Dear <<First Name>>

At the beginning of Alicia Hager's book, The Church on the Hill: A Record of the 150 Years of Ministry of St. John's Episcopal Church, revising and updating the story of our parish history originally wrote by Olive Harbeck over fifty years ago, we read:

The Territory of Michigan had not been admitted to the Union of the United States when the first Episcopal evangelism began. Riding into St. Joseph County, in what would become the Diocese of Western Michigan, former Bishop of Ohio, the Rt. Rev. Philander Chase held a prayer book service in what was then a wilderness. Chase roamed a territory of some two hundred miles, preaching and teaching to the people he found, though not a single material result remains of his initial mission work. 

A few pages later, we read of the organization of our own parish:

On March 19, 1866 St. John’s organized and then was admitted into union at the convention held in June of that year. Our first rector was the Rev. J. Rice Taylor who took charge on the second Sunday of Easter, 1867. Our vestry had been organized and rented the Good Templars Hall with the ladies of the church providing the lectern. 

Who would have known, 155 years ago, when we became an official Episcopal Parish at our admittance to Diocesan Convention, what SJE would look like now?

One of the things I love most about Alicia's book is the ways in which each generation of members of this parish faced challenges and overcame. Whether it was the church burning down (not once, but twice!), the challenges of the Great Depression and the 1928 Flu Pandemic (during which, we recently discovered, the rector, who was a physician, went back to New York to practice medicine and help), or the social upheavals of the 1960s, this parish has remained the church on the hill, a light of God's love and justice to the community.

And that has certainly been the case in this last year as we have lived through the global Coronavirus Pandemic. Your faithfulness means we are now coming out of the other end of the pandemic on a strong (if not even stronger) footing as a church.

I look forward to celebrating 155 years of ministry with you this Sunday on Founder's Day. While the 8:30am English and 12:45pm Spanish liturgies are the same, the 10am liturgy will be an historical recreation of what the service of Holy Communion looked like in the Episcopal Church of the time (spoiler alert, it was a lot more things for the priest to do!). 

Whether you attend in person or at home, I hope you'll then join us on the lawn at 6th and Washington for a special reception. We'll have coffee and lemonade provided. We're not able to provide food yet, due to diocesan restrictions, but please do bring a snack from home for your own household / COVID pod. We cannot share food prepared in other people's home, but we can still enjoy fellowship over our own snacks we bring. 

I am so very grateful to serve as the 32nd Rector of this parish and look forward to many more years of ministry together. 

Warmly,


PS~ Click here to find out more about my summer Rector's Book Club! Each month we'll read a different book and then gather outdoors on a Thursday evening for some conversation about what we learned. In preparation for our June 24 conversation at 6:30pm we'll be reading The Other Side of the Wall: A Palestinian Christian Narrative of Lament and Hope, by Munther Isaac. This book provides an opportunity to hear the realities of life on the ground from a leading Palestinian pastor and theologian, Munther Isaac. In contrast to the dominant religious and nationalistic ideologies and agendas for the region, he offers a theology of the land and a vision for a shared land that belongs to God, where there are no second-class citizens of any kind. Join us!