What Is the Episcopal Church?

In the following points, we try to say something about what makes the Episcopal Church here distinctive. This is not intended as a summary of our beliefs – you can find those elsewhere, but to give you a flavor of what to expect from our faith community.

Here in the Episcopal Church in Minnesota we recognize that most of our members have found us from other churches or none, rather than being born into our church, whether because of individual seeking or because we are a meeting place where people from different traditions can find common ground in which to worship together. We delight in the range of beliefs and traditions brought into our church as a result, and rejoice in holding the space which comes from that. In this sense there is always something contingent about our identity: we do not believe that the Episcopal Church is the one way, and we do not believe that we have all the answers, but are a community rooted in Jesus, whom we seek to follow more deeply in our lives, learning from one another as we walk the Way.

We believe that God loves everyone, regardless of belief or any other distinguishing characteristic.

We believe in the faith of the church which has been handed on to us, and which we seek to proclaim.
We also believe in bringing our minds and whole person to church with us, as we seek to interpret our faith intelligently and prayerfully for our own time and place (reflecting Anglicanism’s historic basis in faith, tradition and reason).

We believe in our connectedness with other churches and with the church universal across time and space. That is expressed in our having bishops as a focus of unity; in the Episcopal Church nationally making decisions through a democratic General Convention of clergy and laity; and in our being part of the worldwide Anglican Communion, as well as our deep engagement in ecumenical and inter-faith dialogue.

We are accountable to each other within the church through our structures, ensuring that our leaders do not have too much power. We are committed to keeping everyone safe by having rigorous Safe Church policies, particularly for our ministry with children and youth and others who are especially vulnerable. We welcome any reports of concerns, which will be taken seriously and dealt with urgently.

We are rooted in a liturgical tradition which gives us stability, and in which we can experience being the Body of Christ together with others who may or may not be like us. Core to that tradition is our being fed by the sacraments, particularly baptism and the Eucharist, knowing that we are saved by God’s grace and not ourselves.

We believe that our tradition is living, and must therefore speak freshly to each generation and in the language of our communities, across cultural differences and ages. We are committed to righting historic wrongs against our indigenous and African-American communities in particular, and to ensuring that they are never marginalized within our church again.

We seek to nurture deep spiritual lives for all who walk with us, and see equipping people for that journey as core to our mission.

We are rooted in the places and communities in which our churches are set, and which we seek to serve. We believe that the Holy Spirit is at work in the world as well as in the church, and we therefore seek to know God through meeting God in the world as well as through the traditional sources of our faith, such as the Creeds.
We have a particular care for the oppressed and marginalized in the world and for the poor. We therefore believe that an essential part of living out our faith is to respond to human need with loving service and working for the transformation of the unjust structures of this world.

As Christians we also believe it is essential for us to care for God’s creation, and to strive to sustain and renew the life of the earth.

We believe that lay ministry is as important within the church as that of the clergy, and collaboration is therefore essential to leadership in our church.
We believe that women have a full place in all the ministries of the church.

We fully value the role of our LGBTQ+ members, whose identity we affirm.

Fundamentally, we believe that the posture of the church should be open: open to God; open to each other; and open to the world which is created by God.