Who Are We?

“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” Hebrews13.2

The Episcopal Church is part of the Anglican Communion, a world-wide body of Christians with roots in the Church of England.

Our worship is guided by the Book of Common Prayer, which provides the instructions and rites for Anglican Christians to worship together. Our faith is based on the "three-legged stool" of scripture, tradition, and reason. We acknowledge the Bible as containing the Word of God and all that we need for our salvation, but at the same time we realize that the Bible speaks to us in our own time and place. We respect the past two thousand years of experience of God and Christ by the body of faithful people called the Church as a connection among all believers — and a starting point for our own understanding.

But we also believe that every Christian must build their own interpretation, based on our God-given reason (or intellect) to take the text of the Bible itself, and what Christians have taught us about it through the ages, to sort out our own understanding.

Shared worship

We come together weekly to praise and thank God, to hear God’s word and to pray for ourselves and others. Our services tell a story and act it out. As Jesus invited us, we gather, as around a family table, with bread and wine, to celebrate his risen presence and to be renewed and strengthened for the work God gives us to do.

Shared leadership

Everyone participates in the worship, ministry, leadership and governance of the Episcopal Church: lay people from all walks of life; women and men who are ordained to serve as priests and deacons; and women and men who are elected and ordained to serve as our bishops. Lay people, clergy and bishops make up the representative governing bodies of our church and together determine its policies, programs and budgets.

Shared mission

We gather together as a church and we are sent to be that church in the world. Our work in the world is reflected in our daily lives and our many ministries: with children and families, with young adults and elders, with those who are hungry, homeless, poor, sick, or in prison. We are called to minister in places of need in our cities, and to work together to bring about social and economic justice at home and abroad.

Shared connection

The Parish of the Epiphany is part of the Diocese of Massachusetts, nearly 200 faith communities composed of over 77,000 people.