Raising Up Foundations for Many Generations
Join us in rebuilding our capacity for hospitality, welcome, service, and sharing of Christ’s love: not just in our hearts, but here in our spiritual home.
Don’t forget our Capital Campaign Kick-Off Brunch on Sunday, November 9!
Interested in learning more about the capital campaign projects after the kickoff? We have curated fun, interactive, small group ways to engage with the St. John’s community for just that purpose. See the options and RSVP on SignUp Genius.
From the Rector
Dear Beloved in Christ,
These are exciting times! We are beginning our first formal capital campaign at St. John’s in more than 20 years! Last year, we engaged in a listening process and a feasibility study to ensure the projects and process of this campaign reflect our faith community’s values and a healthy theology of money. I am convinced, with all that is happening in the world around us and in our faith community, that there has never been a more important time to align our financial resources with our values.
On this website, you will learn all the details and the “why” for the goals and the projects we’ll be tackling in this campaign. Our selected projects deeply resonate with the theme for our capital campaign, which comes from the words of the prophet Isaiah:
Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to live in.
I want to affirm that this campaign is about each and every one of you. Each gift, no matter the size, and your prayer and enthusiastic support will help us to continue to work together as we further the healing, repairing, and Good News of Jesus’s reconciling love in our neighborhood and world.
Faithfully,
Jered+
Read the Case Statement
Review our Capital Campaign case statement in PDF format, featuring extended narratives of our project goals, beautiful illustrated floor plans of each project, answers to frequently asked questions, and budgetary breakdowns of our Annual and Capital Campaigns for this season.
Catering Kitchens & Gathering Spaces
Our current kitchen is outdated and out of compliance. Ventilation, electrical wiring, HVAC, and material upgrades are needed if we want to continue to have a functional place to prepare meals to share
together and with our neighbors. Our plan is to gut renovate the existing kitchen to create a clean slate for a new catering kitchen, with room to add commercial appliances over time. A new dishwasher, refreshed countertops, cabinetry, floors, lighting, and finishes will refresh the space and give us all we need for the types of food service we currently provide in a much more inviting environment.
Outside the kitchen, we’ll refresh and renew a flexible gathering space for fellowship after worship that can also welcome our neighbors and partners throughout the week.
The estimated cost for these projects is $552,825.
In an old locker room turned overflow storage space beside the gym, we’ve uncovered an opportunity to transform an under-used, over-crowded space into a vital part of our parish life and ministry. By clearing out and renovating this space, we’ll be able to create a welcoming community lounge close to the kitchen and the gym. Equipped to serve 12-step meetings, grief and meditation groups, theater troupes, writers collectives, meetings and gatherings of all kinds, the space also reveals hidden architectural elements and a new feature wall displaying our “Church of the Open Door” motto. The lounge is sure to bring new energy to this forgotten corner of our building.
At the same time, this renovation will allow us to provide ample space for tables, chairs, and other necessary items, as well as storage for Big Wonder to share.
The estimated cost for this project is $343,923.
Our much beloved and sought after Fireside Room is in need of some tender loving care. This flexible, relaxed gathering space has a sense of coziness, even while accommodating up to 50 people. It can host everything from classes to coffee and conversation. But wear and tear have taken a toll on nearly every surface and
piece of furniture. The time has come to restore its beautiful mid-century charm and bring it up to date for the needs we have today. The proposed renovations include new lighting, flooring, and finishes, including a glass wall that allows in natural light, and provides greater transparency and a sense of connection to the gallery beyond. With these enhancements, we’ll expand our ability to extend hospitality and enjoy one another’s company in fellowship around the fireplace for years to come.
The estimated cost for this project is $522,815.
Hospitality is at the heart of our call to welcome all who enter St. John’s from
the moment they arrive. Our refreshed and renovated reception area will ensure
that whichever door you come through, you are met with a sense of openness and belonging.
Along with the new entrance, updated ADA restrooms will demonstrate our commitment to caring for our neighbors.
The estimated cost for these projects is $126,017.
Fireside Room & Reception Areas
Saving for the Future
Our building is a resource and a responsibility. Our capacity to gather, worship, serve, and invite our neighbors into our space is tied directly to what our physical structures allow and what they encourage. In order for our building to be safe, healthy, comfortable, and gracious, we must care for it as we do our own homes. Keeping things up to code and functional is the minimum commitment we must make. Making sure our building reflects our commitment to meaningful ministry and community is the goal we wish to embrace.
A Building Reserve Fund will give us the peace of mind of knowing that unforeseen issues can be handled without undue stress. Our dreams and visions for improvements, too, can be considered more readily with a dedicated fund to draw from. This sense of security will enable us to focus on bringing our shared values to life in our buildings just as we do in our lives of faith.
Our projected number for a robust and secure Building Reserve Fund is $1,000,000.
Once we’ve reached our campaign goal, our stretch goal will be to create a Bridge Fund to cover any projected budget shortfalls over the next two years. This will allow us to preserve staff and continue fully funding our existing vital ministries as we continue to grow our faith community.
The ideal cost for this stretch goal would be $209,012.
Communications Archive
Dear Friends in Christ,
We are excited to announce that the vestry of St. John’s has approved us moving forward with a capital campaign. We look forward to the opportunities this campaign offers us as we strengthen the usefulness of our building as a resource to serve our members, partners, and the community beyond our walls.
How did we get here? Through a lot of listening:
- Earlier this spring, St. John’s released a fundraising feasibility study report after deep listening and surveying our whole faith community, with findings about a range of important capital improvement projects and the necessary funds to accomplish each. That report was prepared and presented by our consultants at the Vandersall Collective and included valuable feedback from so many of you about what in those projects was energizing, and where we might need to refine the scope of our future work even further.
- In March, the vestry took the feasibility report on retreat. Guided by prayer and deep listening to one another and the Holy Spirit, and led by your crucial feedback, we began the process of discerning next steps. Following the retreat, the vestry met for a special voting session and approved the feasible projects outlined in the report, as well as the goal amount identified by our feasibility study and a stretch goal.
- At the same time, our vestry voted to retain the services of the Vandersall Collective, who have guided us successfully and faithfully thus far, as well as continuing to refine our architectural plans with the leadership of OPN Architects, who have also been with us throughout this journey.
- After Easter, we began the process of recruiting a fabulous team of leaders to help spearhead the five essential areas needed to make a capital campaign successful: Advanced Gifts, Congregational Gifts, Spiritual Emphasis, Communication, and Events. We look forward to introducing you to the St. John’s Capital Campaign Core Team in the coming week.
In addition to this fabulous team of leaders, our Core Team will be supported by our consultants, Mieke Vandersall and Tim Anderson; myself, your rector, Jered Weber-Johnson; and campaign coordinator, Abigael (Abby) Johnson. In the coming weeks, this team of leaders will grow with additional committee members within each emphasis area.
There are many details to come (timelines, deeper understanding of projects we are raising funds for, and much more). This is our promise to you: we will communicate clearly and transparently on our plans and progress, and we will invite you to participate in this campaign in any and all ways that are possible for you. Each and every one of us is necessary to our success. Success is far more than raising the money possible to care for our building, it is also growing in faith and in closeness to each other, God, and our neighbors.
We are so excited to invite your support for this campaign. Together we will seek to show forth our service to others, welcome all people into this community of faith, and be built up in the knowledge and love of God.
Faithfully,
The Very Rev. Jered Weber-Johnson
Dearest Beloved Community,
May this message find you rested, restored, and nourished as our summer makes the gentle transition to autumn and all its harvests.
With our change in season, there will also be a change in how often you hear from yours, truly as the Capital Campaign shifts from planning mode to action. So much of our summer meetings have been surrounding the joy of pooling our resources to build the foundation for our important work, and I am so thrilled to be one of many to bring that joy to you!
Many diligent and wise members of our parish have come together over the past few months to discern the best way to translate the enthusiasm recorded by the Feasibility Study into actionable projects. I’m here today to share a short summary of what our leaders have chosen, in part to whet the appetite as well as keep our beloved community appraised:
- A building reserve fund is a top priority in this year’s Capital Campaign, in order to ensure the health and welfare of our spiritual home so that it may serve the St. John’s community and its partners for decades to come.
- Renovations to the Fireside Building come next, as our beloved meeting room needs some TLC and updates to best cater to our needs!
- Catering kitchen renovations and a new gathering space adjacent to the kitchen are also on our project list, as hospitality is one of our priorities at St. John’s and an up-to-code kitchen with space to host meals and more is part of that mission.
- Upgrading our gym storage to a community lounge will also be on the list of projects, transforming our former locker room and catch-all overflow into a multi-functional space for community meetings that still accommodates our need for storage.
- Refreshing our Reception and building ADA-compliant restrooms are our final project, ensuring that we at St. John the Evangelist can welcome all as members of the Church of the Open Door.
Finally, we have a stretch goal: building a bridge fund to offset any potential budget constraints during this exciting time. This would help our community to support and preserve our incredible staff members for the next two years, preserving vital ministries within our church and out in our community.
More details – including the complete breakdown on how our fundraising efforts will apply to each project – will be available soon. In the interest of transparency, however, I am pleased to announce that the fundraising number without our stretch goal is $2,755,000. Our final number that includes our stretch goal is $2,964,512.
This will not be the final time we discuss our project goals! The Capital Campaign team will be hosting a number of forums and events, and publishing communications, on this vital work that we’ll be doing together. It is my hope that you’ll join us so that we can continue to inquire, hope, and dream about all we can accomplish together to raise up the foundations of St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church for many generations.
In faith and gratitude,
Allison Brown, Capital Campaign Communications Chair
Dearest Beloved Community,
Hello again, dear friends! In my last missive to you, I shared our initial list of projects for our Capital Campaign. As meteorological autumn falls, I’m now here to share with you the outline of the arc of the capital and annual campaigns taking place this fall, ways to learn more, and events that you won’t want to miss:
- Mid-September: In a few weeks, our soft launch of the Capital Campaign will begin as members of the Advanced Gifts team invite initial fundraising conversations with parishioners just like you! (Fun fact: the ‘advanced’ in Advanced Gifts simply means early on the schedule, nothing more or less.)
- September: September is also when you’ll receive an invitation to our awesome Kick-Off Brunch.
- October 12, 19, and 26: In the month of October, we’ll be holding a very special series of Faith Forums in the 9am hour about the relationship between fundraising and our community. Each Sunday will focus on Stewardship, the projects and process of the Capital Campaign, as well as our Annual Campaign to support St. John’s.
- November 9: After the 10am service, we are thrilled to celebrate together at our Campaign’s Kick-Off Event! This brunch is going to be catered by Chowgirls Catering, an incredible women-owned catering company whose menu reflects their values of sustainability, inclusivity, and community. But this event is more than just food: it’s also a celebration of St. John’s accomplishments thus far and how we’ve built the foundation to support our future for generations to come. This also marks the beginning of the congregational gifts phase where we invite all members of our community to pledge towards both the capital and annual campaigns.
- November and December: If you thought our soft launch was full of activity, wait until you see our plans for post-kickoff! Our team is currently planning multiple campaign events if you would like to learn more about the campaign or to make a pledge. We’ll not only be building up towards our fundraising goal, but also community, fun, and conviviality.
- January 2026: All good things must come to an end, and that includes our Capital Campaign! In January, we’ll have a closing party where you can receive a full report on the success of the Campaign and how we’ll use our hard work to repair the breach and serve our communities in light and love.
And to think: the above are just the campaign-related events for our church home this fall! We members of St. John’s are busy bees, indeed. Yet as you flit amongst the incredible garden that is our parish’s programming, we would be honored and humbled to be one of the many ways you spend your energy this season.
In faith and peace,
Allison Brown, Communications Chair
Greetings, beloved community of St. John’s!
For this and the next two Wednesdays, the Capital Campaign team will be entering into your inboxes to share a recap of our October Faith Forum series. This series centers on stewardship, the theology behind the practice, and how these influences impact our Capital and Annual Campaigns.
You can watch the full recording of this past Sunday’s forum here, or below on the Capital Campaign landing page.
For our first Sunday, we connected on two of our biggest projects. The first of which connects to our beautiful church home, which is entering its 124th year and has weathered many generations. In our discernment process, the community identified a tangible desire to pivot away from previous responses to repairs towards a proactive building maintenance practice.
Our way of doing this is by building a Building Reserve Fund. Understandably, this fund has a lot of buy-in from our beloved community, as this investment of capital will ensure that St. John’s will be able to fund maintenance up front and take care of this beautiful building for generations to come.
Reserve funds are not our only focus as we prepare to update and create the following spaces:
- ADA-compliant bathrooms,
- Two new lounges to accommodate our own and our community partners’ growing need for meeting areas,
- Updated storage space for the parish and Big Wonder Childcare,
- A refreshed Fireside Room, and
- An updated, up-to-code Catering Kitchen.
As a parish that takes hospitality seriously, we knew we needed to talk about the scope of our kitchen improvements first. The nitty gritty of our kitchen work is laid out in our Campaign packets (pick yours up with a RSVP to our November 9 kick-off brunch, either via your digital PaperlessPost invitation or by emailing us directly), so we spent this faith forum talking about the overall theme: safety, safety, safety!
Asbestos abatement, electrical repair, and building the foundation for a safer and more robust HVAC systems were identified as top priorities by contractors, and the Vestry (and many of our Feasibility Study respondents) agreed. Accordingly, new priorities include flooring; updated wiring; and home-grade appliance upgrades such as a new stovetop hood, dishwasher, microwave, electric griddles, warming oven, and an electric convection oven. These upgrades allow us to express hospitality in all the ways we have in the past, all while offering us room to grow in the future.
This recap has only scratched the surface, and the Capital Campaign team is ready to share more of the details at our October 19 and 26 Faith Forums. Come connect with us at 9am in the Fireside Room or catch the Forum on Zoom!
In faith and peace,
Allison Brown, Communications Chair
Welcome, beloved St. John’s community, to our second week of Faith Forums on the Capital Campaign! We are so delighted in your attendance and eager questions, and hope that this summary is helpful if you weren’t able to attend. If you’d like to watch the recording, you can go to the Capital Campaign web page and scroll up to “Faith Forum Recordings.”
This week, Jered continued to guide us through our renovation projects as he broke down three special areas in our parish home that need some TLC: the Fireside Room, the adjacent Bathroom and Reception Area, and a brand-new Community Lounge located next to our Parish Hall.
Having the Forum in the Fireside Room was perfect for this discussion, as there’s no denying that this special place needs some love. Wear and tear have affected our carpets and furnishings, with our last repairs being made in 2012. Accordingly, the Campaign’s priority list for renovations to the Fireside Room include:
- New flooring,
- New ceilings,
- New finishes for items like wall paneling, doors, and the like,
- A glass wall open to the hallway gallery, and
- New furniture that is intended to adapt to the Fireside Room’s many uses, from Faith Forums to casual bridge games.
In addition, our Reserve Fund will have the capacity to support two additional renovation projects once established: new windows and a HVAC system designed to bring air conditioning to the Fireside Room in the stuffy summer months.
As we refresh the Fireside Room, the adjacent bathrooms and reception area at the top of the Kent Street Entrance stairs will also receive some much needed updates. The bathrooms just outside the Fireside Room are neither particularly private nor accessible. These updates will grant us three ADA-accessible bathrooms that are fully enclosed, private, and offer dignity to our guests. Additionally, our reception will also get an update in the process!
So much of what our Forums have mentioned so far revolve around renovations, but there is one project on the list that will be a net-new space that revolutionizes how we utilize our home. Our current storage space next to the Parish Hall, once a set of locker rooms (and then, for a while, the Huge Sale Closet), is cluttered and ill-utilized. With our funds from the Campaign, this space will get a full makeover to become a Community Lounge that offers yet another area for gathering in a private—and beautiful—space. But never fear: our plans also include redesigned storage space to ensure that we can store things smartly and more efficiently.
Interested in learning even more? We have one Faith Forum left this Sunday, October 26 at 9am in the Fireside Room and online via Zoom! We’re so excited to continue this conversation on faith, stewardship, and transformation with all of you.
In faith and peace,
Allison Brown, Communications Chair
Greetings, beloved community!
As the end of October is here, so too is the last of these emails summarizing our Faith Forums on stewardship and giving to the Annual and Capital Campaigns. October 26 covered the intangible in our Campaign: Stretch Goals, the Annual Campaign, and the theology behind our desire to fundraise now.
(By the way: if you’d like to watch all three recordings in this series of Faith Forums, please refer to the "Faith Forum Recordings" directly below, as these summaries barely scratch the surface!)
For the final Forum, Jered started the meeting much like how our Capital Campaign meetings have started every week since the start of our planning: in prayer and with an encapsulation of our Why. Articulating our Why has ranged from snapshots to storytelling, and always return to these principles:
- We want to achieve our goals and build momentum for future projects,
- We want our goals to support our call to serve, both within and outside our walls,
- We want to take care of our building as a resource,
- We want to have fun and celebrate, and
- We want to change our relationship with money and fundraising overall.
Money may be a tool, but it is a tool connected with our deepest beliefs and desires; in other words, two things most likely to evoke deep feelings and anxiety alike. In this Capital Campaign work, we want to challenge ourselves as a congregation to shift our relationship with money to one that highlights the life-giving possibilities of giving that is honest and fruitful, and best reflects the values of Jesus and the Gospel. This, of course, is easier said than done – but the great news is that we don’t have to do so alone. Naming our personal Why alongside the Campaign Why above helps us align our fundraising with our core values as a congregation.
Those values are most visible within our existing ministries and existing operating budget, which is as high a priority as fundraising for our renovation projects. St. John’s recommends above all else to prioritize keeping annual giving steady for this year ahead of the Capital Campaign. The Vestry has agreed that, given the Capital Campaign, the budget for FY 2026 will stay at the same projection as FY 2025 – even though projected ministry costs, in this economy, are predictably going up. This is why the Campaign’s stretch goal is a Bridge Fund to ensure that all of our programming can continue with the awareness that costs tend to grow year over year.
Some of our projects in this Capital Campaign will be noticeable: a refreshed Kitchen and the Fireside Room getting a major facelift, for instance. But so many of our projects center on making the invisible visible: funding the projects that change our quality of life, from windows to HVAC. But as Sally Sand, one of our congregational gifts co-chairs, mentioned in conveying a story about a home renovation that best articulated her personal Why: “Having a physical change in our space changed [my family’s] relationships – with ourselves and with our friends.” Often, the most intangible things can be the most life-changing and make it possible for our community to repair, restore, and lift up our community for generations to come.
In faith and gratitude,
Allison Brown, Communications Chair
Faith Forum Recordings
Week 3:
Weeks 1 & 2:
Capital Campaign Team
Capital Campaign Committee
The Very Rev. Jered Weber-Johnson
Rector
Don Weinkauf
Campaign Co-Chair
Carrie Keillor
Campaign Co-Chair
Alice Lightner Johnson
Advanced Gifts Co-Chair
Holly Weinkauf
Advanced Gifts Co-Chair
Lynn Hertz
Congregational Gifts Co-Chair
Sally Sand
Congregational Gifts Co-Chair
Jax Collins
Spiritual Emphasis Co-Chair
Dan Vogel
Spiritual Emphasis Co-Chair
Allison Brown
Communications Chair
Bob Baumann
Events Co-Chair
Susan Creel
Events Co-Chair
Abby Johnson
Campaign Coordinator
Vestry
Bette Ashcroft
Bob Baumann
David Bressoud
Jeff Chen
Tisha Colton
Lynn Hartmann
Lynn Hertz
Rick Rinkoff
Sally Sand
Edwin Schenk
Priya Schulze
Barb Tani
Eloise Teisberg
Dan Vogel
Jered Weber-Johnson
Tamara Zurakowski
Clergy
The Very Rev. Jered Weber-Johnson
Rector
The Rev. Craig Lemming
Associate Rector
The Rev. Judy DesHarnais
Deacon
O God, whose love knows no end and whose dwelling
is with the humble and generous of heart:
Inspire in us a spirit of holy generosity.
Free us from the fear that clings to wealth,
so that through our giving, opening our hands
in trust and joy, we may become repairers of the breach,
builders of a house where love can dwell and all are welcome.
Make of this campaign more than bricks and mortar,
but instead, a living sign of your Kingdom:
where justice is sown, compassion takes root,
and your grace flows freely through your people.
Through Jesus Christ, who with you and the Holy Spirit
lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever.