As I think back on the past many months, a word that comes to mind is: behold. Behold what God has done, is doing, and will do. Each of these takes a lot of faith, because some things we behold can be difficult. Still, the throughline of God’s mercy, justice, and provision sustain us. The path we’ve walked together attests to all of this.
My purpose in writing to you, at the close of 2025, is to share a love note to God and to the church God has called us to serve.
This past year at The Park Avenue Christian Church has been marked by the recognition that God is doing great things. Again and again, I have seen alignment take shape. Gifts offered at just the right moment. Energy gathering where purpose is clear. A community moving with intention, trust, and generosity through shared discernment and care.
That is the arc of the story this letter tells. But I want to acknowledge some other truths, as well. Our church and the people we serve have been profoundly impacted by the evils of dominion and the cruelty of greed, at every level of power. We have all had to make it through absurdly rising costs for everything. So many have lost income…in the most expensive city in the country. Witnessing authorities gleefully embrace “-isms” while instituting policies that enshrine them has had material – and spiritual – impact on all of us. We see your pain and we share in it. This feels like an understatement.
And that, I believe, is my point. Yes, the devil is far too busy. Our enemies do not rest. Also – crucially also – “there is no peace for the wicked.” Our imprecatory prayers join our thanksgivings and our supplications and let me be abundantly clear: God’s ear is inclined to our prayers. Every single one. Part of my role, as your Senior Pastor, is to name these wicked things and to fight against them with all of my might. We have done this, together, and we still will. Still, the other part of my role is to note and to name where God is pouring out grace and mercy to us all. This is why I am writing a love letter to God’s blessings in 2025. To round out our perspective.
Much of what you will encounter in these pages reflects work carried with steadiness and joy. As volunteer ministers, you have brought skill and heart. As givers, you are giving with increased confidence and, quite frankly, with imaginative genius. Our staff continues to tend to the daily life of the church with their own finesse and grace. Our ministries are continuing on a beautiful growth pattern, expanding, and reaching more deeply into the life of the City. Children and young people are leading us in worship, offering their voices and presence, and reminding us that God’s Spirit is alive and active across generations.
This year also brought a deepening of coherence. As a congregation, we gave careful attention to how our governance, leadership, and stewardship express who we are called to be. We had to do this because alignment cultivates confidence, nurturing trust through clarity. Together, this work creates space for a church to grow with integrity and purpose.
Throughout it all, new people found their way into the life of our church! Through worship, service, and care, many through relationships formed in the sacred ordinary of shared work. What draws us together is a shared commitment: to be a church that nourishes bodies, spirits, and community in the name of Jesus.
You will see that commitment woven throughout these pages. In the meals prepared and shared, spaces opened for movement, music, and gathering. In partnerships across neighborhoods, schools, and communities. In the ways beauty, care, and faith meet right here at the corner of 85th & Park.
I am deeply grateful for this congregation. Thank God for you. Thank God for being open to imagine what God is unfolding among us and to move toward it… together. We need each other.
We look ahead with expectation. Let’s keep looking to see what God is up to next!
Lovingly and Gratefully,
The Rev. Kaji Spellman Douša
Senior Pastor & CEO
The Park Avenue Christian Church
In the City of New York
CASE STUDY: The Park Sets the Table
From Heroic Philanthropy to Participatory Generosity
Context: A Table-Centered Church
Since our founding in 1810, the life of this church has been shaped around a table. Scripture read aloud. Prayers offered. Hymns sung. Bread shared. Praise spoken in community. These practices formed a people who understood that gathering, nourishment, and faith belong together.
This year, that long-standing conviction gathered into a new focus. Rather than relying on borrowed spaces or temporary arrangements, the church discerned a call to root food ministry more fully within its own life, space, and stewardship. That discernment led to a concrete next step: applying for a church kitchen license. The application has been submitted. The church is now awaiting inspection.
Historical Throughline: A Familiar Moment, a Different Pattern
The Park’s relationship with food ministry has deep roots. Community memory holds the story of Colonel Harland David Sanders, a member of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), who visited this congregation years ago and, upon learning the church lacked a kitchen, responded with decisive generosity. The result was a fully built and equipped kitchen that served the church and its neighbors for many years. That story remains a testimony to a long-held belief at The Park: God moves people to build spaces where hospitality can flourish.
In this season, the church arrived at a similar moment of need, but through a different pattern of generosity.
Framing the Case
This case examines a structural shift in how ministry is activated, resourced, and sustained at The Park Avenue Christian Church. While earlier efforts relied on episodic, high-capacity benefaction, the current initiative unfolded through a distributed, relational, and iterative pattern of generosity. The significance of this shift lies not only in fundraising outcomes, but in how agency, risk, and confidence circulated through the system.
The application for a licensed church kitchen functions as a decision point through which these dynamics can be observed.
How We Got Here
Last year, Rebecca Stanton shared something so arresting during the prayers of the people. A student said: “Ms. Stanton, we’re hungry.” Rebecca further reflected how limited she has felt in being able to respond to the children’s hunger. From this, we decided to act, and last Thanksgiving, Jacob Dixon, Ayodeji Otuyelu, Dayo Dane, Kenneth Abeyi, Candace Ballard and Chef Leticia Young graciously joined me at the Manse to cook 100 meals for Rebecca’s students and their families in a ministry we called Love on a Plate. The principal, students and their families received these meals with gratitude. Jacob Dixon raised all of the funds and food needed to create these meals with our volunteer labor.
The need Love on a Plate was created to address remained clear, but the model was not sustainable. Our residential kitchen was never designed for that kind of volume, but our commercial kitchen wasn’t outfitted to cook meals. This pilot helped us listen more closely, build relationships, and discern how we are called to respond with care, dignity, and faith in the seasons ahead.
Learning from the lessons of our prior food ministries, while the need remained – and grew – I was inspired to begin The Park Sets the Table. I invited experts to take on the ministry. The first and foundational gift for this was time. Chef Jasmin Renée Andrews offered her expertise, creativity, and sustained presence as an in-kind contribution, shaping the vision and guiding the work from its earliest stages. Her leadership activated others, demonstrating how one offering can spark many. From there, generosity multiplied.
At the November Finance Team meeting, as the vision for a licensed kitchen came into focus, the question arose of what it would take to submit the application. Chef Jasmin shared: “we just need the cost of the application.” In response, Peter Heltzel said: “you need the application fee? You got it.” This allowed the church to move forward immediately. Chefs Leticia Young and Ray Mohan further supported the work through the donation of kitchen equipment, which, pending pickup, will complete the final elements of our commercial kitchen’s build-out.
Over the course of the approximately 30 days that we raised donations for the meals, we received $5750 in donations from 22 donors in November, and 25 donors in December. Gifts range from $100-$500, 22 of whom were brand new donors to the church. Significantly, thanks to Jennifer Groenke’s invitation, each of the three $500 Signature Gifts were given from parents of the Manhattan Ballet and Movement Center.
Each initial gift opened the way for dozens of additional donors to contribute. Together, their generosity provided the resources needed to prepare the kitchen with care and excellence. This sequence mattered. One gift illuminated the next. One offering invited another. The work unfolded like one candle lighting the next.
Program in Practice
The Park Sets the Table prepares holiday meal kits designed to support gathering with dignity and beauty.
Each kit includes:
- Fresh vegetables and fruits
- Herbs and spices selected for warmth and fragrance
- Linens that transform any surface into a place of celebration (for future distributions)
These kits are distributed through trusted community partnerships, ensuring they reach families with care and respect.
One such partnership was with Community Health Academy of the Heights (CHAH), a New York City public high school serving a predominantly Hispanic student body, including many English language learners and students with high economic need.
“So many of my students’ families came for the meals. They were joyful and deeply grateful. I told them it was my church that prepared and donated the kits, and that made me incredibly proud.” – Rebecca Stanton
Another family member, upon receiving a meal, offered a blessing that has stayed with us:
“I hope God multiplies your church’s supply.” – Student Recipient
Community Mobilization
The work was carried by many hands.
Marcos Lindley recruited and coordinated a large team of volunteers through our Divine 9 network, many of whom were visiting the church for the first time. He also partnered with Patrik Douša to support distribution at the school, ensuring that meals moved smoothly from church to community.
Across the effort, dozens of volunteers offered time, strength, and care. Their participation reflected the way ministry at The Park invites people into meaningful action, often before formal membership, through shared purpose and trust.
“The Park Sets The Table has brought me so much joy this season. It is a true testament to what can happen when we come together as one family. Feeding over 100 families embodies the true meaning of the season, and I am deeply grateful to be able to serve my community using the gift God has given me. – Chef Jasmin Renée
Why this License Matters
Applying for a kitchen license represents more than administrative readiness. It signals a return to a form of ministry that has long shaped the church’s identity, now expressed through contemporary patterns of leadership and generosity.
The license anchors food ministry within the church’s own space, aligning vision, stewardship, and practice. It allows nourishment to flow outward with coordination, dignity, and excellence.
Inspection now awaits. The church waits with expectation and prayer, confident in what God is already doing.
Analytical Frame
From Heroic Philanthropy to Participatory Generosity
(cf. Schervish & Havens on “hyperagency”; Putnam on social capital)
Historically, some of the church’s largest building projects emerged through the vision and generosity of a single benefactor. Philanthropic scholars describe this as heroic philanthropy: a model in which transformational action is enabled by an individual actor with extraordinary capacity and influence. This approach is efficient, but it concentrates agency. Decision-making, risk tolerance, and momentum are closely tied to one person’s willingness to act.
In my first years here, our capital campaign strategy leaned heavily on identifying such heroic givers. We received extraordinary generosity from a few individuals, many of whom have since passed on, alongside faithful contributions from members of the congregation. Over time, it became clear that this approach could not generate a sufficient base to complete the work of building our church. The result was a period of heavier reliance on the endowment to bridge the gap between vision and available capital. That experience clarified both the strengths and the limits of a hero-driven model and shaped how I began to imagine a more distributed and sustainable approach to resourcing ministry.
In contrast, The Park Sets the Table emerged through participatory generosity. Many contributors gave within a shared band of capacity, timing, and understanding. Agency was diffused. Momentum was cumulative. The system moved forward because enough people decided the work was already worth doing.
This represents a fundamental reorientation in how ministry is activated.
Precursor Pilot: Love on a Plate (Listening Before Scaling)
This shift did not begin abstractly. It was preceded by listening and action at a human scale.
Love on a Plate clarified the need and strengthened relationships, but it also surfaced constraints. Our residential kitchen could not sustain that volume, and the church’s commercial kitchen was not equipped for any meal production. The pilot functioned as discernment through action, revealing both possibility and limitation.
Mechanism 1: Distributed Giving
(cf. Elinor Ostrom; risk distribution theory)
The financial pattern reveals a clear clustering effect.
2023 Kitchen Buildout
- Approximately $12,000 raised from 23 donors
- Two of the largest gifts came from donors who have since passed, totaling $4,700
- My family contributed $2,200, the second-largest active gift (I’ll analyze this red flag later)
- Remaining gifts clustered between $100–$500, with some generous outliers
The Park Sets the Table
- $5,750 raised over approximately 30 days
- Contributions from 57 donors across November and December
- Gifts clustered again between $100–$500
- 22 donors were brand new to the church
- My family contribution was $1,000, no longer occupying a dominant position
From a financial systems perspective, distributed giving lowers concentration risk and reduces dependence on any single actor. Viability no longer hinges on one donor’s continued engagement. Instead, resilience is generated through aggregation. This pattern also establishes a normative band, which behavioral research shows increases participation and stabilizes perceptions of fairness.
Mechanism 2: Relational Giving
(cf. Granovetter; identity-aligned giving)
Giving did not follow a transactional campaign logic. Contributions flowed through relational proximity.
- Need became visible through testimony rather than appeal
- Love on a Plate collapsed distance between giver and recipient
- Each of the three $500 Signature Gifts to The Park Sets the Table came from parents connected through Manhattan Ballet and Movement Center, an arts and movement center now at our church.
Behavioral research shows people give more readily when the beneficiary is concrete, the pathway to impact is visible, and the invitation comes through trusted relationships. All three conditions were present, helping explain the unusually high number of first-time donors.
Mechanism 3: Iterative Giving
(cf. Weick; progressive commitment theory)
In prior seasons, the church required full capitalization before ministry could begin. In my view, this requirement often immobilized us in creating new ministries, turning discernment into delay and preventing timely response to real and growing needs. The Park Sets the Table balanced a commitment to financial discipline with the necessity of moving forward through sequenced action rather than full capitalization. In other words: instead of securing all necessary funding upfront, the work advanced in stages, with each contribution unlocking the next required step.
- Time and expertise were offered first through sustained leadership
- A small, targeted gift unlocked the licensing application
- Equipment donations followed, bringing the commercial kitchen closer to readiness for safe, ongoing ministry
Each contribution enabled a discrete next step. This sequencing reduced uncertainty and embedded learning into execution, improving capital efficiency while allowing constraints to surface without reputational loss.
Leadership Subsidy as a Transitional Signal
(cf. signaling theory; boundary management)
Family giving provides a critical diagnostic insight. In 2023, my family’s contribution functioned as a confidence backstop, accelerating momentum but also signaling that leadership resources were still underwriting viability. By the time The Park Sets the Table launched, my family’s reduced giving weight and the program’s broader donor base suggest that the church’s system had, at least partially, corrected for this dynamic. Leadership remained catalytic, but financial underwriting was no longer central.
This marks a transition from leader-supported activation to community-sustained momentum.
Case Insight
Taken together, these dynamics demonstrate a shift from capital-driven activation (in which ministry waits on the balance sheet) to behavior-driven capacity (in which capacity is built through action). The primary asset generated was not the accumulation of funds, but the program itself: a functioning meal ministry, tangible food prepared with dignity, and the institutional ability to respond. Financial contributions supported this work, but collective confidence emerged through participation. We gained the shared conviction that our church can respond faithfully and effectively as people step forward. In this way, generosity functioned as an operating model, redistributing agency across the community, lowering activation thresholds for participation, and strengthening institutional resilience over time.
In HBR terms, this case illustrates how distributed, relational, and iterative generosity can operate as a strategic system, supporting organizational action amid uncertainty while reducing reliance on concentrated philanthropic intervention.
2026 Playbook Implication
The Park Sets the Table, read as a case, suggests the need for a shared ministry activation playbook that replaces capital-gated decision-making with a sequenced discernment process. Such a playbook would invite ministry ideas to begin with a clear statement of need and a proposed first faithful step, prioritize participation and learning before full funding, and allow limited pilots to proceed within defined financial and operational boundaries. It would guide us to evaluate initiatives not only by cost and sustainability, but by the capacity they build – skills, relationships, and shared confidence – while establishing clear decision points for pausing, adapting, or scaling work. Leadership participation – including mine – would be catalytic rather than underwriting, ensuring that new ministries grow through shared ownership rather than dependence.In Closing…
I’ve always wondered how the loaves and fishes meant for a few became enough for thousands, and The Park Sets the Table has helped us see that miracle more clearly, revealing how God’s increase is made visible through financial rigor, collective trust, and faithful steps taken together. Thank you for allowing me to be inspired by, learn from, and grow in faith. *You* so much of the miracle.
The Park Sets the Table reflects a living theology. It shows how God gathers gifts already present. How generosity multiplies through trust. How one offering kindles another.
The table is set. The work continues. And the church stands ready to receive what God brings next.
Why I’m So Proud of this Church
What I am most proud of this year is the way this church held the question of where God is moving and learned how to hold complexity without losing coherence.
We have become a place where pastoral care, public witness, worship, and formation reinforce one another. When immigration crises intensified, the response was not siloed as “justice work.” It shaped worship, demanded pastoral presence, reordered schedules, and clarified who we are when lives are at stake. We lived into the truth that crisis is ministry when it needs to be.
At the same time, I am proud of you for helping to deepen our spiritual formation. Journaling workshops, discernment practices, polity education, and children’s leadership emerged as the necessary counterweight to urgency. This church learned how to pray, think, and listen while acting decisively in these times.
I am proud of you for allowing our worship life to mature. The table continues to be central to our practice of worshiping God. Children emerged as worship leaders! Music remained covenantal and deeply faithful. I sought to preach in such a way that we could trust each other with theological depth, moral clarity, and lots of Biblical nerdiness!
I am proud of us for strengthening our public voice. Writing, preaching, and teaching traveled far beyond the sanctuary, carrying the Park’s theology into wider conversations about justice, power, grief, and hope. The same voice that tended bedsides and blessed marriages under threat spoke to a broader world with integrity.
I am proud of us for learning restraint as a form of leadership. Love on a Plate served, paused and then gave way to The Park Sets the Table. It became truer because we learned from our first iteration how to carefully build the infrastructure needed for sustainable food service. God sent us advisors, donors, activators and we gathered them wisely. We honored capacity and delivered on our promises! Amen?
I am proud of you, as leaders, because leadership itself became clearer. Discernment slowed where it needed to slow. Decisions were named plainly. Governance aligned more closely with theology. I am proud that the church survived that difficult, clarifying process. This builds increased trust through coherence.
Through all of this, we cultivated joy as intentional discipline. Dance, games, beauty, laughter, and shared meals were treated as essential spiritual practices, especially in a season marked by grief and strain.
We did many things and I am delighted. But I’m most proud that we did them together, courageously, with care and integrity. This is a church that knows who it is becoming and I couldn’t be more proud of you. Thank you.
Trust: Becoming a Church Others Can Invest In
For years, I approached potential members and generous donors who, in all honesty, weren’t yet ready to join or give. That changed this year. Why? Because we decided to bring clarity to processes that, in recent years of trial, we had allowed to become much more fluid. We did this for survival. But this year, we stepped out on the faith that we were at a different point: ready to thrive.
Our church became more legible to itself. Thanks to the painstaking, detailed work Bonnie English, the Finance Team and Ministry Council offered to bring transparency to our finances, we have brought the church to a more sustainable endowment draw to a solid and standing 5%. This signals the discipline donors require and deserve.
We pushed through the difficulties of naming and shaping roles justly and clearly. We aligned lines of authority with our ecclesiology. This work mattered because trust grows where expectations are shared and leadership is coherent.
We listened carefully to what our moment required. Members, partners, and funders consistently asked the same question in different ways: How does this church make decisions, and how does it hold accountability with care? Led earnestly by Harry Eicher in this, we responded by tending our governance with intention and steadiness. We have taken very clear steps to execute on all of this immediately in 2026.
Our Nominations vote allowed our leadership structures to come into closer alignment with our congregational identity.
We have been working to honor clear boundaries in our ministries while holding our sense of expansive welcome and the covenant between us. The Park affirmed that belonging and leadership both flourish when commitments are mutual and expectations are transparent.
The feedback I have received is that all of this work, done in the open, has allowed our church to become much more of an inspiring investment. For the first time in my nine years here, we have a Stewardship Team seated and ready to draw in these donor investments. Investability follows integrity, confidence and alignment. All of this will give our church the peace of mind that God’s gifts to us are flourishing.
This is how The Park Avenue Christian Church prepares for what comes next. By becoming a church that knows itself, names its commitments, and tends trust as a sacred responsibility.
Momentum: The Courage to Lead Through Encouragement
Over these past months, God has stirred a new courage among us. People are stepping forward because they are being prepared, encouraged, and trusted. Scripture readers are rising as Sigrid Sunstedt continues to train and steady voices in the Word. Worship leaders are emerging as Rev. Richard Sturm walks alongside them, shaping confidence through care, practice, and presence.
This momentum shows up in consistency and trust: worship that honors time, leadership that respects people’s lives, meetings that begin and end with intention. Many hands now carry the work, and the work feels lighter because it is shared. Service has become joyful again. Courage has become contagious.
Inspiration: The Building as Ministry
Those of us who have been around for some time remember just how crippling addressing our building needs used to be! Now, thanks to our predecessors’ gifts and our own leadership and vision, our buildings have become living instruments of care, beauty, and welcome. Each week, our church opens its doors to prayer, music, movement, study, rest, and joy. Worship sets the rhythm, while education deepens it, and hospitality builds us all up.
Children arrive for soccer and ballet and find themselves inside sacred space. Families cross the threshold for rehearsals, recitals, and gatherings and encounter a church alive with purpose. Through partnerships like Manhattan Ballet and Movement and Super Soccer Stars, the generations are learning discipline and delight, and beauty becomes a form of formation.
The sanctuary is our capacious container for the congregation’s lifesong and motion. Our edifice amplifies our mission as it shelters it, gathering people who might never arrive for worship alone. This matters. It’s how we offer our neighbors and our City care, spark their curiosity, make space to connect once they’re here.
I hope you see our structures as tangible inspiration, shaped by a nourishing faith tending to spirit and body alike. We are a church that understands that beauty, movement, and welcome aren’t extras. They are ministry.
Staff Spotlights
Stephanie Wilson
Executing the Vision with Expertise and Continuity
Stephanie Wilson is the steady center of the church’s daily rhythm. Her leadership brings order, memory, and flow to a community that moves with creativity and vision. Through transitions and expansion, Stephanie ensured continuity. She kept systems clear. Her careful, steady communication and organizational skills held things together in ways that are invaluable to all of us.
She has supported our leadership with structure and expertise that allowed all of the complex changes we are facing to take root and last. Her work connects staff, lay leaders, and congregants through shared expectations and consistent follow-through. Stephanie’s leadership strengthens the whole ecosystem. By holding processes with care and competence, she makes space for ministry to flourish. Her presence allows the church to move forward with confidence, knowing the ground beneath us is solid. Please be sure to thank Stephanie every time you reach out to her and afterwards, too. Your gratitude matters.
David Sookai
Stewarding Space and Revenue with Integrity
David Sookai’s work is a ministry of care for our buildings and our finances. I gave him the challenge to fill the church spaces with meaningful, mission-aligned partnerships that allow our church to serve our neighbors every day. And did he ever! He drew up inventive contracts that allow the church to continue to church while drawing on the deep assets of our structure. David holds the extremely complex, practical details of our buildings with attention, steadiness and the very kind of creative ingenuity that makes allows our congregation to be brilliant. Know that David’s work supports every ministry that crosses our threshold, making coherence possible across the life of our church. Please take a moment to reach out to David and to thank him for everything he has done to allow our church to flourish in this City.
C. Anthony Bryant
Shepherding Our Spiritual Soundscape
As many of you know, I begged C. Anthony to join us as our musical leader for years before he would agree to serve. And thank God we stuck with it, because, point blank: he is a GLOBAL treasure! I admire C. Anthony Bryant’s leadership for how his voice carries pastoral, theological, and deeply relational authority. As Minister of Music, he shapes not only sound, but spiritual memory and communal trust. He implants the “earworms” (the songs that linger in our ears) that will carry us through the rough spots in the week ahead. And he does it every week. He holds our worship life together in ways that anticipate the Spirit. His worship is oily. He creates space where we can voice our faith honestly and gorgeously. His leadership invites both excellence and participation, holding the congregation in a shared practice of praise. Please take a moment to share with Charles just how his presence strengthens worship as a place where you can encounter God and be reminded whose you are.
Kevin Childress
Maintaining Our Digital Presence with Clarity and Care
Kevin Childress has tended the church’s digital life with consistency, skill, and discernment since well before I joined the church 9 years ago! Through his weekly care of our website, communications, social media, and analytics, under Stephanie Wilson’s careful guidance, Kevin ensures that the life of The Park is visible, accessible, and clearly expressed beyond our walls. His work allows our preaching, worship, and invitations to travel faithfully and arrive with intention. Kevin’s leadership helps the church speak with one voice across platforms. His steady, behind-the-scenes ministry strengthens the church’s public witness and extends our welcome into digital spaces. Please take a moment to thank Kevin for the care and excellence he brings to this essential work each week.
Why I’m Excited for 2026
You know what, church? I believe that we are a congregation who knows who we are. We are a church rooted in love, formed by faith, and shaped by courage.
We know what it costs to be who we are. Leadership, care, beauty, and justice ask for attention; discipline, and shared commitment keep us there and take us forward.
We know what we will not repeat. We choose coherence over confusion, trust over strain, and shared responsibility over exhaustion.
We know what God is calling us toward next. A deeper life together. Clear structures that serve living ministry. A table widened, steadied, and set with intention.
The work continues and God’s nourishment is real. Let’s go!
It is my great honor to close out this year and begin my tenth year as your Senior Pastor. Thank you for entrusting me with so much. Thank God for calling us all here.
With abundant love,
Pastor Kaji
