Our primary compassionate outreach initiative is our Spirit of Giving Charity Gift Catalog program, which is designed to provide opportunities to contribute positively toward relieving suffering and encouraging a brighter future for the poor and needy in Egypt. The Spirit of Giving Catalog is filled with tangible “gifts of hope” enabling individuals and families to “wrap the gift of opportunity” for those living in great hardship, helping to improve their lives and transform their communities, regardless of creed or culture. Many of these “gifts” are part of long-term programs of the Episcopal Church in Egypt, which is recognized and respected in the country for its compassionate and indiscriminate services to both Muslims and Christians. See Spirit of Giving Charity Catalog.

Additionally, we are actively involved in supporting various compassionate projects that serve the local community, often through the ministry of our Arabic-speaking congregation. This takes various forms—such as providing Christmas and Easter gift baskets and food and clothing drives. Over each Christmas season, St. John’s encourages families in the church to purchase a gift for a either a deaf child or a Sudanese refugee child, resulting in hundreds of poor children receiving Christmas gifts over the years that they would not normally get. We also have various service projects for our youth to participate in.

The Cairo Lectures is a program hosted by St. John’s Church, located in Maadi, Cairo, Egypt. Inaugurated by the church in the fall of 2003. The Cairo Lectures program, is an established lectureship, that brings to Cairo, an individual of academic, artistic, literary or ecclesiastical distinction to give a central lecture/presentation to an international audience on a subject with a spiritual theme, toward encouraging and deepening the faith of both Christians and others in Egypt. Around the central event, the guest speaker gives other presentations and talks to both Christian and Muslim audiences. See The Cairo Lectures.

St. John’s Church is committed to exploring and nurturing the relationship between faith and the arts (visual and literary), believing creativity profoundly expresses and illustrates the nature of God, the ultimate Creator.

Additionally, we proactively focus on the Arts (primarily visual and literary) and their interplay with faith, to help build bridges of understanding and respect between Christians and Muslims. We seek to develop creative opportunities to bring together Faith and the Arts---holding exhibitions, seminars, lectures, exchanges, serving as a patron, etc. Our experience in Egypt has shown that the Arts serve as one of the most effective mediums to bring Christians and Muslims together--building bridges of friendship and understanding.

As we seek to discover together how Muslims and Christians express their faith through art, both historically and contemporarily, this also enables faith issues to be addressed in a natural context. See Faith & the Arts

The Abraham Forum in an initiative of St. John’s Church that has the primary goal of facilitating better understanding and contributing towards peaceful co-existence between Muslims and Christians, one of the most critical issues of our day. The Abraham Forum desires to build bridges of hope as we realize our common heritage as children of Abraham.

Serving as a ”continuing education program”, the Abraham Forum has both an educational and experiential focus, where Christians from all over the world who are resident in Egypt, are encouraged to “learn and experience” within this country that is so critical to the future of Christian/Muslim relations. See Interfaith

The Church of St. John the Baptist is closely linked to the ministries of the Diocese of Egypt & North Africa. The Diocese of Egypt has for many years reached out to Egyptians, Internationals and Refugees from Sudan and the Horn of Africa through a variety of social, medical, educational and welfare activities and programs. These outreaches seek to minister to the “whole person”, by improving the quality of life for those assisted and working to meet the tremendous needs that exist in the region. Currently, the Diocese runs many institutions in Egypt for this purpose—such as a Deaf School, Social and Community Development Centers, ministry among Displaced Persons/Refugees, Schools, Micro-enterprise Programs, teaching English as a Second Language, and Medical Care.