Description
We are a neighborhood Episcopal Church based in Milton, Massachusetts. We worship God through formal liturgy, impromptu prayer, and our work in the world. We warmly welcome all people in keeping with our deep commitment to God’s inclusive love. Our priest works in partnership with our members in a leader-filled church; all people, young and old, have a voice here. We are not a place to be anonymous.
Guests have told us that they feel the Spirit in this place, and we agree. This house of God is full of laughter, youthful energy and song! While some have described us as an eccentric and eclectic church, we are also the people who accompany you through hard times and rejoice in the good times together. As a small church, we embrace the gifts of close community and give thanks for the opportunity to walk with one another through the ups and downs of life and spiritual journeying.
Our roots go back to 1897 when we gathered as a mission church. We are survivors with a deep-in-our-bones belief in resurrection, having risen to life after being nearly closed twice in our history. We know the rhythms of being small and then growing again, and we have faith in abundance.
We wholeheartedly welcome those new to church or new to our church, and we support work for healing and social change in our communities. Our regular time together in song, prayer, and worship gives us a reservoir of energy and love to be part of God's hands in the world, sharing, feeding, advocating, changing, building, and giving thanks.
Our Mission Statement: To love God by supporting one another in faith and friendship, wholeheartedly welcoming all in worship, and working in the near and broader community towards a more just, inclusive and loving world. Our Vision: To be a community of worship that welcomes newcomers and nourishes those who seek God’s spirit in bringing new life to ourselves, our neighborhoods, and the world.
2. Job Description
The job description will be tailored on the interest, skills, and growth areas of the fellow. Previous fellows have focused on worship and discerned a call to ordained ministry. Other fellows have focused on youth and education and helped us develop a strong Sunday school and youth educational program. Other fellows learned what it means to be a Christian and engage in the intersection of faith and social justice. All of our fellows have focused on community engagement. There are tasks that all fellows will do that include help with communication and internal support systems for church life. Each fellow will create their own project that works to build capacity and leave their mark here in Milton.
Below are five primary areas for the fellow’s work:
- Outreach Committee Assisting the congregation in community engagement and relationship building in the Milton-Mattapan-Quincy area. In the past year the congregation identified three local non-profit organizations to partner with. The organizations include working with the food insecure, victims of domestic violence, and victims of gun violence. The LT Fellow will work with the Outreach committee to deepen relationships with these local organizations and provide opportunities for members of the congregation to volunteer with them.
- Youth & Christian Education: Assisting the Rector with our newly formed youth group. Organizing our Sunday School class and occasionally teaching. Increasing participation in Sunday School, organizing parishioners to create a team of teachers and mentors, improving lessons and Sunday School curriculum, engaging the entire community in Youth and Christian Education, and fostering a culture of youth participation and leadership in Church life from outreach to community organizing to worship and liturgy. Co-teaching confirmation class for high school students. Attending diocesan youth retreats and facilitating opportunities for personal and spiritual growth. The Fellow will also help organize and will participate in a regular Bible study, and other adult-centered spiritual formation programs such as our lenten series.
- Communications and Tech support: Assisting the Rector in further developing our visibility and communication, especially our online presence. Assisting with Sunday morning hybrid worship service technology. Sending weekly announcements, monthly newsletters, and taking pictures of our community worship. Coordinate volunteers for Sunday School and technical support.
- Liturgy: The fellow will have an opportunity to learn what ministry in a small parish is like. The fellow will participate in a variety of ways during Sunday as a lay Eucharistic minister, preaching, reading, and planning liturgies. The fellow will also have the unique opportunity to draw on the resources of the church and wider community for his or her own spiritual growth, development, and discernment.
-Discernment: The rector takes her role as a mentor seriously. Whether the fellow is discerning a call to ordained leadership or a lay vocation, the rector will provide support and mentorship in spiritual and professional discernment. Overall, our small church site doubles as a source of strength, especially for the Life Together fellow discerning ordination. This is truly a tight-knit community that will help a fellow grow into their emerging voice and their emerging vocation.
Life Together Corps members serve 32 hours per week in partner agencies. Up to 8 hours a week is spent in personal and professional development as a team within our organization.
We are a neighborhood Episcopal Church based in Milton, Massachusetts. We worship God through formal liturgy, impromptu prayer, and our work in the world. We warmly welcome all people in keeping with our deep commitment to God’s inclusive love. Our priest works in partnership with our members in a leader-filled church; all people, young and old, have a voice here. We are not a place to be anonymous.
Guests have told us that they feel the Spirit in this place, and we agree. This house of God is full of laughter, youthful energy and song! While some have described us as an eccentric and eclectic church, we are also the people who accompany you through hard times and rejoice in the good times together. As a small church, we embrace the gifts of close community and give thanks for the opportunity to walk with one another through the ups and downs of life and spiritual journeying.
Our roots go back to 1897 when we gathered as a mission church. We are survivors with a deep-in-our-bones belief in resurrection, having risen to life after being nearly closed twice in our history. We know the rhythms of being small and then growing again, and we have faith in abundance.
We wholeheartedly welcome those new to church or new to our church, and we support work for healing and social change in our communities. Our regular time together in song, prayer, and worship gives us a reservoir of energy and love to be part of God's hands in the world, sharing, feeding, advocating, changing, building, and giving thanks.
Our Mission Statement: To love God by supporting one another in faith and friendship, wholeheartedly welcoming all in worship, and working in the near and broader community towards a more just, inclusive and loving world. Our Vision: To be a community of worship that welcomes newcomers and nourishes those who seek God’s spirit in bringing new life to ourselves, our neighborhoods, and the world.
2. Job Description
The job description will be tailored on the interest, skills, and growth areas of the fellow. Previous fellows have focused on worship and discerned a call to ordained ministry. Other fellows have focused on youth and education and helped us develop a strong Sunday school and youth educational program. Other fellows learned what it means to be a Christian and engage in the intersection of faith and social justice. All of our fellows have focused on community engagement. There are tasks that all fellows will do that include help with communication and internal support systems for church life. Each fellow will create their own project that works to build capacity and leave their mark here in Milton.
Below are five primary areas for the fellow’s work:
- Outreach Committee Assisting the congregation in community engagement and relationship building in the Milton-Mattapan-Quincy area. In the past year the congregation identified three local non-profit organizations to partner with. The organizations include working with the food insecure, victims of domestic violence, and victims of gun violence. The LT Fellow will work with the Outreach committee to deepen relationships with these local organizations and provide opportunities for members of the congregation to volunteer with them.
- Youth & Christian Education: Assisting the Rector with our newly formed youth group. Organizing our Sunday School class and occasionally teaching. Increasing participation in Sunday School, organizing parishioners to create a team of teachers and mentors, improving lessons and Sunday School curriculum, engaging the entire community in Youth and Christian Education, and fostering a culture of youth participation and leadership in Church life from outreach to community organizing to worship and liturgy. Co-teaching confirmation class for high school students. Attending diocesan youth retreats and facilitating opportunities for personal and spiritual growth. The Fellow will also help organize and will participate in a regular Bible study, and other adult-centered spiritual formation programs such as our lenten series.
- Communications and Tech support: Assisting the Rector in further developing our visibility and communication, especially our online presence. Assisting with Sunday morning hybrid worship service technology. Sending weekly announcements, monthly newsletters, and taking pictures of our community worship. Coordinate volunteers for Sunday School and technical support.
- Liturgy: The fellow will have an opportunity to learn what ministry in a small parish is like. The fellow will participate in a variety of ways during Sunday as a lay Eucharistic minister, preaching, reading, and planning liturgies. The fellow will also have the unique opportunity to draw on the resources of the church and wider community for his or her own spiritual growth, development, and discernment.
-Discernment: The rector takes her role as a mentor seriously. Whether the fellow is discerning a call to ordained leadership or a lay vocation, the rector will provide support and mentorship in spiritual and professional discernment. Overall, our small church site doubles as a source of strength, especially for the Life Together fellow discerning ordination. This is truly a tight-knit community that will help a fellow grow into their emerging voice and their emerging vocation.
Life Together Corps members serve 32 hours per week in partner agencies. Up to 8 hours a week is spent in personal and professional development as a team within our organization.
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Living Allowance
$500
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$500 monthly
Benefits
Health coverage, Housing, Living allowance, Stipend, Training
Additional Benefits
Life Together provides training and support for radical Christian transformation. Contemplative, communal, and prophetic teachings and practices are woven throughout Life Together’s program.
All fellowships include service at one of our 14 placement sites and for Life Together; learning together through orientation, monthly trainings, retreats, and other opportunities; community experience through intentional living and prayer partners in one of 2 houses across Eastern Massachusetts; and spirituality deepened through chant, lectio divina, Christian meditation and spiritual direction.
SERVICE
We leverage strategic partnerships with high-impact churches, schools, and community agencies to train emerging leaders and to work toward structural change in local communities. In general, fellows will serve where the need is greatest. But their placements are also meant to be places where they can engage in work that speaks to their heart, challenges them to ask big questions, and brings them joy.
Site placements include churches and non-profit community agencies, and are located in the Greater Boston Area.
Fellows work 32 hours per week at their site. In the past, fellows have worked on education reform, hunger relief, health-care reform, civic engagement, job training, pastoral ministry, prison reform, and youth development. All fellows are supervised by an organizational staff member and will complete a learning agreement, along with midyear and final evaluations with their site supervisors.
Incoming fellows interview with host sites during their application process to Life Together. Site matching is done by Life Together staff based on (1) preferences given by both fellows and host sites and (2) the projected fit between the learning goals of the fellow and the needs of a site.
LEARNING
Life Together's curriculum focuses on nurturing strong leadership grounded in social justice and radical love. Fellows develop skills, practices, knowledge, and postures related to both interior and exterior leadership, and both personal and social transformation. The curriculum is designed so that fellows can put new skills into practice directly in their site placements and intentional communities, and regularly reflect on their experiences.
Our curriculum begins with an intensive two-week orientation, followed by day-long thematic workshops on the third Friday of each month. Some examples of training themes include: non-violent communication, community organizing, vocational discernment, public narrative movement-building, and anti-oppression. Trainings are facilitated by experienced local community leaders and our partners at the Mystic Soul Project.
In addition to attending training on Fridays, fellows share responsibility for the ongoing recruitment of future fellows and for fundraising. We believe the arts of recruitment and fundraising are critical skills in ministry and social change work that all of our fellows must learn. This learning happens primarily through a project called "Future Fellow Fundraising." This is a form of team-based fundraising and part of a collaborative campaign to raise $10,000 during the year. Each staff member and fellow is responsible for raising at least $600. The money raised goes to help pay the stipends and health insurance for the next cohort of fellows.
COMMUNITY
All Life Together fellows live in intentional Christian community for ten months. Fellows create their community’s Rule of Life, or living house covenant, to continually shape a healthy rhythm of fellowship, self-care, and communal worship. Fellows share a community meal together each Monday evening and meet several Friday mornings a month with Prayer Partners. Prayer Partners are volunteers—Life Together alumni, priests, spiritual directors, and friends of the program—who accompany our fellows in deepening their learning and spiritual growth as a community.
Fellows live in one of two intentional community houses located in Boston. Our houses are accessible by public transportation (the "T"). They include The Hill House at St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Milton and our house in Brookline. The latter also serves as the program headquarters, with offices and training space.
SPIRITUALITY
During orientation and subsequent trainings, fellows learn contemplative worship composed of sacred chant, Lectio Divina scriptural meditation, centering prayer, and silence. Life Together’s SOFIA worship style was developed in partnership with the Leadership Development Initiative, and was especially influenced by the teachings of Episcopal priest and Christian contemplative, the Rev. Cythnia Bourgeault. Fellows have the opportunity to experiment with contemplative practices in their intentional communities and to lead worship in trainings throughout the year.
Fellows meet individually with a Still Harbor Spiritual Director once a month to intentionally engage with their personal spiritual formation. Twice a year, fellows also gather at Bethany House of Prayer for guided retreats to deepen community and spiritual self-awareness. Through our partnership with the Society of St. John the Evangelist, fellows are invited to initiate individual silent retreats at SSJE’s Cambridge monastery guesthouse and the Emery House retreat center in West Newbury free of charge throughout the year.
Education Benefits
College Degree, GED/High School Diploma
Education Requirements
High School Graduate
Desired Languages
English
Other Conditions
Subject to criminal background check
Age Requirement
21 - 32