Parish Portfolio

Describe a moment in your worshipping community’s recent ministry, which you recognize as one of success and fulfillment.

In 2022, parishioner-volunteers remodeled and transformed the former Parish House into “The Children and Families Center”. The new Center boasts a beautifully updated nursery, space for Godly Play grades K-3, and space for the “4 N 5th grade” students and for Youth Group meetings with an indoor area and outdoor fire pit area for Sunday evenings and other events. This was done with a vision of rebuilding a vibrant youth program and attracting young families to the church.

Describe your liturgical style and practice. If your community provides more than one type of worship service, please describe all:

Emmanuel currently offers two Sunday worship services, 8:00 am Rite I (no music) and 10:30 am Rite II with choirs. The schedule allows time between services for fellowship and Christian formation for both adults and children. The 10:30 am service is live-streamed. We have twice weekly lay-led Zoom Compline. Choral Evensong is offered periodically.

Episcopal Day School (EDS) was founded by Emmanuel in 1959, separately incorporated in 2003, and now leases part of the Emmanuel campus. In fellowship and cooperation with Emmanuel, EDS provides classes in religion and twice-weekly chapel services based on the Lectionary and “Fruit of the Spirit” curriculum.

How do you practice incorporating others in ministry?

Emmanuel has a devoted group of trained laypeople who are committed to inviting or calling all parishioners into ministry. On Sundays, a full complement of volunteers serves both at services and Christian formation.

See ministry opportunities for information regarding music, leadership, education and acolytes. See pastoral care for details behind our bakers, casserole ministry, caregivers, The Order of the Daughters of the King®, Emmanuel Driving Ministry, Home Touch and Knitters Guild.

Our Hospitality/Fellowship, Newcomers and Dishwashing Brigade committees were actively involved during special events, but need reenergizing post-Covid. Covid affected our ability for leaders to pass the baton. The challenge of our aging parish has created the need for a pastor who will help us inspire the next generation of leaders.

As a worshipping community, how do you care for your spiritual, emotional and physical well-being?

Emmanuel is good at loving, feeding, and caring for one another. Each week in consultation with clergy, Pastoral Care compiles a list and makes deliveries supported by a large and hardworking team: St. Teresa’s flower guild members break down the Sunday altar flowers to be delivered along with casseroles, baked goods, carved hand crosses and/or knitted prayer shawls or lap blankets from those ministries. Twice monthly, a pastoral friend from “Connections” has in-person contact with a parishioner who Pastoral Care has identified for special pastoral attention.

Our active chapter of The Order of the Daughters of the King® prays daily for those on their confidential prayer list. Emmanuel prays for those who wish prayers during the Sunday Prayers of the People; this list is also published in the bulletin. Eucharistic Visitors are commissioned to bring the sacraments to those who are home-bound.

In the chapel transept of the sanctuary, there is a small area with quiet play items for parents with children who might need them. Twice weekly lay-led Compline is available for participation via Zoom. Lay-led Bible and book studies are available to assist on our path to grow spiritually.

Describe your worshipping community’s involvement in either the wider Church or geographical region.

Outreach is very important to our parishioners. Our community outreach partners may be found on our website and clicking on each ministry will provide detailed information. Both Lay and Clergy serve on Diocesan committees and boards.

We start Lent with our ecumenical neighbors in an Ash Wednesday service. Palm Sunday is a gathering in a local park with blessed palms, multiple choirs, and participants from multiple denominations processing behind a Jerusalem donkey. We sing and march through the neighborhood with each congregation peeling off to their respective church. We celebrate St. Francis Day with a community blessing of pets. At Thanksgiving, our rector has led the Blessing of the Hounds for “The Moore County Hounds”. In 2022 we celebrated an All Hallow’s Eve service with Trunk or Treat and the Sandhills Pride Thanksgiving Pot Luck Dinner.

We are proud of the Emmanuel Thrift Shop in downtown Southern Pines which has returned its profits to greater Moore County for over 90 years donating $141,500 from 2020 to 2022.

Past mission trips to Costa Rica and the hurricane rebuilds in New Orleans and New York blessed both recipients and participants.

How do you engage in pastoral care for those beyond your worshipping community?

Extended community pastoral care is provided by St. Monica’s Chapter of The Order of the Daughters of the King® partnerships with Education=Hope mission in Haiti to educate children, and our support of a local Moore County agency, “Christmas for Moore”, helping families in need at Christmas with gifts and prayers. St. Monica’s Chapter meets at Penick Village to enable those parishioners who live there to more easily participate.

Emmanuel’s addition of live-streamed and archived services online and twice-weekly Compline on Zoom has allowed a wider fellowship of participants who can’t attend in-person due to health or location restrictions.

Emmanuel participates in 18 different community organizations. Though there are always financial and physical items donated, the emphasis has been on growing active hands-on involvement.  

Tell about a ministry that your worshipping community has initiated in the past five years. Who can be contacted about this?

Twice-weekly Zoom Compline initiated during Covid continues today: Windy and Mike Pratt, parishioners.

During Covid we began Zoom and live-streamed worship services with choirs. This ministry continues today: Dr. Homer Ferguson, Choirmaster/Organist, and Genevieve Walker, our Communications Director.

Zoom Bible Study was started by a former assistant rector and continues today with lay leadership: Lynn Thompson and Monika Brown, parishioners.

Ladies Evening Bible Study started five years ago and continued through Covid via Zoom. It has now resumed in-person meeting: Windy Pratt and Edie McWilliams, parishioners.

Flying Solo is a social group initially for widow/widowers, and now inclusive of all singles and friends that gather monthly for a variety of activities: Dottie Bement, parishioner.

We now have the Center for Children and Families housing nursery, Sunday school and youth group meetings: Melissa Giltzow, our Director of Christian Education and Formation.

How are you preparing yourselves for the Church of the future?

The church of the future requires open-minded willingness to explore new possibilities and ways of sharing Christ’s Word. We have invited guest speakers to forums, conducted lay-led youth and adult programs and communicated through all available mediums including our website and social media.

We see empowering our youth as an important mission for the future growth of our parish. We recognize the increasing need for diversity in all aspects within our parish family and getting even more lay involvement from our youth, adults and experienced members who act as mentors.

In 2022, we began “Parish Conversations” with a potluck dinner, led by the vestry. We recently held diocesan-led “Listening Sessions” with our congregation, including staff, to discern the hopes, desires and expectations for the future of Emmanuel and its next rector.

What is your practice of stewardship and how does it shape the life of your worshipping community?

The creativity of the past two years of stewardship leadership has been inspirational and fun. Personal stories from individual parishioners and families who shared what Emmanuel means to them and their tithing journey were deeply impactful.

We aspire to raise funds for the calling of an assistant rector.

In 2022 we reinitiated our Ministry Fair where parishioners learned about various volunteer opportunities and signed up to serve. In 2023 our adult forum offered a four-week series, “Gifts of Service” to help us identify individual spiritual gifts in order to put our stewardship into action. This series was co-presented by a parishioner and our interim rector. We hope to continue adult forums to educate our parishioners on the practice of stewardship as we use our many gifts of time, talent and money to the glory of God.

What is your worshipping community’s experience of conflict? And how have you addressed it?

Over the past several decades various conflicts have arisen between rectors/staff, church leadership/EDS leadership and rectors/parishioners. In the case of EDS, we must encourage and assist with building a positive bridge between the church and EDS. The school serves as an import outreach to our community.

Our ability to resolve conflict has not been as successful as we desired and has resulted in significant pain suffered by both our parishioners and church staff. We realize more open, compassionate and timely communication is needed to avert and resolve conflicts. In the hope of increasing communication the Vestry has implemented periodic “Parish Conversations” as an opportunity to openly discuss issues and concerns.

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?

Informational opportunities at Adult Forums addressing our debt just prior to the pandemic resulted in a new three-year Capital Campaign which allowed for retiring the debt, growing the General Endowment and paying off the Outreach obligation from the previous Capital Campaign.

During the pandemic, an opportunity arose to provide at-home access to the church’s streamed services. It also allowed for the vestry and rector to reach out to each family twice a month. These were successful endeavors that kept us connected as a parish family and helped us discern if folks were doing well or needed pastoral care.

Pre-Covid we had four Sunday services: 7:30 am Rite I; 9:00 am Rite II family service; 11:00 am Rite II choral service; and a 5:00 pm casual service. We had a midweek healing service with Eucharist and welcome its return.

Post-Covid our current schedule is two in-person Sunday services at 8:00 am Rite I and 10:30 am Rite II. This schedule has been met with enthusiasm because it allows worshipping with people from prior services and it provides time between services for fellowship and Christian Formation. It appears that removing the 9:00 am service has resulted in a loss of youth.

Please provide words describing the gifts and skills essential to the future leaders of your worshipping community.

We seek a priest who will be a pastor and spiritual leader with the ability to lead and encourage laity from within our congregation while feeding our hunger for spiritual growth. Our rector must be able to communicate the Gospel by both word and action. Our future rector must be a loving, faithful listener and an empathetic counselor. We seek someone who can heal and build relationships and trust within the parish, staff, EDS, and our wider community. It’s our hope that they share our love for music.

Our desire is for our rector is to be a forgiving and nonjudgmental pastor. We need his/her help with healing and growing in our spiritual journeys as a church family. It is essential that our new rector has the ability to relate with all ages especially our youth and young families. He/she must be able to unite and inspire parishioners to practice what God expects of us in our mutual ministry to live faithfully and carry the light of Christ to the world.