well into adulthood still sent Christmas cards to their Scout leader, the late Jack Langford, as expressions of the deep gratitude they felt for him and for All Saints’ opening a door to them and into their lives. Fast forward again to the present day, and after a long hiatus, we are soon to have a Scout troop once more on the block, and 105 years since the first troop arrived this group will also be in the attic - this time the one in the Pritchett Center, a space which allows us to open ourselves to the parish and the city because of the generosity of this church.
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As much as things change, they stay the same. Yet, they do change. As I had noted some weeks ago, later this week, Egleston Hall will be named as a ‘place in peril’ by the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, and we are grateful for the leadership of the trust as they work with us as we assess the condition of Egleston as a structure that has suffered significant structural damage, offer our mutual appreciation of its historic nature, and consider All Saints’ missional priorities to partner with our core ministries, be a leader in the Episcopal Church in church music, and resource our parish and staff with accessible and welcoming spaces fit for purpose. Our architects, Perkins and Will, are meeting with the Georgia Trust in early March and we are excited to work alongside them.
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Of course, Egleston, and indeed all of the physical structures on this block, are a lot more than buildings; they are places where we have been the church through the decades of our history as a parish - and churches are remarkably adaptive entities. It was wonderful last Sunday to hear Jenny Jobson, the executive director of the Midtown Assistance Center (MAC), describe how MAC made its beginnings in the bride’s room in Egleston, then moved off the block to First Methodist Church, Atlanta, until MAC came back a number of years ago as now we celebrate together 40 years of their essential ministry to support people living on the economic edge. The story of MAC is the story of what happens when faith meets the determined hope that the world can be a place where everyone enjoys the opportunity to thrive. That marriage of faith and determined hope has told itself over and over through the history of this church.
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 | | We want to hear those stories, not only of the past but also of the imagined future. Having done site visits with our staff, our music department and our core ministries, our architects Perkins and Will will now be hosting charrette-style conversations with MAC, Covenant Community, and Threads to hear the vision for the years ahead of key stakeholders in those ministries. They are also gathering with folks passionate about music, and with our garden guild, to hear from them what they imagine for our block. Finally, Perkins and Will is also going to gather parishioners who have memories to share back through the decades of their life of faith and hope as they have been played out in Egleston Hall. Egleston has been a concert hall, a theater, a dance venue, a Sunday school, an office building, and every now and again a backdrop for movies and TV shows. It has also hosted many of you, as you have prepared to commend loved ones to God's eternal mercy and care, it has helped brides and grooms and their entourages look spectacular on their wedding days, it has hosted youth and adults before their confirmations, and so much more. It has changed a great deal through the years, yet what has not changed is our confidence through all of those changes to the buildings on our block to be the church God calls us to be. As we study Egleston’s future as a building it is essential that we listen to what has most been of value in how the people of this parish and city have utilized it and kept on recreating Egleston so we might better imagine what could be possible there into the future.
In the end, the church is in the people business and behind each of those rector’s portraits in the library of Egleston is a sea of people who have made this church what it is, wherever they have gathered as the Body of Christ. How good it is to be able to create a space today for the church of this generation and for future ones. Please do share your stories of faith and hope with me, or with your fellow parishioners leading our block work, so we can shine a light on what we value most of all: one another.
Peace,
| Rev. Dr. Simon Mainwaring, Rector | | | | |
