Two and a Half Days at St. Stephen's

A presentation made at St. Stephen's 2010 Annual Meeting on May 2.

 

This is the calendar for the use of our auditorium for the past week.  Starting up at the top left corner with an event that ended at 12:30am a week ago, you can see that the room has been heavily used—77 hours, in fact. There’s a free evening here, on Wednesday; that’s only the 9th free evening so far this year – this room has been used 117 of the 128 evenings gone by this year.

Two weeks ago we hosted for the third time Vermont’s Bread and Puppet Theater. For many years the Bread and Puppet touring company didn’t perform in DC, having not found a receptive audience or location. But that changed three years ago when a former puppeteer who lives in Mt. Pleasant asked us if we would provide space. They found their DC home that year, and we will be a regular stop for the company for years to come. Many of you came to one of their three shows. I hope that you were as dazzled as I by their incredible musicianship and skills as puppeteers. Their shows reminded me very much of Jesus’ message: a hard-hitting, radical critique of my values, delivered with incredible joy and talent.

One minute – literally – after Bread and Puppet’s Friday night show ended in the church, the indie/punk band Titus Andronicus began playing here in the auditorium. It was a benefit for our space user We Are  Family, which provides services to seniors in Columbia Heights; the show was put on by Positive Force, the aging-punk-rockers-who-do-good organization, also with an office here; Positive Force grew out of the movement started in no small way by parishioner Bill MacKaye’s son Ian and his band, Fugazi. Admission was $8; $7 with a can of food; the food went to needy seniors, and We Are Family received $2,000. 350 people crowded into this room before the doors were closed and others were turned away. The Washington Post reviewed the show and wrote, “Well, of course Titus Andronicus, new torchbearers of indie earnestness and ethics, would eschew a typical rock club and have its D.C. show take place at St. Stephen's Church and serve as a benefit…It was as loud as it was hot; four ceiling fans did little to lessen the sweat quotient. But there were no complaints. Lead singer Patrick Stickles told the audience he would remember the show for the rest of his life and the feeling was very likely mutual.”

Just before Bread and Puppet’s first show, on Thursday night of that week, the homeless women who attend Thrive DC’s women-and-children-only afternoon program put on a fashion show in the dining room.

Brainfood’s amazing “life skills through cooking” after-school program was in the kitchen.

Words, Beats and Life’s breakdance class took place in the dining room (although this photo shows an event a few years ago in the auditorium).

An NA meeting took place in the church. Saturday Loaves and Fishes served its usual meal. That night the Black is Back Coalition had a meeting about Mumia abu Jamal, perhaps the best known Death-Row prisoner in the world, and whose sentence is one of the most debated today. And we hosted a punk rock benefit here in the auditorium, to support the 40-year-long Fort Reno Summer Concert series – twice weekly family friendly shows by bands not part of the music "industry".

That’s two and half days at this place. Well over one thousand people came through our doors between Thursday afternoon and Saturday night – homeless people, young people, neighbors.

A couple decades ago the then the treasurers of our church, looking at our long-term financial health, said that this building was the albatross around our necks. We should sell the building and worship in a much smaller building, one that fits the size of our congregation, they said. Soon a different view took hold: this building is one of God’s greatest gifts to us, given to us to use for the benefit of our neighbors, our city, and our world.