Missioner Monday: The Tenth Sunday After Pentecost with St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Lexington, Kentucky
My monthly visits with St. Andrew’s, Lexington continue to be a joy! Serving this Sunday with Ms. Lynn Vera, organist, and Ms. Sheri Estill, Senior Warden + Acolyte/Eucharistic Minister was especially delightful on this bright Sunday morning!
We reflected on the great cloud of witnesses that have walked through and with St. Andrew’s, and because the Lectionary has a way of coming through when you need it, I spent much of the week before I looked ahead deep in a 2016 history done of Saint Andrews: A Journey of Faith and Hope before I knew that the Hebrews lesson would be read this week. I’ve always been drawn to the framed document by the steps that seems to be quite old, but it wasn’t until this week that I realized it is the certificate of consecration from the first Bishop of Lexington, the Right Rev. Lewis W. Burton (who served from 1896-1928), marking St. Andrew’s, Lexington, a worshipping community since 1880, as a parish on June 2, 1911, as the church was able to purchase in full their property and building, marked by the crossed out “erected” and replaced with “purchased.” The church was under the leadership of the Rev. Erasmus Lafayette Baskervill at the time, and it was the only place in which Black Episcopalians could worship in Lexington.
Each faith community around our diocese, I have learned, is a web of past and present people who carry the mission of the church, and together we run toward hope; thanks be to God!
You can read the history of St. Andrew’s, Lexington up to 2016 here: https://tinyurl.com/yrxm3ksa
Becca Kello 