WELCOME to

Saint James Episcopal Church

Greenfield, Massachusetts

Greetings in God’s Name!

We invite you to explore our Web Site and to learn more about us!

We are a welcoming, flourishing community of faith, hope and love, worshiping in the Anglican-Episcopal tradition in the vibrant New England town of Greenfield, nestled near the northern-most reach of the Pioneer Valley.

We offer a warm hello to visitors and guests who wish to worship with us on Sunday mornings and at other times when we gather to celebrate the liturgy of the Church. Our principal weekly service is at 10 a.m. each Sunday. Whether you walk from the neighborhood to be with us, or drive in from far afield, we welcome you to join in our celebration of life in Christ. We are glad to greet newcomers looking for a church home, as well as vacationers and out-of-towners who just happen to be passing through.

We will soon celebrate our 200th anniversary of service to Greenfield, to Franklin County, to the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts, and to the world. Founded in 1812, Saint James has members whose families have been active in our parish for generations, worshiping alongside the newly baptized.

We are as diverse as the peoples of the great northeast with folks who have relocated to the Pioneer Valley from places like New York, Boston, the midwest, Canada, and the United Kingdom, to name a few. We are young and old, churched and unchurched, and hail from a variety of backgrounds both personal and professional. From Ph.D.s to preschoolers, we are a vital part of the body of Christ in this place.

We are the Episcopal Church in Greenfield. We love to gather for worship, fellowship, learning, service to others, celebrations of all kinds, and to do the work of the Church. Along with our neighboring Episcopal churches of Saint Andrew’s, Turners Falls, and Saint John’s, Ashfield, and with the many other Christian denominations in our area, it is our labor of love to hold out the light of the Gospel to our generation.

We are a Christian tradition of great cathedrals and good causes, tall spires and small shires. Our spiritual life is rooted in the Episcopal Church in the United States, with its national offices in New York City, and in the Church of England, centered in Canterbury, England. The Anglican World Communion of which we are historically a province spans from Cape Town to Edinburgh, from Japan to Cape Horn, and encompasses hundreds of parishes, missions and monastic communities in between. It can truly be said that the sun never sets on the churches of our world-wide family.

We see ourselves as pastoral in our approach to the difficult questions, inquiring when it comes to belief, and grounded in an inimitable depth of genuine Christian spirituality when it comes to worship and prayer. There are only about three to four million of us in the United States, about 23 million in England, and about 70 million globally. We are small enough to offer the resources of community and large enough to make an impact for God’s kingdom of grace.

We welcome you to navigate our Web Site for information as well as inspiration about the community of faith we call Saint James Episcopal Church. Please use the lists of topics at the top of this page, or to the right, or at the bottom, to arrive at subjects of interest. To hear more from a live human voice, use the prompt entitled “Contact Us” for telephone numbers. You can also find there an E-mail address and a Question & Comment section for this Web Site.

We hope that you will enjoy discovering what we are up to as we pursue life together by the grace of God! God’s blessings from the clergy and people of Saint James Church.

A Prayer for the Church

O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred 
mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were being cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

From The Book of Common Prayer