St. Mark’s is a community of Christians in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Tradition. We include young families new to the Honey Brook-Morgantown-Elverson-Glenmoore areas as well as retirees and established families whose forebears helped to found and sustain this parish since 1835. Young and old, new and established, men and women—all join in ministry and spiritual growth at St. Mark’s. Roughly 70 of us worship Sunday mornings, including more and more visitors who have found connection with God and a warm welcome from the congregation. Read more about our worship below, and read more about our various ministries and our leadership via the links to the left. We hope to make you feel comfortable when you visit us, and to welcome you into the life of our congregation at your own pace. To learn more about our history, or our policies and procedures concerning baptisms, weddings, funerals and membership, click the links on the left. God bless you always!
St. Mark’s Church worships according to the Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer. Thus, our worship is "liturgical," following a regular format of prayers and hymns and sacraments (similar in rhythm to Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian and Methodist worship). Our standard Sunday worship is the Holy Eucharist, (also known as Holy Communion, or the Lord’s Supper) and lasts about an hour. The Eucharist includes hymns, several readings from the Bible, a sermon and prayers ("The Liturgy of the Word"), and the communion ("The Liturgy of the Table"). While all infants and children are welcome for all of worship, Children's Chapel is also available for young children during the first half of the service (The Liturgy of the Word). These children join their families for communion. Nursery is also available for infants and toddlers from 10:15 AM until noon. There are Christian education opportunities for adults and children before the service beginning at 9:30 (and child care available on request at that time.). Ample refreshments draw us together for fellowship after the service.
Our style of worship is fairly average for the Episcopal Church, not too formal and not too loose. We try to be thoughtful in how we worship, engaging worship with a sense of purpose and congregational involvement, and avoiding dull repetition. Our music draws on familiar hymns and contemporary hymns, primarily from the Episcopal Church’s "Hymnal 1982." We are informal, yet reverent. We stay relevant to daily lives while rooted in tradition. Some folks come in jeans, some wear ties, all are welcome.
The Episcopal Church is part of the worldwide Anglican Communion. We hold the orthodox Christian faith in the one God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as revealed in Holy Scriptures, declared in the creeds and worshipped by millions of faithful Christians over two millennia. Anglicans trace their heritage to the Church of England. The Church of England broke with Rome largely over politics at the time of the Protestant Reformation. The Church of England struggled over the next century and more between the theology and practice of Roman Catholicism on the one hand, and that of the Puritan reformers on the other. The result is often called a middle way between Catholic and Protestant (sometimes called "via media"). Thus we have bishops, priests and deacons, we believe in the importance of the sacraments such as Baptism and Communion, and our theological foundations are the Bible and the ancient creeds of the church (the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed). However, priests can marry, the church is less hierarchical than the Roman Catholic Church (rather more built on councils, including governance shared with lay people), the saints rarely figure into our prayers, and we have very little mandatory church teaching outside of that found in Holy Scripture.
Anglicans develop their theology based upon scripture, tradition and reason. Holy Scripture is authoritative in our faith and practice, and the basis of our doctrine. Tradition is the means by which we stay connected with the church over the centuries since the time of the apostles. Tradition helps us to interpret scriptures in keeping with the way the early church did—especially the early councils of the church that produced the creeds. Reason helps us to understand scripture and tradition, both because reason comes from our God-given capacities to learn and understand, and because our experience of the Holy Spirit guides us as we seek the mind and heart of God on questions that we face in contemporary life. Anglicans are not individualistic in our faith; we believe that the Holy Spirit is given to the community of the church, affirming scripture and tradition. Therefore, dialog and seeking God’s will for us together, as a community built by Word and Sacrament, is a key part of our identity.
All denominations have their controversies, and the Episcopal Church is no exception. The tough questions come for us in the tensions between the authority of scripture, the precedent of tradition and the engagement with the contemporary world through reason. As an Anglican church, St. Mark’s seeks to be open to the voice of the Holy Spirit, while faithful to what God has revealed.
The Episcopal Church in the United States of America is a self-governing province of the Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church built its structure during the birth of our new nation, and is lead by Bishops and various councils. The church nationwide sends bishops and representatives (clergy and lay people) to a General Convention every three years. Along with a Standing Committee of clergy and lay people, each bishop oversees a diocese (a geographical region). Each diocese has a yearly convention, made up of all the clergy, and representatives from each parish. Each parish is served by a priest (the senior priest is usually called the rector) and a vestry—a board of lay leaders elected by the parish.
The Episcopal Church uses the "Book of Common Prayer" for its worship and theology [click here for a link to an online BCP]. This prayer book is derived from the English prayer book tradition, and continues the heritage of beautiful language and a thoughtful approach to worship.