The Gospel changes the world by creating communities of reconciling love. This way of articulating the transformative power of Christian faith and the good news of God’s love for us in Christ shapes us as God’s people at All Saints’ Parish.
As a Christian faith community, we believe that God’s love inspires us to live as witnesses to the transformative power of the Gospel for a better world, one in which all God’s creatures can thrive and where all can live in peace with justice. We gather around the Eucharistic Table for worship—to encounter the real presence of Christ in the elements of bread and wine—and we are sent out to the many other “tables” in our lives to share that divine presence with others. We pray together, in other words, that God might change us so that we can change the world.
All Saints’ Parish belongs to the Diocese of Western Michigan, part of the Episcopal Church in the United States, which is in turn a province of the worldwide Anglican Communion of 85 million members. As Anglican Christians, we trace our roots to the sixteenth-century reformation of the Church of England and we express a wide range of theological beliefs and spiritual practices while remaining rooted in The Book of Common Prayer, one of several collections of rites we use in this parish for our shared worship.
Mission Statement
All Saints’ Parish participates in God’s mission of reconciling love for the world by striving for justice and peace among all people and respecting the dignity of every living being.
Aspirational Values
Bold Hospitality
The welcome we seek to extend to both friend and stranger is patterned after the welcome God extends to us in Christ – kind, loving, and transformative. Our Eucharistic worship calls us to dismantle the barriers to communion with God and each other that are still prevalent in the wider society, whether because of race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, or gender, just as St. Paul urged the Christians in Galatia also to do (3:28). We trust that strengthening our commitment to this kind of hospitable community around the Eucharistic Table bears witness to the coming Kingdom of God (Luke 14:12-21).
Caring Service
To a world in need, we are committed to offering compassionate care – whether in meeting immediate physical needs like food for the hungry, or by addressing the spiritual poverty many live with in the modern world as we offer companionship for the lonely or safety for the frightened. We believe we serve Christ in all whom we meet, just as Matthew’s Jesus declared (Matthew 25:31-40), and we seek in our care and service to model a world transformed by social and economic justice, especially for the poor, the underprivileged, the refugee, and the migrant.
Ethical Stewardship
“The Earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it,” declares the psalmist (24:1). Everything we are and all that we have come from God and will return to God. We are therefore committed to living as responsible stewards of God’s many gifts – this includes treating ourselves with care, both body and soul, and extending that care to friends and neighbors, as well as the wider world of God’s creation. We seek to apply this commitment in how we manage our finances, to a sustainable use of resources, how we invest money, the ways in which we offer our time and talents, and our treatment of the land.
Ecological Renewal
Gathered at the Eucharistic Table we remember prayerfully “this fragile Earth, our island home” (BCP, p.370). We share this home with countless other species and in networks of intertwined ecosystems, all of it created by God’s own hand. We trust that the natural world of God’s creation can offer spiritual insights for our lives and we are committed to a deeper awareness of the harm we cause to that world, marring its beauty and degrading its vitality. We intend in these postures to model and promote societal transformations that would advance ecological healing and renewal.
Joyful Spirituality
St. Paul assures us that joy is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit’s active presence (Galatians 5:22). We wish to enhance our common prayer and worship in ways that would help us cultivate that fruit of the Spirit. Similarly, as we commit time and energy to educational endeavors, practices devoted to spiritual formation in Christian faith, and activities designed to equip us to participate more fully in God’s mission of reconciling love, we actively seek that joy which only the Spirit can give. We trust such joy will strengthen our bonds of affection as a community and attract others to join us in our shared life of worship and service.