6.  How do you engage in pastoral care for those beyond your worshipping community?

It is with a sense of pride and responsibility that St. Peter’s has long been referred to as a church that lives outreach. That is certainly partly due to its history (founded in 1834) in the community and its preeminent address on Tryon Street in the heart of the city. As the community’s “Mother Church,” it also started numerous other parishes in the area.

As much as anything, though, St. Peter’s members have chosen throughout the years to help others. That legacy has proven contagious. While by no means all-inclusive, these are some of the main ways that we engage in pastoral care for those beyond our worshipping community:

The Soup Kitchen, formed at St. Peter’s in 1979, joined other urban ministries in 1994 to form the Urban Ministry Center, which addresses the needs of the homeless.  Some of St. Peter’s members who helped found the soup kitchen are still serving as a team there 30 years later.

Samaritan House, co-founded in 2002 by a parishioner of St. Peter’s and supported financially by the church, provides recuperative care for people who are homeless and in need of care following a hospital or emergency room stay.  Emphasis is on Gospel values of love, dignity, respect and inclusion.

With its history of being a center city church and as an extension of the tradition of working with the homeless St. Peter’ participates in the WISH program (workforce initiative for supportive housing. This program recently merged with the Charlotte Emergency Housing and Family Promise of Charlotte to make Charlotte Family Housing. A group of volunteers adopt a family in transition and work in conjunction with professional social workers to provide housing, transportation, furniture, food, tutoring and other services for the homeless transitioning to a new way of life.

The Choir School at St. Peter’s is a non-profit ecumenical organization housed at St. Peter’s providing musical education and choral performance opportunities to youth having the desire to learn music. The Choir School draws young people from across Charlotte, serving as yet another form of outreach for St. Peter’s.

Project 5000 is a citywide effort in which St. Peter’s participates to supply emergency food to those in need by gathering sufficient food for 12 meals or to feed a family of four for two days.

St Peter’s has joined forces with other downtown churches to build a Habitat House for each of the last 11 years.

We are currently working with two other churches and Trinity Episcopal School to start a community garden in downtown Charlotte.

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