St.
John's Episcopal Church
updated March 4, 2005
St.
John's Episcopal Church
updated March 4, 2005
St. John's Parish,Founded Dec. 28, 1841
e-mail: towergrovechurch@sbcglobal.net
3664
Arsenal, St. Louis, Mo. 63116
Phone: 314-772-3970
Saturdays, there will be a 5 p.m. contemporary Eucharist service at St. John's in conjunction with the Young Adult Spirituality Discussion group that Pastor Mithen leads on Monday nights. If you are a young adult interested in participating in the discussion group or serving on the worship team for the Saturday evening service, please contact Pastor Mithen at 772-3970
Building at the corner of Dolman & Hickory.
The steeple was destroyed in the 1896 tornado,
which ruined several homes in the Lafayette Square area,
where many St. John's Parishioners resided.
The parishioners moved to other areas ot the city
and as a result, St. John's moved into its
present location of 3664 Arsenal in 1907.
Service Schedule
call
314-772-3970 for all service times and other information
SUNDAY
|
Rite I Service *** |
8:00
am
|
|
|
young
adults
meet at
Bread
Company Morning
Prayer |
|
How it all started . . .
<>This is the letter from
P. R. Minard, giving St. John's first
rector, Rev. Whiting Griswold, .
It reads as follows:St. Louis Nov. 20, 1841
Rev. & Dr. (dear?) Brother
You have my
cordial consent to your present attempt
to establish a church in the south
part of the City & my earnest
prayers that God may crown your
labours with success.
.P. R. Minard
.
Founded on St. John's Day (Dec. 28), 1841, St. John's Episcopal Church, St. Louis, is the second oldest Episcopal Parish in St. Louis, and the fifth oldest in the State of Missouri.
The present building was finished in 1910 (the cornerstone laid in 1907). St. John's has been the home to the Wainwright Family (of the Wainwright Building fame) and Betty Grable (she was baptized as an infant in the baptismal font situated in the front of the Nave).
St. John's has been the home of various historic "firsts" in the Episcopal Church, such as the first in Missouri to discontinue pew rentals (a caste separating process), and the first to have a "vested" boys' choir (the boys coming from the orphanage on Lafayette Street west of Grand Avenue).
St. John's is historic on the inside. Much of the furnishings are from the 1860's and have resided in at least three church buildings: the pews, the Eagle Lectern, the altar. The pulpit was built in the 1890's and given to St. John's on "permanent loan" from St. Peter's, Ladue, when that church moved to its present location from Olive Street west of Grand Avenue about 1950.
St. John's sits near the most vibrant crossroads in the city, the intersection of South Grand Avenue and Arsenal Street. The South Grand area is undergoing a renaissance equal to any in the City. With a vibrant young population living and shopping nearby, both the area and St. John's promise to flourish.
The key to any church's continuing is the youth of the parishioners, and St. John's has one of the youngest congregations in the St. Louis area, especially for being one of the oldest parishes.
We should make a note about the nature of the services. Although, St. John's takes up the traditional Episcopal liturgy, people are not obliged to take part in the liturgy. The sermons are delivered by both a male and female priest at different times, and by various lay persons of the congregation. You will find a "laid back", unconventional, informal -- COMFORTABLE -- atmosphere, and quite sociable people. At St. John's you're among friends.
So this is St. John's, with a memorable past and a hopeful future.
Thoughts . . .
This IS
the TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY! Amazing! Wouldn't you
think?! To those born in the last decades of the
twentieth, this is nothing; but to those of us born in the first half
(me, just barely), it's amazing. I grew up with
dates such 1976 and 1984 being far in the future, and seeing thirties
serials on TV, such BUCK ROGERS IN THE
TWENTY-THIRD CENTURY -- anything with an adjunct to the word Twenty was
a fantastic, futuristic world far from
us (2001, A SPACE ODYSSEY for example {see the movie to see how
futuristic last year seemed to the mid
twentieth}). Part of this of course was predictions for the future --
whether in technological advances such as
wonders and marvels for the home or commuter travel or such, or the END
OF THE WORLD.
The
"end of the world" -- it has been predicted for centuries, yet it has
never come. It still is being predicted.
Will it come? Astronomers say it will come some day -- millennia from
now, in the form of our sun supernovaeing,
or some other superstellar disaster.
Others say
"The signs are there!"
"Jesus is coming!"
Once I was under the notion that 1976 would be the approximate date of
the end-time Apocalyptic holocaust,
with the Second Coming imminent. Others have thought that the
"turn of the Millennium" would herald such
disasters and subsequent second advent. It hasn't happened yet.
Jesus (Personally, I prefer the Jewish and given name, "Joshua")
likened all these events to a fig tree in his
prophetic passage in Matthew 24. He hinted that events would,
like the fig tree's changes with the seasons,
culminating in the bearing of fruit, follow a definite pattern and
that, those who are aware could see the
developing pattern and become aware of the culmination of these
end-time events.
Odd
sometimes -- we learn that some things just might be falling in line --
not to say that they definitely are, but
there are what could be thought of as odd coincidences.
Let's look at some of these.
Chernobyl -- I read or heard somewhere that the name means "wormwood"
-- compare with the angel of
Revelation that strikes the waters and a third become undrinkable.
Or
the World Trade Center disaster -- back about 1982 or so, we went to a
friend's house, who showed a
videotape about Nostradamus' prophecies, with Orson Wells
narrating. An interpretation of one of them was that
(I paraphrase) "a middle eastern ruler would be able to wreak
destruction on New York City."
Could it be?
Can
any one of us say for sure?
Just that here are at least two coincidences.
But
if we dwell on all this -- if we dwell on a lot of things around us --
we could scare ourselves into paralysis. If
we conjure up all sorts of imaginings about what could be . . .
Jesus says concentrate on the moment -- "one day's problems are enough
to worry about (to paraphrase)".
The
only reality is the present moment. We must make the most of that. We
build the future on the present.
Sort
of like a fig tree -- it has to be cultivated and pruned and cared for
-- each step of which is in a "present
moment".
The
keeper of the fig tree knows when the figs are ripe.
We
who are the keepers of our own lives, if we cultivate and care for
ourselves and our interrelationships of
those around us -- if we concentrate on the moment to moment living of
lives with this in mind -- we will know
when the figs are ripe.
Dale M. Cannon
(all events are in the Parish Hall unless otherwise indicated)
* * *
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