Seeking a Part-Time Priest in Charge

Founded in 1852 and moving into its lovely stone building in 1895, St. John’s sits in the residential East Rock neighborhood of New Haven just blocks from the Yale University campus. Over the years our church has been a beacon of historic Christian faith to the broader community. 

We characterize ourselves as “Episcopal, Evangelical, and Ecumenical.” As an Episcopal parish we are a church in good standing with a very supportive diocese, celebrating our Anglican heritage and spirituality using the Book of Common Prayer for our worship services. As a congregation of evangelical faith, we uphold the authority of Scripture for all of life and seek to proclaim Jesus Christ and His unique, saving Gospel through the witness of our lives and words. We practice and commend a “generous orthodoxy” rooted in traditional, biblical faith. We welcome everyone to our services and activities, and all baptized Christians are invited to partake of the Eucharist.

Our congregation is diverse in many ways. We have parishioners from older members to young families with children ranging from infants to teens. (We offer Children’s Chapel each Sunday and have a growing teens and young adults ministry.) Because of our proximity to Yale and other area universities, we have a large contingency of graduate students and some professors, as well as people from countries around the world. And most of our core congregants work in various professions in the greater New Haven area.

As noted above, a particular distinction of St. John’s is the significant number of leaders, including many with professional ministry training. As we like to say, we have a ‘deep bench’ when it comes to lay giftedness (in the last year alone over 25 different parishioners preached at our services).  Aspiring to be an every-member ministry church, nearly everyone is involved in service within the church as well as outreach to our local community. We have a full vestry with two Wardens, several different committees and ministry teams, and a part-time Pastoral Associate who helps with everything from Sunday services to ministry coordination, pastoral care, supervising our Sexton and Office Administrator, and overseeing much of the care for our building and grounds.
 
We have identified three main priorities for this season of our church: Community-building, Outreach, and Leadership Development. As a congregation we want to ‘go deeper theologically’ through small groups, special events (such as an annual lecture series), and healing prayer, ever eager to nurture our unity as believers both locally and with the global Christian church. Our outreach efforts include our Racial Justice Fellowship, various creation care initiatives (with our own ‘pollinator garden’!), and work among the many refugees and immigrants who are resettled in New Haven. We continually seek ways to partner with other churches and organizations, desiring to more effectively bear witness to Christ among the many different communities who live in our area.
 
Because we serve a significant number of students who are here for shorter seasons, we aim to inspire, involve, and equip members who will carry forward our mission locally during their time here and become effective leaders for the church and society in the future. (We have seen several of our parishioners go on to ordained ministry, and currently are supervising two postulants from our congregation who are pursuing that calling.)

Lastly, our beautiful building has expanded with the addition of an undercroft that now includes ample space for children’s nursery, game room, library, and Sunday school classrooms. In addition, we have a lovely sanctuary with splendid stained-glass windows, a prayer chapel, and a parish hall where we host our weekly fellowship times and a variety of other church family events and outreach gatherings. Our gardens have become a neighborhood hangout, complete with new playground equipment frequently used by young families, as well as a place for us to practice creation care.