The congregation at St. Philips Episcopal Church in Scotts Valley has found many occasions to count its blessings.
For the first nine years after its founding in 1987, it had no permanent place to worship, renting the Scotts Valley Civic Center. Then it purchased the former Star Lodge alcohol rehabilitation center (and former motel) in 1996, where would build a bell tower. Five year later, it was offered a bell from the Christian Life Center of Santa Cruz.
The generosity of donors in 2009 led by the late James Murieta Sotella built a modern kitchen that the church would use to feed the homeless.
This Sunday it is counting a special blessing – Mary Blessing, in fact. The church’s rector and her congregation celebrate 10 years of ministry – the church’s four-year status as a full-fledged, independent parish – with a church supper, potluck of course.
In the past decade, Blessing has led St. Philips in a process of redefining itself as primarily a community church, one that provides meeting spaces for 25 community groups, and whose members have active roles in multi-denominational efforts such as COPA, Communities Organized for Relational Power in Action.
Locally, that means St. Philips is one of the churches that since last fall has provided food and once-weekly lodging for homeless individuals and families. The group also advocates for creation of affordable housing alternatives in the county.
Blessing calls this shared work an expression of “denominationalism,” or the acceptance of shared values – and action on those values – by varied Christian denominations, with Jews and other faiths.
“We have a strong identity of following Jesus: Our faith is there, and now our action is there,” she said.
