On April 24, 2009, the parish of North Haven’s St. John’s Episcopal Church marked 250 years of existence, a celebration which has the congregation surveying its past, present, and future.

“This is your first 250 years – what’s next for your next 250?” said the Rev. Mathew Lincoln, quoting a speaker from a banquet held a week prior in honor of the anniversary. Lincoln, St. John’s present-day rector, said that the quotation was “a wonderful way to think of what we’re doing.”

“It’s an opportunity to look forward to being faithfully present in the community, and for being a force for good, for the next 250 years,” the priest said of the anniversary.

That is not to say the parish is not taking a moment to celebrate how far it has come. Lincoln formed a committee of all living current and former “senior wardens” of the church to plan the recognition of 250 years. The commemorations have included the aforementioned banquet, a children’s celebration, a revisiting of the congregation’s history, and time period-themed services.

“We started to bring people’s attention to 250 years in November,” Lincoln said. “We had four themed services in March. During the four services, we dressed as a certain time period.”

The time periods selected were the 1780s, 1860s, 1920s, and the 1950s. The periods coincided with alterations to the Episcopalian Book of Common Prayer, as the book has been changed many times over the years. At each special service, Lincoln read selections from that age’s version of the prayer book. The parish was invited to dress accordingly, and many did.

“Flapper dresses are not what people would have worn to church, but it was a lot of fun,” Lincoln joked of his flock’s Jazz Age apparel. “For the 1950s, many of us could wear clothes from our own closets.”

Lincoln added that not only did the parish come in costume, but church member Dick Mead also organized and presented historical information from each time period.

“He dressed up as a North Haven farmer,” Lincoln said of Mead’s 1780s garb. “He also dressed up as a Civil War general and spoke in front of our congregation as if he was visiting home from the war. He read from a civil war soldier’s letters – not a North Haven solider, but he did read from North Haven civil war documents.”

Lincoln himself donned age-correct priest robes. The special services also utilized an old wooden altar which had originated from the mid-19th century, according to church historian Don Allen Jr.

Noteable beginnings

Allen used the 250th anniversary as an opportunity to educate his fellow worshipers on their parish’s history. The timeline of North Haven Episcopalian worship dates back to 1722, Allen said, when a small group of people withdrew from the town’s Congregational church to pursue an Episcopalian practice.

The North Haven Episcopalians remained low in number until 1740, when they joined with families from Cheshire, Wallingford, and Northford to form the Union Church, Allen said, which was located on Pond Hill Road. Union Church’s membership would burgeon over the next 15-plus years to the point that the individual towns decided to form their own parishes. Thus, Union Church disbanded and St. John’s was founded in 1759 under the guidance of Rev. Ebenezer Punderson, becoming the 32nd Anglican parish in Connecticut. Union Church’s break also begat St. Paul’s in Wallingford and St. Peter’s in Cheshire, both still in existence.

On October 5, 1786, St. John’s was visited by America’s first Episcopal bishop, Samuel Seabury, for the purpose of confirmation, Allen said. The event represents one of the oldest preserved dates of any confirmation in the United States, if not the oldest.

The visit is also noteworthy as Seabury was paramount in the revitalization of the Episcopal Church in post-Revolutionary War America. The country’s Episcopalian bishops - being of English origins - had fled the country during and after the Revolutionary War, fearing reprisals from the colonists. Without bishops, the new country lacked the means to anoint new clergy. A group of Episcopalians in Woodbury voted in 1783 to ship Seabury to Europe, where he was consecrated a bishop in Scotland. He soon returned to the colonies to help reestablish the Episcopalian Church.

In 1828, St. John’s summoned Rev. Ashbel Baldwin to serve as its rector. Baldwin is considered to be one of the first several persons ordained on the North American continent, Allen said, again, if not the first.

St. John’s current place of worship at 3 Trumbull Place was begun in 1834 and consecrated in 1836 - it has only to wait a mere seven more decades before its own two-and-a-half century anniversary. The present Episcopalian church is the oldest building in town, as its Congregationalist equivalent across the green was rebuilt after fires in 1911 and 1941.

Since its construction in the 1830s, the Trumbull Place church has had several additions. In 1851, its bell was installed, Allen said, the oldest bell still ringing in town. Four years later, the current parsonage was built. The main church room was expanded in 1869 to accommodate an organ, vestry room, a small chancel, and a sanctuary. The chancel and sanctuary were enlarged to their present state in the 1920s. The church received a Great Hall and kitchen in 1952, and a school building in 1966.

A well-recorded history

Much of congregation’s timeline is known from research undertaken five decades ago, when church member Nelson Stiles wrote a book on the parish’s history to commemorate St. John’s 200th anniversary. The book was derived from many primary sources, Lincoln said.

It is unknown how many rectors have served at St. John’s, although its present permanent priest was told that he was 50th. “That number doesn’t make sense,” Lincoln admitted, as half a century would set his position’s average tenure at five years. Lincoln himself has served a decade, and he knows of at least four rectors in the 20th century who served for longer.

Lincoln’s wife Cathryn recently corresponded with one of the sons of a former rector, who lived in the house next to the Trumbull church in the 1950s. Cathryn read to the congregation from her e-mails with the priest’s boy, Percy Linwood Urban Jr., now in his 80s.

The house in which Urban grew up was built in the mid-19th century, Lincoln said, around the same time that the original church underwent a round of renovations. At present, the church’s central structure and several stain glass windows remain from the original 1830s construction. The two surviving windows are located on the left-hand side upon entering the church, ironically still in place as they were simple designs meant to be later supplanted by more ornate glass illustrations, Lincoln said. Several stain glass windows behind the altar have also survived since their installation in the mid-to-late 19th century.

Youth are the future

The 250th anniversary obviously implies that at least some turn over occurred in its membership, and St. John’s would not have been able to thrive for so long had it not a history of attracting youth to worship and community service.

“St. John’s has a great history of youth groups,” Allen said. The church’s historian met his wife through a St. John’s youth group. “To me, it’s where other churches are lagging and we are not - it has a lot to do with what Matt is doing,” Allen added on the youth efforts taken up by St. John’s and Lincoln. “He’s great at keeping track of families. Children are the future of our church.”

“On Sunday morning, there is a real cross section in the congregation,” Lincoln said of the parish’s makeup. “St. John’s is represented by all ages.”

Lincoln added that the older generations are eager to assist their younger counterparts. “When the high school kids wanted to raise money for world hunger, the people from the parish supported them,” the rector said, adding that the youth also give back to the church’s projects. “Our own community projects have vision and energy from the young people,” Lincoln said.

The youngest of St. John’s held a celebration on April 25. There were arts and crafts, face painting, games, snow cones, an inflatable castle, and twin, wheelchair-bound Shriner clowns Hankee and Blinkee, also known as Howard and Mike Hankin of Pool Road. Hankee and Blinkee performed magic and twisted balloon animals to life to the delight of the children, especially the balloon within a balloon animal trick.

Michele Kearnes, Director of Child Ministries at St. John’s, spoke of the church’s efforts to retain children’s interest. “A big part of the growth of the church is keeping the kids engaged,” Kearnes said. “The competition we face from the outside - sports, everyone’s schedules are busy - it’s hard. Especially on Sunday morning – the choice is go to church or do soccer.”

Reaching out to the community...

The parish’s adults celebrated more formally: their 130-plus person banquet featured theological speakers and a liturgical comedian, as well as comments from First Selectman Janet McCarty.

“Janet came and read a wonderful proclamation saying that St. John’s makes a difference in the community,” Lincoln said.

This sense of community service, Lincoln added, may not have always been one of St. John’s preeminent priorities in the past, but has recently become a favorite focus.

“We respond to our worship of God by continuing to reach out into the community,” Lincoln said. “A real hallmark of that are the Friday night dinners.”

The suppers are held almost every Friday from 6 to 7 p.m. in St. John’s Great Hall. There is a suggested donation of $1 per meal, with a family cap at $5 of donations. Families are not turned away for being unable to pay. “Our intention is for them to go on every Friday night – period,” Lincoln said. “That is simply because we want to build up neighborliness and help our neighbors makes ends meet. They’re quite friendly affairs. They’re a simple meal together where you can chat with people you haven’t seen in a while. It’s not a church member’s dinner – it’s a community event.”

The church also raised $9,500 through a golf tournament, money they donated to fuel banks in North Haven, Hamden, and North Branford, Lincoln said, “as to express our wanting to serve the community we’re in.” North Haven received $5,000.

“In the 1930s, William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, said that the church is the only organization whose primary concern are people who aren’t members,” Lincoln said. “Now, there certainly are other philanthropic organizations, but that’s a wonderful thing to say for church.”

“We are a church and a resource for the community,” Lincoln added.

The community service also returns to the continued youth involvement, as it attracts participation from the all-important teen and young adult groups.

...and beyond

“A few years ago, we sponsored several Liberian refugees to be resettled in North Haven,” Lincoln said. “It was the young people’s desire and vision that made it happen.” The Liberians were fleeing their country’s violent strife.

Assisting in the resettlement of those overseas in danger has been a part of St. John’s since the 20th century, Lincoln said, and will be a continued concentration. “When we tell people who we are, that is one of the things we tell them,” the rector said of the parish’s many successful relocation efforts.

In the 1950s, St. John’s and its rector the Rev. Rees Hay played a role in resettling 20 to 30 Hungarian political refugees during the Hungarian uprising, Lincoln said. “Our activity in that was seen as a model to be replicated around the country,” Lincoln explained. “People from the federal state department and Congress came to speak with Rees Hay about what we were doing, and about what they could tell other organizations to do.”

Additionally, The North Haven parish was involved in the emigration of three Cambodian refugees from their war-torn country after the end of the Vietnam War, according to Lincoln.

St. John’s also celebrated its 250th birthday with an art piece - a purple, silk cloth hung languidly across an expanse of white arches - created by a “visual arts choir.” Much like how a vocal choir sings in harmony so that no one voice stands out, Lincoln explained, the art choir collaborated together to construct the visual piece as a synergetic offering of prayer.

And it has taken much collaboration over the years from many different and long-forgotten priests and parishes to bring St. John’s from a small, 18th-century faction to the history-fueled fixture in North Haven’s community that it currently represents. None of this is lost on the church’s current leadership or congregation.

“When we look back at where we’ve been, we can see where we are, and where we’re going,” Lincoln said.

“It’s a celebration of 250 years of service to God and to the local community at large,” Allen said.

So here’s to 250 more years.

A source of historical information included www.northhavenucc.org. For more information about St. John’s, visit www.stjohns-northhaven.org or call (203) 239-0156.