Volume 5, Number 1, Eastertide 2012
The Episcopal Diocese of Missouri 1210 Locust Street St. Louis, Missouri 63103 ph: 314-231-1220 online: diocesemo.org email: info@diocesemo.org
A Parish in Iron County There are around 10,000 residents in Iron County, Missouri. It’s an impoverished area, losing population and schools and jobs, with a lot of young families caught up in the destructive cycle of meth use and production. And there, too, is St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, membership around 40, reclaiming the understanding of “parish” as neighborhood. Catherine Hillquist came to Ironton from the Diocese of Los Angeles. A self-described “urban” person, she felt God’s call to rural ministry and became St. Paul’s rector in 2001. St. Paul’s, on the national register and known for its distinctive painted roof, is open every day for prayer and Hillquist’s office door is open. One of the only full-time pastors in the area, she is available, and there is a constant stream of people seeking help, sharing updates about their situations, or simply needing to pray. “As a small parish, we have to keep our ear to the ground about what is going on in the community.” The community food pantry was in a decrepit house owned by the county,
scheduled for demolition. A new facility was proposed for $100K. The pantry board connected with Carol Douma, recent widow with an estate to settle. She rented them a large warehouse for $1 a year for the next ten years. St. Paul’s applied for a New Ventures in Community Ministry grant from the diocese, was awarded $12,000. They spend $10K to make it useful as a pantry and put the rest on account for maintenance and utilities. “One church is not the savior of a community,” said Hillquist. “It is the church working together, loving one another the way we are, helping one another out.” The roof tiles painted just 8 years ago are peeling and St. Paul’s has hired Rick Kuhn, Emmanuel parishioner and Lui pilgrim, and construction company owner, as contractor. They’ll replace with aluminum tiles in teal and terracotta colors, materials that will preserve the traditional look and last a long time. The roof features 18 spires with finials and three crosses, which were all in states of decay. “Rick was so enthusiastic about these new materials,” said Hillquist, “I wanted to share that.” Hillquist invited retired shop
Individuals, in Community
Photos (clockwise from top left): Catherine Hillquist, rector of St. Paul’s-Ironton; the parish on bishop’s visitation day; l. to r. an old finial, Bo Layton’s new polymer finial, one of the three crosses to be recast; Kuhn Construction working on the roof, with an inset of the new tiles laid on the peeling roof.
teacher Bo Layton into the project. After testing out the material, creating a prototype, Layton will create the finials and crosses for the project. Hillquist was named Woman of the Year by the Arcadia Valley Chamber of Commerce this year. “God has provided this church,” said Hillquist, “where people can touch one another and where they are at home.”
Wayne Smith
learn that the Bible’s The special gift and characvision for wholeteristic of American life is its awareness and salvation ness of the individual—so much so is lived in the firstthat individual-ism marks us. There person plural, not in are few places on earth that guard the singular? How personal rights as zealously as we do, do Americans learn for which we do well to be grateful. that faith is not so The religious heritage of our much about me as it nation has developed in similar fashis about us? Or inion, with its concern for personal consofar as faith is about version and salvation. The destiny of Fresco of Fractio Panis (Breaking of Bread) in the Catacomb of Priscilla, me, it is about how Rome, Italy, from around 350 A.D. the individual soul has been the conI find a place among cern of the revival movements in this the larger us? land since the eighteenth century. Inlost, but it found its meaning in the context The refocusing requires a lot terestingly, recent trends in self-fulfillof first-person plural. So Cyprian of Carthage from us, an abrupt shift ment—all the books (who died in 258) wrote, “Outside the church in awareness—but a necand literature and there is no salvation”—a bafflement, if not essary one. But there are media about it—repto moderns. But for Cyprian How do persons, resources for us. The pi- embarrassment, resent a secularized and the rest of the ancient Christian writversion of that oldschooled in indi- ety suggested in the Book ers, the very idea of a church-less Christianof Common Prayer 1979 fashioned revivalist ity would have made no sense, for salvation vidualism, learn acknowledges the perconcern for the soul’s and faith were about belonging to a people, to be a people? ... sonal but emphasizes the a community, who were in together. All their fate. Both are about communal. (This change, personal salvation. images of salvation were corporate in nature. How do Ameriinterwoven to the whole I think our The rites of Holy Week invite us all cans learn that Book, may account for very culture tilts us into the context of first-person plural. There a lot of the initial resistoward the personal, are crowds in which to lose ourselves, both faith is not so tance to it. It seemed simply because the on Palm Sunday and on Good Friday. There much about me different, not just in lanpersonal has served is the action of mutual servanthood, washguage, but in intent, beus so well for so long. ing and being washed, on Maundy Thursas it is about us? cause it was different.) The concern for the day. There is the cosmic community held Baptism, once mostly a individual, his or her out for us to experience at the Easter Vigil. private matter celebrated dignity and rights, is There is this strange bunch called the people privately, now is a celebration of pubnot something I want to see destroyed of God, shaped in the mighty works of God lic worship on Sunday. To understand in our national character and practice. and made present in baptism at the Vigil. that one shift in practice is to grasp Our bent toward the personal, And—not least of all—resurrecwhat Prayer Book renewal has been up however, sometimes makes it diffition is not about something that happens to to—a recovery of the scriptural vision cult to imagine a proper place for the me, in isolation (from God’s people, from all so honored by the ancients, the escommunal and the corporate—which creation). Resurrection, perhaps most of all, sential place of belonging in commuhappen to describe the world of God’s is about life lived in the first-person plural. nity. For the ancients, the Christian people in both testaments of scripture. The Right Reverend Wayne Smith faith was never about me; it was always How do persons, schooled in individuis the Tenth Bishop of Missouri. about us. The personal aspect was not alism, learn to be a people? How do we