Our Mission
Love. Acceptance. Service.
Vision
To Restore All People to Unity with God and Each Other in Christ by accepting, loving, and serving with kindness, compassion, and hope.
What is the Episcopal cHURCH?
We gather, as Christians have done for the past twenty centuries, to celebrate the Eucharist, also known as the Mass or Holy Communion. Before there was a Bible as we know it or the Creeds as we know them, there was Eucharist. Christian beliefs and customs have changed but there have always been two great common elements of the Christian life: Baptism and the Holy Eucharist.
Eucharist is the principal act of worship in the Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Anglican Communions. The Episcopal Church is part of the worldwide Anglican Communion of Churches. The words liturgy and Eucharist are Greek words. Liturgy means “the work of the people” and Eucharist is from the verb “to give thanks”. Today’s worship then is the task for all of us to give thanks for God’s gift to us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Liturgy is not merely a predetermined format or public worship. It is an enacted, sung, and spoken event in the life of the people of God. In the Episcopal Church, our liturgy comes from the Book of Common Prayer. The first English prayer book was written in 1549. The first American Book of Common Prayer appeared following the American Revolution. Our liturgy today is from the revision published in 1979.
Throughout the service you may notice the clergy, lay ministers and members of the congregation making the sign of the cross, bowing, and other movements. These gestures are part of long-standing practices, but none is required. One of the great strengths of the Episcopal Church is that we are both Catholic and Reformed, combining the best of both Christian traditions.
In communion we are joined not only with one another but also with God. The Body of Christ (the bread) is given to the Body of Christ (the Church), uniting us all with all Christians past, present, and future. This is a time of intimate connection with our Lord, the congregation, and all the Body of Christ.