Origins

Back in June 2007, the Catholic Church announced that they were going to have a Year of St. Paul, which would begin June 2008 at the time of the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, and continue through June 2009. As part of this Year of St. Paul, people were encouraged to take part in activities related to Ecumenism and Evangelization. Also, churches named for St. Paul would play a prominent role in this special year.

Now as a person named Paul, who was born and grew up in St. Paul, MN, and who now is a member of St. Paul's in Hingham, I felt an urge to do something in honor of my patron Saint as part of this Year of St. Paul. Over the next number of months I have talked to several people about this interest and the idea for an ecumenical Bible Study done in partnership with the Baptists at South Shore Baptist Church (SSBC) in Hingham has emerged and begun to take shape. Matt Porter who has a strong relationship with both St. Paul's and SSBC and a strong interest in promoting something like this has been working with me to help get this started.

We have had two meetings so far, both held at SSBC, on May 6 and May 21, and have begun to plan for a Bible Study that we believe might begin this fall (2008) if not sooner. I'll write about some of the ideas that came out of those meetings in a later post to this blog.