The Anglican Way

St. John’s Church embraces the historical "Anglican Way" of living out our faith commitment. Worship at St. John's is "traditional." Our standard of worship is the 1928 edition of the classic Book of Common Prayer. Worship as we understand it, is not entertainment, and its proper focus is neither the ministers nor the congregation, but God. It has been well said, that the worship of Almighty God is the highest privilege of redeemed men and women. It is nothing less than our audience with the King of kings and Lord of lords, in which the Church offers up its sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving together with its prayers and supplications for the needs of its own members and for the world, and pledges itself anew to the Covenant of Grace by which we sinners have been received into God's family and kingdom through the shed blood of His Son. We are a Eucharist-centered church, because all that is said above about worship is accomplished and shown forth most completely in the Service of Holy Communion, the one service of the Church instituted and enjoined on His disciples by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. In it we offer "ourselves, our souls and bodies" to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit along with the oblation of bread and wine, joining with these our thanksgiving for Christ's sacrifice for sin on the Cross and our prayers. In the same bread and wine, we receive back Christ's own true Body and Blood, by which our souls are nourished and with spiritual food unto eternal life. We are also a Bible-centered church. We receive Holy Scripture as nothing less than the Word of God written and affirm that it "containeth all things necessary to salvation." Not only is the reading of Holy Scripture an integral part of every service, but we believe that the study of the Bible is essential to the Christian life. Obviously, Bible study has a high priority at St. John's. Our interpretation of Scripture (our understanding of its meaning), however, is not dictated by whatever is current or popular in some Christian circles, much less by anyone's personal revelations. Rather, we seek to be guided by the consensus of Christian teachers over the centuries, giving special weight to those Church Fathers who themselves knew the Apostles or lived closer to them in time. Finally, we are an evangelical church. We have a mission to bring men and women to Christ, and we recognize that evangelization is not complete until people have been brought into the fellowship of Christ's Body, the Church. There the Christian life, which begins in Holy Baptism, upon repentance and faith, is nurtured by the Word of God and the Sacraments. Our mission is to introduce people to Christ as He has made Himself known down through the centuries in the teaching and worship and sacraments of the historic Christian church.