In June of 2006, The Episcopal Church passed Resolution D022 at its General Convention, establishing the Millennium Development Goals as a mission priority and resolving: “that each diocese, congregation and parishioner be urged to commit to 0.7% giving toward these goals.” Following the lead of the national church, the Vestry of St. James' approved a resolution on October 17, 2006, resolving to commit 0.7% of the Normal Operating Income (NOI) of the church, beginning in 2007, to support the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

"When Jesus calls us to feed the poor and water the thirsty and provide clothing to the naked, visit the prisoner, visit the sick, heal the sick – the Millennium Development Goals are about all of those... They are a specific way of addressing the Gospel challenge to care for our neighbors. They're achievable in our own day if we have the will to do it and, increasingly, this church is vested in that."

- Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori March 13, 2007

One of our members, Ann Finch, prepared and delivered to our congregation a sermon about the Millennium Development Goals on July 1, 2007, which was declared MDG Sunday. For that same service, another member, Krista Koziol, composed a special version of the Prayers of the People.

The people of St. James' created eight MDG banners, one for each of the goals:

The banners were unveiled in a dedicatory worship service on July 20, 2008. You can see photos from the service here.

On October 13, 2007, Ann made a presentation about the Millennium Development Goals at the Episcopal Diocese of Washington's Regions 3-4 Assembly.     (Note this is a large file, 3.2 MB)

Over the course of several months, our Adult Forum studied the MDGs and the role that we, as Christians, can and should play in relieving global suffering. We used a study guide, "Eradicating Global Poverty," that was prepared by the National Council of Churches of Christ. While keeping a global perspective, we chose Namibia as a focus country. One reason for choosing Namibia is that St. James' already supported a mission there — Kristina Nevius' Mark 9:37 orphanage. In 2006, we contributed $1,500 to it through our Missions and Outreach budget. It made sense to learn more about the nation in which this outreach operated. See a few statistics about Namibia hereA quick web search showed us the following information about Namibia:
Population: 1,788,000
GDP: $1,984 USD per capita
People with HIV/AIDS: 160,000 (8.95% of the population)
Orphans: 47,000
(source: www.hopeforaids.org) .

In August 2009, our member John Miers wrote some thoughts about hunger in "What One Can Do," a blog of the Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation. (Scroll about halfway down.)

"What Can One Do?" So, now that you know about the Millennium Development Goals, you may be wondering what are some ways to get out and heal the world. Here are some worthwhile organizations to ponder as we gear up for "Half-time," the midway point between the signing of the Millennium Declaration in 2000, and the 2015 target date for achieving the goals. We're hoping to make some noise at Half-time, so be ready with your commitment!

In July 2008, we developed a St. James’ program guide for facilitating donations in support of the MDGs. It contains a program overview, descriptions of beneficiary organizations, a mapping of the organizations to specific MDGs, and a donation form. This eleven-page guide is here. The donation form at the end of it is available here as a separate page.

You can use this form for pledging your personal commitment to donating your own 0.7% toward the MDGs.

Overall progress toward achievement of the goals can be seen on the United Nations Millenium Development Goals website and the UN News Centre. Other MDG-related resources are:

• Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation (EGR) is a Christ-centered, grassroots national organization seeking to build an effective movement to heed the call within the Episcopal Church to alleviate extreme global poverty through the Millennium Development Goals.
• The Micah Challenge is a global coalition of Christians holding governments accountable for their promise to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015.