To quote our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, we are part of the "Jesus Movement" . . . seeking to follow the way of Jesus, the way of love, welcoming and serving all in love and hope and possibility.
It is a movement characterized by radical welcome, compassionate engagement, respectful questioning, hospitality. We are part of the Episcopal Church (www.episcopalchurch.org), located throughout the United States and in at least 15 other countries and are also a member of the worldwide Anglican Communion (www.anglicancommunion.org).
As Episcopalians, we are free to wrestle with the real stuff of life, the hard questions of faith as we struggle to practice what we preach in the context of a complex and changing world. Simultaneously, we claim a tradition rooted in the 1st century faith of the apostles, tempered via the Protestant Reformation of the Middle Ages and the Church of England, subsequently re-visioned through the War of Independence and our present circumstances.
The Episcopal Church is known to focus on:
SCRIPTURE - Our lives and worship and expression all flow from the Holy Scriptures. We use the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the Bible, along with the Book of Common Prayer (scripture reorganized for worship).
On Sundays, we read and preach from a 3-year cycle called The Lectionary - it provides a lesson from the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Psalms, and the Gospel every week for three years. If you attend church every Sunday for three years, you will hear 99% of the entire Bible.
TRADITION - We trace our heritage to the early faith of the apostles, part of the ancient lineage of Christianity. Our worship and prayer life are centered on the traditions of the early Christian church, the Book of Common Prayer reflects the energy and grace of 1st century worship practices, when people first became part of the Jesus Movement.
Our leadership model reflects the scriptural example of authority, so the Bishops who lead each geographical region of the church join the apostolic succession: prayer and the Spirit connect each Bishop to the line of apostles anointed by the laying on of hands through time.
REASON - We do not think the Spirit stopped speaking when our Scriptures ended. We believe that God granted us the gift of reason to see the influence of the Holy Spirit through our own experiences, and through those of the whole communion of Saints (of which we are all a part).
This three-point foundation of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason was first articulated by theologian Richard Hooker. Learn more here. It works well to describe the basic tenets of our faith and our denomination, but it doesn't fully express the living, breathing, life-giving nature of our beliefs at St. George's.
If you want to know what we believe, come pray with us.