Our Story
Welcome to St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church located in the Brookside neighborhood of Kansas City, Missouri.
Our Mission and Purpose
We seek God’s healing love and share that love with all by growing in relationship with God, each other, and our neighbors.
St. Andrew’s works to support you through all phases of your spiritual journey and helps you rediscover Christ’s love through ritual, reason, and meaningful connections. At St. Andrew’s, we invite you to:
- Live a life-long and life-wide faith. We believe we are called not simply to believe in Christ but also to serve Christ in our parish, our city, and our world.
- Rediscover tradition. St. Andrew’s holds together rich tradition and fresh spiritual expression with diverse ways to worship, connect, and grow.
- Seek unity in diversity. At St. Andrew’s we believe the contribution of “all sorts” of people helps us better know the mind of God. Our rich and proud history of personal connections reminds us that only by loving openly and without judgment can we truly know healing.
- Join the conversation. St. Andrew’s is a traditional church with a modern message. We provide a safe environment where all points of view are respected, considered, and even challenged.
The Episcopal Church
Everyone is welcome in the Episcopal Church! What holds Episcopalians together as a Christian family is common worship rather than a list of specific beliefs. We gather together, whether conservative or liberal, rich or poor, female or male, gay or straight, sure of ourselves or doubtful, young or old – in order to praise God, to sing, to pray, to hear Scripture, and to receive the new life of Christ’s Body and Blood.
This church does not offer easy answers to life’s most pressing problems. More often, we ask questions. We explore Scripture’s paradoxes and contradictions using all the resources at hand – current scholarship, reason, and our own experiences in life. We honor the tradition handed down to us from 2,000 years of church history, but we also believe that the Holy Spirit is still active in our midst and leads us to new understandings of God’s purposes for the world.
Episcopal Worship
The Episcopal Church is a liturgical church, which means our worship is formalized. The worship leaders usually wear vestments; we use candles, art, music, centuries-old prayer, and sometimes incense to enhance the worship experience. We use different colors for different seasons of the church year. Our worship has a given form, but within that form great variety is possible. Know also that all, including children, are welcome to receive Holy Communion, our celebration of Jesus giving his life for us that we might live forever.
Find more information on the Episcopal Church Website.