Name: St. Clement’s Episcopal Church
Address: 2795 Ridge Road, Canton GA 30114
Phone: 770-345-6722
Website: www.stclementscanton.org
Services: 8, 9 and 11 a.m. Sundays, 9 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. Wednesdays
Worship Style: 8 a.m. service is quiet, contemplative. 9 a.m. is lively with contemporary music. 11 a.m. is most formal, traditional.
Average Sunday Attendance: 158
Minister: Rev. Jamie Stutler
Denomination Affiliation: Active congregation in the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta.
Mission statement:
“Embracing everybody in the love of Jesus Christ.”
History:
St. Clement's began as an Episcopal Mission in Canton in 1974, and the congregation worshipped at the Old Brown Farm by the banks of the Etowah River in the early years. Eventually services were moved to the former Georgia Power building in downtown Canton. In 1977, six members purchased the original church building, which was renovated in 1998 and dedicated in 1999, with a stained-glass window built and installed by several members and a church bell given by a parishioner as a memorial gift.
Pastor’s path:
The Charleston, S.C., native said he spent “an inordinate amount of time getting educated in Sewanee [Tennessee].” He attended an Episcopal boarding school at nearby St. Andrew’s, earned an undergraduate degree from The University of the South in 1979, and then returned to Sewanee for a Masters in Divinity after leaving Tennessee long enough to earn a law degree from Mississippi College School of Law.
Ministries:
Because families and children are important at St. Clement’s, Stutler said members work half the year in planning and execution of Vacation Bible School. A new Sunday school curriculum called Grace Place offers children a rotation of stations (kitchen, drama, music and video) to visit over the course of several Sundays.
The kids will focus on something like Moses or the miracles of Jesus, and do that for four or five weeks, learning the same lesson in different contexts. “It’s very VBS oriented. It works to get a little more depth for the kids and, at the same time, it’s easier on our volunteer pool,” said the pastor.
The outreach missions vary depending on the season. Summer projects include a backpack program, and preparing a week’s worth of lunches to deliver to children who are clients of MUST Ministries. Holiday efforts include collecting turkeys and fixings for Thanksgiving meals, providing Christmas presents and Easter baskets for families in need.
Stutler has involved church members in helping the folks who call into the church for help. Each member is responsible for keeping up with the “outreach line” for a week. The parishioners check the messages or answer the phones and often end up counseling the callers.
“We keep track of who we help,” said Stutler, explaining they won’t help the same person within a year. “We’ve developed a database that helps us to identify programs that might be helpful to these folks. A lot of folks who’ve come to us have never been in this situation before and have no idea how to be poor.”
Stutler recently received a call from a woman who was driving with her four young children from Minnesota to Florida. Her car broke down and she was stranded on I-75 at exit 96. She got the church’s number from someone she met in the gas station. Stutler arranged for someone to meet her and repair her fuel pump.
Thoughts from the pastor:
“St. Clement’s is doing what we can to be a responsible part of the social fabric of Cherokee County, not only spiritually, but in terms of reaching out to the people who are newly poor and newly needy. I think that’s one of the things St. Clements has always done,” Stutler said.
“With the growth in the county, we have more and more young families and children attending our church. Our goal is to bring them along to understand their responsibility -- spiritually and physically -- as citizens to help in times when things are required of us as opposed to when we can expect benefits. These are times when much is required.”
