We end our worship services at Imani MCC with the closing song which says, “I Need You to Survive.” The purpose of this writing is to let those who care about Imani’s future know that we do, indeed, need you to survive – now more than ever. For over 25 years, Imani has welcomed all worshippers and seekers while attending to our special mission of service to the LGBTQI+ community. For many of those years, we functioned as a small (fewer than 30 active members), but relatively healthy church.
In-person worship being suspended for two years has resulted in debilitating losses of attendance at worship, participation in church-related activities and financial support. It has been a year since we re-opened and there has been no improvement or progress toward re-building our congregation. For the last year, we’ve averaged 3-4 attendees on Sundays. Our financial condition is worse than in recent years and rapidly declining. We’ve been unable to attract new regular attenders to the nearly empty church building.
A “handful” of people have been keeping Imani going. Our gratitude to each person for his/her contributions is inexpressible. The challenge is that when just a few are doing everything necessary to keep us going, it is inevitable that burnout will occur. We’ve reached the point of needing to know whether there is still a collective desire, within the larger community, for Imani’s door to remain open. And, if there is, we need you to help us re-build our congregation and return to being the vital faith community that we were before Covid.
There will be a special congregational/community meeting on Sunday, April 2, 2023, at 11:30 a.m. to discuss the future of Imani MCC. Anyone and everyone who is concerned about the church’s future – whether a member, attender, a former member or attender, or a member of the larger community who appreciates our service through the years and would like to see us remain open is strongly encouraged to attend this meeting. It will be a hybrid meeting held both in person at the church and online. If you cannot attend, but would like for your voice to be heard, contact any Board member to let us know your thoughts. To put it bluntly, we need to know if anyone cares, besides the handful of us, about Imani’s continued existence. The link below will connect you to a brief, anonymous Google form. Please respond to this survey or reply to this message.
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We sincerely hope to hear from you at or before the April 2nd meeting.
Prayerfully yours,
Board of Directors, Imani MCC
Yvonne Walker
y.ricci@yahoo.com
Renee Knight-Tate
om">naerae1@yahoo.com
Pastor Marilyn Bowens
pastormarilyn@imanimcc.org
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