From the Rector
Dear Friends in Christ,
In October of last year, the Vestry began discussions about adjusting our Sunday morning worship schedule. We’ve had enough time post-Covid to have a clearer picture of attendance patterns, growth, and change. However, making adjustments mid-year would have been disruptive to a number of ministries and we set the idea aside.
This summer, conversation around the Episcopal Church has been about how we adapt and change, while also holding fast to what endures. These conversations are happening at every level of the Church.
In a recent article in The Living Church, a simpler service was outlined for the installation of the new Presiding Bishop, Sean Rowe.
“The Rt. Rev. Sean Rowe will be installed as the 28th Presiding Bishop in a ‘smaller, simpler’ ceremony in the Episcopal Church Center’s Chapel of Christ the Lord rather than Washington National Cathedral. It is a break with a tradition that dates back to 1938, when the installation service for the Rt. Rev. Henry St. George Tucker, the 19th Presiding Bishop, was held in the still-uncompleted cathedral.”
The National Cathedral has been the traditional seat of the Presiding Bishop and the installation there is one of those grand affairs that is covered in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other legacy media.
It is no small thing that Bishop Rowe has chosen this change. He said he wants a smaller, simpler service to reflect the changing times and to better steward the Church’s resources.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this bold move in light of our own life at Saint Philip’s.
Are there places where we need more simplicity?
Are there ways we have propped up systems that served us in one phase of our life but perhaps not so well today?
Are there opportunities for community and formation to happen that our current patterns stymy?
With that in mind, the Vestry and I have chosen to move ahead with two things we’ve debated for the last couple of years—and with one new idea, as well.
1. Rather than returning to our customary two choral morning services in October, we will continue with the single choral service at 10:00am as we have offered through the summer. The choir will return in full force and our music offerings will be as robust and moving as they always are.
2. Beginning in October, we will offer Evensong every Sunday of the program year. This has been a long-desired addition to our worship and reflects our deepening engagement with the choral tradition we’ve inherited from the Church of England—especially in light of our now regular choir residencies.
3. We will add the new Joyful Noise service to Saturday afternoons beginning in November. It is a service focused on old-time hymns from gospel, folk, and other traditions. Saturday services are a fixture in many communities and enable people to come for whom Sunday morning is not an option.
The continuation of the morning schedule will open a range of possibilities for formation and fellowship, and make it possible to have much more robust forums that all can attend without the time pressure of rushing to the next service.
It will make the clergy available to teach in new ways on Sunday mornings, and enable children and youth who serve or sing to have more time for their formation classes.
You can imagine a Sunday morning starting with a 7:45am service, a parish breakfast at 8:45am or 9:00am, worship at 10:00am, and formation classes to follow. There are other permutations of this schedule but the overall goal is for all of us to be able to share in worship, formation, and fellowship together.
It will be a simpler schedule and one that will give us new opportunities to live into our Christian journey. This will, no doubt, result in crowded services sometimes, but the addition of Evensong and the availability of live-streaming will allow folks to worship in various ways.
These changes will enable us to be together for much of our common life.
They will encourage a better focus of time and energy on formation, and reduce the workload on choristers and volunteers.
They will expand the space in the Sunday morning schedule for many different opportunities for fellowship.
And these changes will allow us to reach people on Saturday afternoons and Sunday evenings who may not be able to attend Sunday morning for any number of reasons.
Our current service schedule and choir pattern evolved at a time when parish attendance was 1,200 and more on Sunday mornings. We’ve experienced growth but I’m not sure we’ll return to those numbers anytime soon.
So we are taking the new Presiding Bishop’s example to heart and embarking on this new path. We have confidence that no matter the hiccups along the way, we will be able to gather with joy, worship with reverence, learn together, and welcome new people to new services at new times along the way.
I’ll close with a very simple but true quote from Bishop Rowe, “We know that we cannot continue being the Episcopal Church in the same way, no matter where we live.”
We’ve long known this to be true and, at Saint Philip’s, we will continue to be open to wherever the Spirit leads and build upon the renewed life we've seen together post-Covid.
More information about the coming schedule, formation, and more will be on the way soon.
Yours in Christ,
—Fr Robert