What We Believe
The Ethos of The Episcopal Church
The Episcopal Church is a denomination grounded in ancient Christian scripture and tradition while at the same time open to the insight and truth of contemporary life. Our roots are from the Church in England, dating from the second century, becoming the Church of England during the Reformation. Born as a middle way between what had become a deadly conflict between Protestants and Catholics of the sixteenth century, we are known for our tolerance and our willingness to embrace paradox.
Episcopalians trust that the truth of God embraces and transcends all of the partial truths that our limited human minds can grasp. We accept that there is divine mystery at the heart of life, and we believe that mystery can best be known through love, particularly the love revealed in Jesus Christ.
The Three Strands of Our Faith
Theologian Richard Hooker described Anglican authority as a three-fold cord, not easily broken: scripture, tradition, and reason.
The Episcopal Church honors the Bible as the first witness to God, containing “all things necessary to salvation.” It is the love story of God’s relationship with God’s people. We respect its complexity and its origins in the communities and histories of our ancestors. We look to the Bible as the written source of our revelation of God.
We also honor the experience of God throughout the history of humanity and especially among faithful Christians for these two-thousand years. We look to the tradition, teaching, and experience of the whole church as a manifestation of God’s revelation. The ancient Creeds are alive and well in the Episcopal Church.
We believe God created human beings with an innate capacity to know God. We honor the Godgiven faculties of reason, intuition, intellect, and emotion. We believe that through our human experience God communicates with us and reveals God’s intentions for us.
Our worship is centered in the celebration of the last gift Christ gave us, the gift of his presence and life through the shared Communion of bread and wine. This powerful ritual renews and strengthens us. We believe that in this shared holy meal, we are fed by Christ and united in his life.
A Lifelong Process
Ours is not a gospel of fear and guilt, of moralism or threats of hell. We see Jesus as the incarnation of God, who loves and delights in humanity. God becomes one with us. We celebrate a God who has created every human being in God’s own image. We seek to call forth the fullness of that divine image in every person through the disciplines of Christian life. God wants us to become the loving, trusting, giving people God has created us to be. Repentance, conversion, and growth are daily events. It is a life-long process to become holy, to become fully human.
We believe that the process of growing into our full humanity is best done in community. Together we pray, worship, study the scriptures, and explore the richness of twenty-one centuries of Christian experience.
The Community
You’ll find St. Paul’s Church actively involved in service and outreach to our community.
At Community Meals we serve a balanced hot lunch to anyone who comes on Mondays and Wednesdays. We welcome friends living with Alzheimer’s or dementia to our Thursday Caring Friends Respite Care. The Community Clinic at St. Francis House started as a benevolent health care ministry of the Episcopal Church and is now a network of clinics offering affordable medical and dental care to those with limited access to the health care system. We founded the Seven Hills Homeless Center and lead in its support. We began Magdalene Serenity House to help rebuild the lives of women who have experienced trauma, addiction, and incarceration; we are a founding member of Cooperative Emergency Outreach, and we are involved in numerous other community services.
Episcopalians resist hard-ball tactics of proselytizing. We tend to offer our charity simply. We believe that love and generosity are ends in themselves, reflecting Christ’s love for all people.
We take very seriously the vow from our Baptismal Covenant: “Will you respect the dignity of every human being?” We try to walk together with others as fellow seekers. We are a people trying to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, who loved the outcast, healed the hurting, and called us into a way of life that seeks to help us become more trusting, more courageous, and more loving as we grow into the wonderful mystery of our relationship with God and one another. Come worship with us and see what you think.