210 Saint Mary's Rd, Hillsborough, NC 27278, United States Weekly Average Sunday Attendance (ASA) 186 Number of Weekend Worship Services 2 Number of Weekday Worship Services 1 Number of Other per Month Worship Services 1 Current Annual Compensation $90700 Cash Stipend Housing / Rectory Detail Utilities $67000 $3600 SECA reimbursement Compensation Available for New Position $94600 Housing Available for 5 Pension Plan We're in compliance with CPF requirements. Healthcare Options Dental Housing Equity Allowance in Full family budget Annual Equity Amount Vacation Weeks Vacation Weeks Details Continuing Education Weeks Continuing Education Weeks One month, including 5 2 (standard) Details Sundays (standard) Continuing Education Funding in budget $501-$1000/year Sabbatical Provision Travel/Auto Account Other Professional Account Rectory: 2800sq.ft. home on 2 acre lot; 3 bedrooms, 2 baths. Property maintained by church
Numerous families with young children reached a consensus in order to expand the offering for our Sunday school classes. To accomplish this goal, the existing space for young children and youth was renovated to add an additional classroom for K-5 classes and a dedicated room for grades 6-12. This required many parishioners not only to contribute financially, but to perform much of the renovation work themselves. The next step was the hiring of a Director of Christian Formation, which allowed the selection and development of a more comprehensive curriculum. This addressed the need for continuous spiritual development of our children from age 6 through 18. In order to fully support the growth of this program, the new director recruited and trained additional parishioners to become teachers for all grades. Over the course of 3 years, our children s educational offerings became a full-fledged ministry and engaged a cross section of our parishioners. This positive growth has been a success for our parish. How are your preparing yourselves for the Church of the future? The challenges of spiritual growth and physical presence are integral to the mission of the larger Church. For the last 15 years, we steadily addressed this growth in both our facilities and our presence in the community. This encouraged thoughtful work to provide spaces that our congregation can utilize going forward, and to expand the ways our adults and young people interact with each other and the larger community. In this regard, a number of activities stand out. The most obvious is the current construction project that will be completed in 2019. A new building will provide more classrooms for children s programming and other needs of the parish. Renovations to our current fellowship hall and kitchen will better utilize space for larger gatherings, such as meals or speakers for Adult Forum. Other renovations to our choir room and parish offices will improve these areas for our staff and lay people. Our young people envision further outreach work to become more involved in the larger community. Our spiritual enrichment programs include bible study, contemplative practices, and staying grounded in Episcopal traditions. collaborative, pastoral, discerning, learned
St Matthew s style of worship reflects the elegance of the church s 1820s simplified Gothic Revival architecture. The altar and reredos are modestly adorned and our clergy vested simply in alb and stole. We practice in Broad Church tradition using the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. There are two Sunday morning services, Rite I at 8 and Rite II at 10:30. The early service, characterized by peacefulness and reflection, is a spoken Eucharist, and is celebrated without music. The later service is celebrated with organ and Choral Eucharist and is attended by a larger group of parishioners that includes more young families. During the week we also celebrate a Wednesday noon Eucharist now including a healing service. The congregation embraces seasonal worship services that follow the church liturgical Lent, Easter, and Advent calendar. We annually celebrate Youth Sunday and Recovery Sunday and share Sunday worship with Dickerson Chapel AME several times a year. The tent is big at St Matthew s with periodic worship opportunities reflecting the spiritual diversity of our congregation.these include an All Souls evensong and adaptations of liturgies from Hildegard of Bingen and Teresa of Avila. How do you practice incorporating others in ministry? Energetic, welcoming, dedicated, creative, talented, determined, spirited, joyful, and intellectually curious all describe our parishioners - qualities brought to the 580 service opportunities in our 55 committees/ministries at St. Matthew s. Our campus frequently buzzes with multiple committee meetings. On Sundays, at least 25 intergenerational folk support or lead our 2 worship services. St. Matthew s is a very friendly parish, so we have no problem asking people, face-to-face, via email, bulletin, or newsletter, to volunteer for our committees. For example, when the Serve One Another listserve received a request for meal support, eight dinner slots filled within 2 hours. Our energetic Newcomers Committee held a St. Matthew s Ministry Fair this Fall. After a 10:30 Sunday service, they set up tables with a representative from the various committees/ministries; folks strolled from table to table collecting information about all the volunteer possibilities. We are open to and interested in discussing and learning new ways of involving our parishioners in our ministries. As a worshipping community, how do you care for your spiritual, emotional and physical well-being? In a typical week, St. Matthew s offers parishioners many ways to support and care for each other through shared worship, fellowship opportunities, committees, and sponsored events. This is best reflected by a Sunday at the church. The morning starts with two services, a Rite I at 8:00am and a Rite II at 10:30am, each one followed by coffee and snacks. Between the services there are education opportunities for children and adults - age appropriate classes for the children and an education hour or bible study for the adults. The Adult Forum often features a presentation by a local community group or one of our own parishioners discussing a topic of interest to them, such as a recent series on mental health. After the services there may be a meeting for one of our many committees, such as the Health and Wholeness Committee, or a mutual care and discernment group. Later a poetry reading or a musical performance sponsored by Faith and the Arts attracts community wide audiences. Men s fellowship breakfasts, ladies night out, dinner groups, and community service activities flow throughout the following days and week.
How do you engage in pastoral care for those beyond your worshipping community? Outreach to our larger community is as important as caring for those within our church. We care for those beyond St. Matthew s in many ways ranging from prayer and contemplation to more obviously active engagement with the local community and the world. We have long standing commitments to feed and house our neighbors through working with a local food bank (OCIM Orange Congregations in Mission) and Habitat for Humanity; we help fund and administer a prison ministry program at a local prison; our shawl ministry reaches out in a quieter way by knitting in prayer and giving shawls to people in need and in celebration; we have a commitment to Dickerson Chapel, a local AME Church, that includes worshipping together several times a year; we hold monthly Eucharist at a local nursing home; we reach out after natural disasters including participating in ERD to help people after the wildfires in California, and the earthquake in Indonesia. Our youth are involved in outreach from cleaning up parishioners yards to raising funds with ERD for the Heifer Project. Our vision is broad and we are committed to active care for those within our church, in our local community and in the world. We develop a mustard seed involvement in the wider Church. Passion and commitment of individual parishioners knit our church into Church. A nurse traveled on Honduras medical missions with medicines packaged during a parish event. A physician receives funds for leading medical students on mission trips to Armenia. Our Racial Justice & Reconciliation Task Force and our diocese support participation in Racial Equality Institute workshops and caucuses. Formation education grades 3-5 inspire all with ERD Gift for Life fundraisers such as NetsforLife. Our deacon faithfully weaves us into Durham's Latino mission, Iglesia el Buen Pastor. A social worker dedicated to treating women with addiction now serves on the Board of Recovery Ministries of the Episcopal Church and as Director of Recovery Ministries for the Diocese of NC. She was the keynote speaker at the 35th Annual Gathering of Recovery Ministries of the Episcopal Church. St. Matthew s has sponsored or welcomed 15 interns journeying towards ordination. Their contribution to our parish and our influence on their formation bespeaks a well-tended cycle from seed to blossoming to fruit bearing in our shared life in Christ. St. Matthew's helped found the Food For All (FFA) ministry, a community wide program offering bagged meals and bottled water to homeless and in-need folks in Hillsborough. 3 teams of parishioners cover 3 weeknights each month. They join other churches, civic groups and high school volunteers who supply meals for the rest of the month; we invite them to use our kitchen if they don't have a suitable site for food preparation. Those teams buy the food, package the meals and distribute them on their assigned day. Fairview Baptist Church allows us to use their safe parking lot to welcome all who come. The St. Matthew's team greets those gathered, shares a prayer and hands out the meals and waters with a smile. No questions are asked of those who come except, "How are you today?" There are "thank you's" and "bless you's " from those who receive the meals. Recently St. Matthew's began contributing meals to the rural Cedar Grove Community Center for distribution to its elderly home bound population under the auspices of Orange County Rural Alliance. Our contact person is Deacon Hugh Tilson.
What is your practice of stewardship and how does it shape the life of your worshipping community? Meandering St. Matthew s churchyard or entering our beloved sanctuary, you traverse bedrock history of sacrifice, care, and generosity: from an 1826 Ladies Sewing Circle purchase of bricks to 2008 renovations and rededications to 2018 groundbreaking on a mortgage free classroom building! Annual Holistic Stewardship campaigns support a carefully crafted operating budget; competent and ethical Vestry, Staff and Clergy oversight inspires our congregation s faithful giving patterns. The Core Values Committee structure at St. Matthew s ensures respect for parishioner pledges of time, talent, and treasure. A Vestry Liaison to each committee promotes effective communication and collaboration across leadership and participant networks as we live into mutual ministry. Commitment to environmentally responsible practices also undergirds the preservation of our Living Historic Church buildings and grounds. Thoughtful planning by our Health & Wholeness Committee shapes educational offerings, book discussions and fellowship meals and gatherings. Nearly 200 years of stewardship for this ground, this sanctuary, and for one another embodies our responses to the great commandments of Holy Eucharist. We have addressed conflict well in many arenas: working through differences in faith at EfM; holding discussions about LGBTQ populations as the Church established its position about ordination of LGBTQ people; through proactive and ongoing discussions about major issues such as how to be in relation with our Muslim neighbors after 9/11; in book discussions including one on Senator John Danforth s The Relevance of Religion; and in the ongoing work of our Racial Justice and Reconciliation Task Force. Our recent conversations show us that we can grow in addressing our different opinions and divisions more directly. While many of us tend to handle conflict by attempting to avoid it, many of us are also committed to learning how to have difficult conversations and want to learn the skills for having discussions across divergent opinions, loving one another through and in the difficult places. For many years, we had a rector who skillfully managed differences; there now is an opportunity to learn more about how to do this for ourselves and we seek guidance in this work. What is your experience leading/addressing change in the church? When has it gone well? When has it gone poorly? And what did you learn? Years ago, St. Matthew's faced the issue of its lack of handicapped access. Many parishioners opposed constructing a ramp that would detract from its 19th century architecture. The church also suffered an unpopular building project a few years earlier that divided the congregation. No one wanted new construction opening those wounds, but the church was in violation of town ordinances. Our new Rector and Senior Warden provided collegial leadership. The Vestry respectfully listened to each other s views, discussed pros and cons, and realized the only choice was to build an access with creative construction plans and full disclosure at every stage-a new model of governance for our church. Final designs depicted a gradually sloping concrete ramp lined with wrought iron railings that mimicked existing rails. Flowering shrubs would be planted beside the ramp. The Vestry unanimously approved the design and spoke individually to longtime church members. Plans and construction costs were printed and posted in the Fellowship Hall and narthex of the church. A pledge campaign began and was completed. This successful project serves St. Matthew's to this day.
Prior Incumbents Name Position Title Date Begun Date Ended The Rev. Dr. Brooks Graebner Rector / Vicar / Priest-in-Charge 1990-04 2017-09 Name Position Title Date Begun Date Ended The Rev. Lisa Frost-Phillips Rector / Vicar / Priest-in-Charge 2017-10 2017-12 Name Position Title Date Begun Date Ended The Rev. Judith Foster Reese Interim 2017-12 Church School Number of Teachers/Leaders for Children School 12 Number of Students for Children School 22 Number of Teachers/Leaders for Teen/Young Adults School 4 Number of Students for Teen/Young Adults School 10 4 Number of Teachers/Leaders for Adults School Number of Students for Adults School 45 Day School Number of Students for Day School Number of Teachers for Day School Day School
Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org) Worshipping Community Web site: https://www.stmatthewshillsborough.org/ Media Links: Online References: Provide Worship or Classes in: PROFILE: https://bit.ly/2s2o9fv References Bishop: The Rt. Rev. Samuel Rodman Diocesan Transition Minister Canon Catherine Massey 919-843-7474 sam.rodman@episdionc.org 919-834-7474 catherine.massey@episdionc.org Current Warden/Board Chair Marion Youngblood Previous Warden/Board Chair Helen Conrad Search Chair Betty Wolfe Parish/Institution Local Community Leader