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“It is right, and a good and joyful thing,
always and everywhere to give thanks. . .”
This past year, I was given the wonderful opportunity to complete a Servant Year at St. James School in Philadelphia, PA. I found St. James through the Episcopal Service Corps, a national organization through The Episcopal Church that seeks to empower young adults to transform unjust structures through community building, local collaboration, prayer, and action. As a member, you commit to working full time for a local non-profit or church and remain active in your spiritual and vocational discernment. What I learned about discernment through this process is this: discernment never really stops.
I first learned about the service corps when I was in high school from Katie Young, the youth minister at Heavenly Rest in Abilene. Katie was a member of the Young Adult Service Corps, the international counterpart to ESC, and served for two years in Japan. I remember listening to her stories when she was my counselor at Camp Quarterman. During my senior year of college, I knew that this next year would be the best time to do something like this, go off to another country, learn about different people with different lives, see things from their perspective and reevaluate my own with this new information.
And then Covid hit. How many grand plans have ended with, “And then Covid hit?” Going to another country was off the table, going anywhere, really, was off. So I remained in College Station for a post grad year to work at Canterbury, perhaps an attempt to maintain some form of normalcy as I navigated a transition into “adult life” during a pandemic. As I thought about my next steps, stressed over the pressure of feeling like I needed to get a “career” job, the service corps just came up again and again. So I asked myself questions like, “What problems in the world do I feel equipped to tackle, or How do I know what people actually need?” I knew there was so much more about the world that I didn’t know than what I did. And where I fit into all of that, I couldn’t begin to tell you. The main thing that drew me to the Episcopal Service Corps was the opportunity to go out and live church, by that I mean I wanted Sunday morning to be a reflection and celebration of the church that happens all the other days of the week.
There are currently thirteen service corps programs across the country, and after some online research, I sent my application to programs all the way from California to Boston, with Philadelphia as my bottom choice just because I had to have five. It was a placeholder, basically. My few Philadelphia facts came from what I remembered from the movies National Treasure and Rocky. Thankfully I have a few more now.
During my interview with Fr. Kellner, an interview I almost didn’t even do because I was interviewed out and happy with my other options, he told me about St. James and what I would be doing there. I was to work in the Welcome Table, their community resource center. I would be in charge of the neighborhood farmers market, tend the community garden, collect chicken eggs, keep the honey bees, hang out with kids, but not have to be their teacher, and get to live right there on the beautiful historic campus. Unknown to either of us at that time, I would also run the student garden club and coach their basketball team. That Zoom call ended and I knew where I was going. The very last place I thought I would end up was in Philly, but that’s God’s sense of humor. Sometimes I hear a little distant laugh when I think I know what the plan is.
Today, St. James serves primarily as a middle school, but the campus has seen a lot in its 176 years. This eight acre campus includes five buildings, all built of local grey stone: the Church of St. James the Less, Wannamaker Crypt and Bell Tower, as in the Wannamaker department store bought by Macy’s, a Sexton’s Cottage where Fr. Kellner lived with his family, the School House, formerly parish hall and school, and Audrey’s House where I lived, formerly the rectory.
St. James was built in 1846, and is an almost exact replica of a 12th century parish church in Cambridgeshire. The National Park Service called it , “the first example of the pure English Parish church style in America. . .and its influence on the major architects of the Gothic Revival in the United States was profound.” The small stone structure with its brightly colored stained glass gives me the feeling of sitting inside a little jewelry box. The church is surrounded by a quaint churchyard, the first officially integrated cemetery in Philadelphia, as well as the burial place of many civil war generals, north and south, bishops, inventors, artists, and other notable contributors to American history. The entire campus is enclosed in a thick, serpentine wall that stands about twenty feet above the street. The whole thing is very medieval feeling, like a little slice of Europe has been tucked away and hidden in the narrow streets of north Philly.
The land was acquired from the nearby Laurel Hill Cemetery with the goal to build a church that could serve not only the wealthy families with country mansions overlooking the Schuylkill River, but also working-class people of the nearby industrial neighborhood now known as Allegheny West. Allegheny West was a major industrial hub in the 50’s and 60’s, but like many neighborhoods in North Philadelphia, is now primarily a poor African-American enclave that has suffered post-industrial decline and disinvestment. It faced one of the largest population losses of any neighborhood in Philadelphia between 1990 and 2000. By this time, the congregation of St. James the Less was a tense mixture of long-time drive in parishioners and the folks who were left behind, with a broadening socioeconomic gap between them. Neighbors remember that although they were officially allowed to be members, they recall feeling kept at a distance, pushed away, and ultimately unwelcome.
The Church and parish school were officially closed in 2006, and the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania assumed control of the property. With its property vacant and gates now locked, St. James became known as, “the darkest spot in the neighborhood.” The walls became an impenetrable barrier and constant reminder to neighbors that this property was not for anyone anymore, but least of all, them.
In the summer of 2008, Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church adopted the Church of St. James the Less as a mission of Saint Mark’s. This effort was led by the rector of St. Mark’s, the Rev. Sean Mullen, and one of his most tenacious parishioners, Dr. Audrey Evans. Now, Dr. Evans is a woman I could tell you about for much longer than you’re probably willing to sit here, so I encourage you to give her a Google when you go home. Pretty soon you’ll be able to watch the movie that’s being made about her life. But for now, I will tell you that Dr. Evans was a fierce, English woman who, by the grace of God, grew up in a family who saw value in her education. She became a pediatric oncologist whose work was groundbreaking in the treatment of childhood cancer. Mortality rate decreased by more than half during her career, and her methods remain the standard for treatment now. But it wasn’t just her education that made her a rockstar doctor, it was her approach to the entire network of care, understanding that care does not begin and end with treating a medical issue, and it certainly doesn’t end with the patient. If any of you have spent any time in a hospital, you know how much of a difference just a small comfort can make. You also know the toll it can take on the family. Dr. Evans changed the course of pediatric medical treatment once again, this time with the help of the Philadelphia Eagles and the shamrock shake. In 1974, she founded the Ronald McDonald House.
Together, Fr. Mullen and Dr. Evans dreamed big about what their new mission campus could be used for. They talked to neighbors and families in the area and conducted an extensive feasibility study. They quickly learned Allegheny West was in need of a high-quality neighborhood school, and they set plans in motion to open a tuition-free Episcopal school, the only one of its kind in Philadelphia. They recruited Dave Kasievich to serve as the founding Executive Director and got to work raising funds and more support. Two years later, Andrew Kellner, with whom I thankfully agreed to meet with over Zoom, led a summer camp for neighborhood children on the property. During the year, they held after school programs, and in the fall of 2011, St. James opened its doors to sixteen fifth graders. A new grade is added each year until those fifth graders turn to eighth graders and graduate into high school.
St. James is part of the Nativity Miguel Coalition and adheres to their school model following some key principles. First is the importance of a faith based environment in order to develop the whole child. Although St. James is an Episcopal school, students do not have to be Episcopalian to attend. Many of the students are of other Christian denominations, many are Muslim and some not religious at all. Students are encouraged to be curious about their faith and are taught the importance of praying and worshiping together as a whole community. Once a week, all students and staff gather for Mass. For some, it's the third service of the week, for others, it’s their only exposure to church. Another key principle is continuing support past graduation. There’s a whole department dedicated to Graduate Support, their main job is to help students get into good quality high schools and help them open as many doors as possible. This support extends even past highschool, helping students with college and financial aid applications, job opportunities, and other various life events. The first class of St. James graduates are now seniors in college.
The students that attend St. James mostly live within walking distance of the school, as it is a neighborhood school, where their lives are inundated with the tragedies of gun violence. These harsh realities only seem to be worsening, and unfortunately, are not unique to St. James or Allegheny West. But what I found unique about St. James was the sense of community that permeated throughout everything that happened on campus. A strong community is important, I would even say essential, in overcoming threats such as gun violence.
The Welcome Table, where I worked, was founded in 2019 as a resource center for not only students, but also their family members and other neighbors. It’s a place to share what you have and take what you need, recognizing that everyone has something valuable to bring to the table. My main job as the food sharing coordinator was leading the Saturday morning farmers market where we offered high quality, fresh food and other household goods at no cost. It’s not hard to imagine the physical needs met during this time, but the sense of community amongst volunteers and neighbors was the real magic. People would start to gather two hours before the market opened just to drink coffee and chat with one another. Every week, I saw new friendships being formed and old ones strengthened. Many neighbors commented that this was the first time they were getting to know some of their neighbors, people who had been around for decades.
I hold many things dear about my Servant Year, but perhaps the most important was our commitment to live in an intentional community. Only the Servant Year community makes a formal commitment to one another, our Common Rule of Life, where we commit to shared meals, shared resources and a shared rhythm of prayer. This rhythm served as a kind of arena to practice cultivating the type of community we, as Christians, are called to live into. There is a whole bunch of fancy, feel good language to elaborate on the nuances of what “intentional community” means, but basically it just means that we all try our best to take good care of each other. To take good care, not just keep each other alive. This is what Dr. Evans believed was the most important thing she ever did: caring. I was fortunate to be able to pray next to her during Sunday mass at St. Mark’s, which is still under the leadership of Fr. Mullen.
Dr. Evans passed away just a few weeks ago on September 30th at the age of 97. Her many legacies live on, and it is impossible to count all the lives made better by her own. It is her care model that St. James replicates, caring for the whole person and the whole network. Only when basic needs are met is a person be able to learn and be curious. This is why St. James offers students three meals a day, why there is a dental van on campus every month, why there is a full time trauma therapist on staff, why The Welcome Table exists at all.
The unofficial mantra of the 2021-22 Servant Year cohort is a line from a collect found in Compline, prayer for the night.
“Watch over those, both night and day,
who work while others sleep,
and grant that we may never forget
that our common life depends upon each other’s toil.”
The resounding message I received during my year of service was this: my toils contribute to your life, just as your’s do mine, and we all share in the call to take good care of one another, which is a good and joyful thing to do. AMEN.
