Our parish regularly uses all the liturgical resources approved by the Episcopal Church for Sunday services including The Book of Common Prayer (1979) as well as Enriching Our Worship (1997) and additional resources as they are permitted. Over the course of the year, we use both traditional and contemporary language and imagery for God and God's people, all of it grounded in Scripture and the Anglican tradition. We celebrate the Eucharist every Sunday with the Rite II liturgy. Our liturgical practice includes monthly use of Rite I in a small separate service, which we regard as a valuable connection with our heritage in the Anglican tradition. We also have recently introduced experimentally “contemplative” services, which are distinguished by being spoken only, with no music, and including a period for silent contemplation in place of a sermon.

We might be described as “Traditional Plus”: Familiarity and comfort, a sense of safety, grounded in but not bound by ritual and tradition. We seek to affirm our values of inclusion and welcome in our worship, allowing people to bring their authentic selves and for all to be invited to be creators in worship. Children are fully involved in the service and are invited to gather at the altar for the Liturgy of the Table.

Services include a wide variety of musical offerings. We are fortunate in having an excellent musical director so in addition to selections from the hymnal, these include devotional pieces from the classical canon in addition to instrumental and vocal pieces performed by guest artists. The services regularly include works drawn from world music.

Please see our parish profile.

We have a long tradition of strong lay leadership, an engaged community and good stewardship of our physical and financial resources. A survey of the parish at the beginning of the discernment process revealed a strong level of commitment and engagement as we work through the transition process – and looking into the future. We successfully adapted to live streaming services during the pandemic, and remain committed to these as a way to connect and expand our worshiping community. We also have adopted a racial equity lens, which we bring to examining our wider community as well as our parish community. As we have opened back up from the pandemic we have welcomed several new families and members into the parish.

We face the challenges of an overall decline of membership, which has been exacerbated by the COVID pandemic. We have felt less well connected to each other – resuming in-person worship and meetings have helped, but are not possible for everyone. Thus we find it hard to live into our values of welcoming and inclusivity as strongly as we would like. We also have other important work that was set aside in the pandemic, which we will have to pick up.

Please submit a letter of interest, a resume and a copy of your OTM profile via email at:

searchcommittee@ourredeemerlexington.org

Please apply by 30 April 2023

If you have questions, please contact: Peter Koso, Peter@peterkoso.com