The childhood verse says, “Here’s the church and here’s the steeple, open the doors and see all the people.” These pictures of our church, steeple, and people say something about St. John’s Church today.

We’re a “downtown” church. That means no parking lot or lawn for a swing set. Many other fine churches in the area offer these features if you need them. Again, most of our people do not live downtown, which means we’re not a “neighborhood” church. But that means everyone comes here intentionally, bypassing other churches to get here. And that says a lot. We’re committed to the downtown, which saves using our energy to decide which side of the river we would relocate to. We use that energy to broaden our understanding of how to live out our discipleship from this corner.

We’re an “historic” church. We started on this corner in 1837 and have added or remodeled a building about every 50 years since (the last time was 1996). Some of our stained glass is perhaps the oldest in town and our nave (worship space) is traditional in its layout. Our offices are housed in the original parish rectory just east of the church, built for our founding priest in 1844 (four fireplaces, one closet!)

We are a “worshiping” church. The texts of our worship are The Book of Common Prayer and its supplements and The Hymnal 1982 and its supplements. In addition to full Sunday worship and educational programs for all ages, we offer public worship at various times Monday through Friday, so that Sunday through Friday prayer is offered on behalf of our entire community by the people of St. John’s. We believe this is part of what the Church does. Our Chapel of the Resurrection is open to the public for private prayer during all normal working hours.

We’re a “serving” church. During our last remodel we configured the building so that one entire street-level floor is available to service and outreach ministries 24/7/365. The largest Food Pantry in several counties and numerous twelve-step groups meeting at various times of day or night call this space home. We offer our chapel to a small Mennonite congregation which gathers on Sunday afternoons. We understand our building to be a tool for ministry rather than a private refuge, and we seek ways to use it as much as possible in service to others.

More than a collection of historic buildings, we are people who find the Anglican way of worshiping God and living the Christian life to be healing, empowering and enriching. We report a baptized membership of about 350 and about 165 of us worship together on a weekly basis. We observe that we are getting younger. Some of us are “cradle” Episcopalians (raised in the Episcopal Church), others are converts from other Christian traditions (actually, quite a few of us). Still others are Lutheran or Mennonite or Roman Catholic but through participation in St. John’s they call this community their “church home”. 

About half of us are associated directly with Purdue University in one way or another. We are proud in the improvements we have made in children’s education by using the Montessori-inspired “Godly Play” method, and of the growing Adult Forum program. Our Youth Group meets Sunday evenings so teens can be a part of worship, and our 20s/ 30s Group is growing. We use our music program to support our outreach programs through twice-yearly benefit Evensongs. We are not all of one mind on the current hot-topic issues in the Episcopal Church but this does not divide us, we are most certainly not planning to leave the Episcopal Church, and we believe that Holy Scripture says more about the poor and needy than about human sexual behavior. We pray for our servicemen and women serving in Iraq and elsewhere because they are our children or friends and family members. We pray for persons facing execution as well as their victims – and their executioners – because such human brokenness should be laid before the throne of God, and we pray for our enemies and those who wish us harm because that’s what Jesus did.

Because how we spend our money says much about our values, in calendar 2007 we gave $84,539 to ministry beyond our walls. Jesus’ Summary of the Law, to love God and love neighbor, to live a life of worship and service, is good counsel and we find St. John’s helps us do that. We’re not perfect, but God isn’t finished with us yet, either.

We invite you to join us in our walk, and pray God’s blessing on you in yours.