Our next clergy leader

Welcome! We are currently seeking our next clergy leader, who will be a half-time Priest-in-Charge
​with the possibility of becoming Rector after three years.

application requirements

If you believe God might be calling you to discern with us, please send a Letter of Interest, a current resume or CV, and a current OTM profile to Episcopal Church in Connecticut's [ECCT] Canon for Congregations & Transitions, Rev. Tim Hodapp, at [email protected].

​For more information, please consult our parish profile on both the Office for Transition Ministry website as well as the Transition Ministry Conference.

Liturgical style and practice

“Sunday worship is when we gather to feast on Word and sacrament and song, to learn and inquire, to enjoy relaxed fellowship and find mutual support; and then to be sent out to be the Body of Christ in the world, to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.”  –St. Thomas’s weekly bulletin
​​St. Thomas’s is a welcoming, intimate, joyful community.
  • We joyfully practice Open Communion. As our service leaflet states each week, we believe “all are invited to receive Holy Communion at God’s table in this church.”
  • We gather around our freestanding altar for Holy Communion, one of the most distinctive features of our liturgy. Our altar sits directly in front of the pews to facilitate this practice.
  • We actively seek for our worship to be accessible to people in all walks of life.
    • All materials necessary for participation in worship, including all music, readings, and congregational responses, are printed weekly in our service leaflet, so that all may participate fully regardless of their level of familiarity with Episcopal or Christian services.
    • There are two designated spaces for families with young children in the main sanctuary – a side area with books and toys, and two open pews in the front with carpeting – so that young children and their parents may participate in worship.
    • Our sanctuary and other spaces are accessible, with ample space for people who use wheelchairs and elevators leading to the upper levels of our building.
Music
  • Our music program is a central element in our worship. We draw on the superb tradition of Anglican choral and organ music, while embracing other musical styles and traditions as well.
  • Our “hybrid” choir is composed of both professional and amateur singers, an arrangement unique in our region. We have a professional music director and church organist, and paid section leaders, who lead an amateur choir composed of our parishioners. The St. Thomas’s Choir has enjoyed choral excellence for decades.
Worship Style
  • St. Thomas’s sits comfortably between “low” and “high” church liturgical styles, drawing on elements from both. At various season of the church year, we use Eucharistic vestments, candles, and sung chants; on the other hand, we rarely use incense and the congregation rarely kneels during service. This flexibility allows room for parishioners with a variety of liturgical preferences and comfort levels to participate.
  • We use Rite II and contemporary language from the Book of Common Prayer for our worship services.
  • We also regularly draw upon other liturgical resources, including Enriching Our Worship and prayer books from churches in the Anglican Communion, for inclusive and expansive worship language.
  • We worship in a beautiful historic building constructed in 1939 in the English gothic style. 

Strengths of the Parish

Parish Character
We have members of all ages in our community, ranging from infants to octogenarians. We are particularly distinctive in having a critical mass of young adults in our community.
We have a decades-long history of and commitment to full affirmation of the LGBTQ+ community. LGBTQ+ people continue to constitute a core presence in our leadership and congregation.
We have strong lay leadership and lay servers.
  • We have a committed 10-person vestry, whose members are highly engaged, skilled, hard-working, and united in purpose. Our vestry includes members of all ages.
  • A significant proportion of our congregation regularly serves as lay servers on Sunday mornings, filling the roles of lay preachers and presiders at Morning Prayer; lay Eucharistic ministers and sacristans at Holy Communion; and lectors, intercessors, ushers, and coffee hour hosts.
We have a tradition of collaborative ecumenical and interfaith worship. St. Thomas’s has done collaborative worship with both Episcopal and non-Episcopal Christian churches in our local area, especially during Holy Week. St. Thomas’s has also participated in the Martin Luther King Jr. service at Congregation Mishkan Israel, a nearby Jewish community, in recent years.
We are comfortable experimenting with various worship styles, such as holding worship outdoors on our lawn during late summer to mark the Season of Creation.​
Community Engagement and Service
Our congregation has a deep commitment to social justice, racial reconciliation, and creation care, as reflected in the various ministries our parish formally supports, as well as the individual professional and community involvements of our members.
  • Our historic mission, the St. Thomas’s Day School, is the only Episcopal K-6 Day School in the Episcopal Church in Connecticut. The Day School presents to the community a loving, inclusive face of Christianity and the Episcopal Church.
  • St. Thomas's has been proud to host rehearsal and office space for the ​Connecticut Gay Men’s Chorus since 1986. The Gay Men’s Chorus joined our choir for the 175th Anniversary Concert in 2023.
  • This parish provides on-going support to IRIS (Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services) and to Loaves and Fishes, a Christian community food and clothing bank.
  • We also host a weekly Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
  • Members of our parish participate in leading the regional Young Adult Episcopalians ministry network, and we collaborate with them for occasional events.
Parish Ministries
  • Our extraordinary music program and choir, sustained by a core of professional section leaders and a robust cohort of amateur singers, is a draw for many of our parishioners, both new and old.
    • A significant proportion of our congregation sings in our choir weekly, and the choir membership is an area of continued growth.
  • Our weekly adult formation group, organized and facilitated by our lay leaders, has continued to meet via Zoom since the pandemic. The group uses a variety of materials for discussion, including non-fiction books, poetry, and the lectionary. Most frequently, the group uses free online Yale Bible Study courses provided by the Yale Divinity School.
  • At our youth Sunday School ministry, the children do service projects, learn, sing, make art, and put together special events for the congregation, such as a Christmas Eve Pageant and a Día de los Muertos celebration.
    • Participation in the Sunday School has declined of late, reflecting the lower number of active children we have in our congregation.  However, the program is available and will grow if the number of families with children in our congregation grows again.

Challenges facing the Parish

  • Like many parishes, we face financial challenges. Giving has remained fairly steady over time, despite some decline in active membership, but operating costs continue to grow year-over-year. We are fortunate to have an endowment, but we have been drawing on that endowment in an unsustainable fashion to meet these growing costs.
  • Our building, though well-maintained, is aging and there is some deferred maintenance which will need to be addressed in the future.
  • We work hard to share space and costs with St. Thomas’s Day School, which operates in the church building during the school week, in a mutually beneficial way.
    • At present, the Vestry is in negotiation with the Day School to arrive at a new model that will be sustainable, equitable, and manageable in terms of time commitment for Priest/Rector and Vestry and the costs of maintaining the building.
    • We are optimistic that these negotiations will lead the parish back toward financial stability.
  • While we continue to have a strong active member roster of 80+ parishioners and an average Sunday attendance of 35-40 people, we have faced a mild-to-moderate decline in our membership since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
    • Many of our ministry offerings, like pot-luck dinners, “delight night” gatherings, and Sunday morning adult forums, were suspended at the start of the pandemic and have not since resumed.
We pray for God's guidance during this interim time
​​and look forward​ to welcoming a caring and talented pastor to the St. Thomas's community.