Janet and I just returned from a month during which I served as visiting priest at St. Jude’s Episcopal Church in the rural community of Ocean View on the Big Island of Hawaii. St. Jude’s sign really tells their story. It is a little church with a great big heart.

St. Jude’s does not have a full-time priest. Instead, they have a rotation of visiting priests who each stay 1-2 months and are lovingly referred to as the “flavor of the month.” St. Jude’s is a strongly lay-lead congregation with outstanding leadership and amazing ministry. Their waiting list of visiting priests is long, I signed up for this one month of service way back in 2019. I am so thankful for our month at St. Jude’s, it was truly a mountaintop spiritual experience for me and I am still soaking it all in.

They provided a wonderful three bedroom home and a very nice car for our use. Our only true obligation was to lead Sunday worship. But the St. Jude’s ministry opportunities were too good to pass up and Janet and I jumped in with both feet. Every Saturday is “ministry day” and St. Jude’s provides a hot meal to all who show up. They also provide hot showers since many of the local residents do not have electricity or propane to heat water and some don’t even have sufficient water. In addition, there are barbers/stylists that come and provide free haircuts about every six weeks. While we were there, over 250 meals were served, more than 120 hot showers were enjoyed, and 24 haircuts were provided. And this is all out of a congregation that numbers around 20-25 on a Sunday morning. Wow, these people are amazing.

They have a small, but very versatile building with easy to move chairs and tables and a floor that is easy to clean and very functional. They have a small, but functional kitchen. Here are some pictures of the space where meals are provided on Saturday and worship takes place on Sunday. And our wonderful volunteer barbers/stylists.

Janet and I volunteered to provide one of the Saturday meals and we opened more than 70 cans of chili, had three rice cookers going at once and Janet used all the pans in the church and the vicarage to bake brownies. Here is Janet serving up brownies. It was so much fun.

St. Jude’s congregation is wonderfully open and inclusive. Everyone is welcome and they mean everyone. One Sunday, a man no one knew walked in during my sermon and marched right down the middle aisle. Later, during announcements we asked his name to welcome him and he announced, “My name is Jesus Christ.” I thought later, “Well, you know, maybe it really was Jesus Christ.” And St. Jude’s welcomed him.

We felt tremendously loved by these people and we loved them right back. By the end of the month, it was really hard to leave. We had made connections. As I explained in my final sermon, “We had met Jesus in their faces and their lives and their stories and we had met Jesus in the faces, lives, and stories of those we served together.”

I want to close with this little piece that St. Jude’s puts into their bulletin every week. It truly describes them and they point to it frequently. But even better than pointing to it…they live it out.

BE AWARE!

Here we practice the inclusive Gospel of Jesus, Christ.
This means that you may be gathering with
Tax collectors, thieves, adulterers, hypocrites,
Women as well as men, female and male priests,
Gays and lesbians, the disabled, the dying;
Native Americans, Mexicans, Asians,
Blacks and other ethnic minorities;
Bishops, bigots, heretics, agnostics, atheists,
Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and
strangers from foreign lands—
Anyone like those with whom Jesus met.
So be Aware, this is not an exclusive club.

We welcome you all!

(adapted from Kenneth Leech, St. Botolph’s, Aldgate, London)

 St. Jude’s in Ocean View, Hawaii. A little church with a great big heart overflowing with God’s love.

God bless,
Coe