Saint Andrew's Episcopal Church

Episcopal Church

Saint Andrew’s is a part of that Church founded by Jesus Christ when He commissioned His disciples to go into all the world with the Gospel.  The Episcopal  Church today is a part of the world wide Anglican Communion with sixty million members, whose mother is the Church of England.  The Episcopal Church belongs to the largest Christian body in the English-speaking countries of the world.  It is a multi-national, multi-lingual, multi-racial church. 

Episcopalians are participants in worship.  Much of our distinctiveness came from the Reformation in England in the 16th century. Corporate worship, clarity of faith that we are saved by God’s grace and not by our works, giving the laity a voice in church life and ministry, and using Scripture, reason, experience and tradition to judge and inform the Church-are all hallmarks of our Anglican heritage.

Even in its diversity there are common essential characteristics within the Episcopal Church:

The Bible is the source of our beliefs and moral standards.

The Book of Common Prayer (which enables us to worship together and not just passively participate in the minister’s worship) contains the services of the church, psalms, and prayers, as well as an outline of the faith and historical church documents.  The catholic balance of sacrament and word in our worship is evidenced by our frequent celebrations of  the Eucharist (Holy Communion) and our emphasis on Biblical Preaching.

Worship in the Episcopal Church tends to be quietly reverent and dignified.  The vestments worn by the clergy date back to antiquity.  Our uniformity of worship, while allowing for variations, serves to remind us of the catholic nature of the Church.  In our worship we are united with past, present, and future generations of Christians.  Such worship is carried out with a view to the glorification of God, not for our entertainment.