OUR MINISTRIES
Serve. Connect. Grow.
Opportunities to get involved and make a difference.
Faith In Action
At Saint James, ministry is how we live out our faith. Whether it’s serving on Sunday mornings, participating in outreach, being part of a group like Daughters of the King, or serving on our Flower Guild, Altar Guild, or Hospitality team, each ministry is rooted in connection and service to the congregation. Ministry takes a village!
SERVING IN LOVE
Acolyte Ministry
Our Acolytes serve as an integral part of our worship services, spanning from ages from young to old! From carrying the cross, torches, and Gospel book during the procession, to assisting with the clergy at the altar, our acolytes help make the liturgy possible.
What to Expect:
✝︎ Clear and kind instruction
✝︎ Opportunities to connect more deeply
✝︎ An amazing way for children and youth to get involved
✝︎ Intergenerational formation
-
The word acolyte comes from a Greek word meaning "one who follows.” Acolytes have served the Church since its earliest days, helping prepare the way for worship by carrying candles, tending the altar, and assisting at the Eucharist.
In the Anglican tradition, Acolyte ministry faded after the Reformation when a lot of the ceremony of the medieval church was set aside, but found new life in the nineteenth century as parishes rediscovered the beauty of liturgy and the ways it can draw people more deeply into worship. T
In the Episcopal Church today, acolytes are usually lay people of all ages—children, teenagers, and adults—who carry the cross and candles in procession, tend the altar lights, and assist the clergy during the service.
Being an acolyte is a wonderful, hands-on way to participate in worship and to have deeper involvement in the life of the church. If you’re interested in joining this ministry, please contact our Senior Warden and Verger Steve Johnston at srwarden@saintjamesji.org.
GROWING IN FAITH
Children’s Ministry
St. James is a welcoming place for children of all ages! We have nursery available during the 10 AM service and have previously offered Sunday School. We also have kid-friendly activities throughout the year, from our annual Easter Egg Hunt to Advent Wreath Making and Blessing of the Backpacks. We also provide crafts and activities for kiddos who want to join us in the main service and love having them there!
What to Expect:
✝︎ Weekly nursery care
✝︎ Activities to do during service
✝︎ A loving, safe environment
✝︎ Volunteers and workers who are passionate about kids
-
Jesus said “let the little children come to me.” At St. James, we take this seriously! Some churches prefer children be “seen and not heard,” but that’s not the case at all at our parish. We genuinely love kids and enjoy having them around! If your little one is crying, fussing, or making noise during the service, it’s not a problem—in fact, it’s a blessing! We’re just grateful you’re here and that we can expose younger generations to Christian worship and fellowship.
If you have any questions about our children’s ministries, please contact our rector at willberry@saintjamesji.org. We look forward to seeing you and your little ones soon!
WRESTLING WITH THE WORD
Bible Study
Each week, we meet in between services (at 9 AM in the parlor) to study one of the assigned lessons for the day. Our rector shepherds the conversation and provides context, but everyone has a chance to share and engage with Scripture for themselves. Warm beverages are provided and there’s always a lively and fun discussion. All are welcome!
What to Expect:
✝︎ Honest engagement with Scripture
✝︎ Supportive relationships built on shared faith
✝︎ Opportunities to learn more about faith
-
In The Episcopal Church, we believe that Holy Scripture “contains everything necessary for salvation.” In other words, we believe it contains everything we need to have a life-giving, healing, transforming relationship with our Creator and our community.
While we believe that the various books of the Bible were inspired by God, we also believe that they’re best understood in their historical, cultural, and theological context.
If you’re looking for a place to engage with The Bible honestly, come join us!
SERVING WITH GRACE
Flower Guild
Our flower guild is an integral part of our Sunday worship experience, decorating the church with the beauty of creation. It’s also a community of people who love creativity and enjoy spending time together working on arrangements for our weekly and seasonal services. All are welcome to join, regardless of experience! Flowers and supplies are provided.
What to Expect:
✝︎ Fellowship and fun
✝︎ The opportunity to create beautiful arrangements
✝︎ Peer support and mentorship
-
Flowers have adorned Christian worship since the earliest centuries, when believers began bringing greenery and blossoms into churches as offerings of beauty and thanksgiving to God. Over time, this practice grew into an intentional ministry: becoming “the flower guild,” a group of parishioners who prepare and arrange flowers for the altar and other spaces each week, marking the changing seasons of the church year with color and life.
In the Episcopal Church, adorning our worship spaces with flowers is considered an act of devotion in its own right. Serving on the flower guild is a wonderful way to use a love of gardening or design in service of worship, and many find it a quiet, prayerful ministry—hands in the work of beauty, offered back to God.
WOMEN IN FELLOWSHIP
Daughters of the King
Daughters of the King is an international sisterhood of laywomen within the Episcopal Church and the wider Anglican Communion. Members commit to a Rule of Life centered on prayer, service, and evangelism. At St. James, our chapter carries forward this same simple charge—undergirding the life of the parish with steady, faithful prayer and quiet acts of service, offering women a deep and supportive sisterhood in Christ.
What to Expect:
✝︎ Fellowship and support in a life of faith
✝︎ Genuine community and a rule of life
✝︎ The opportunity to go deeper
-
The Order of the Daughters of the King traces its beginning to Easter Eve, 1885, when Margaret J. Franklin gathered the young women of her Bible study class at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in New York City. With their rector's support, the class organized formally within weeks, adopting a rule of daily prayer for the spread of Christ's kingdom.
What began as a single Bible class—soon known as the Alpha Chapter—grew rapidly: by the mid-1890s, dozens of new chapters were affiliating each year, bringing total membership past eleven thousand within a decade, and the Order held its first national convention in Baltimore in 1893.
From those beginnings, the Daughters of the King spread throughout the Episcopal Church and, in time, into other churches in the historic episcopate, including Lutheran and Roman Catholic parishes. The order is ecumenical in nature and today counts members from the Anglican/Episcopal, Evangelical-Lutheran, and Roman Catholic traditions, bound together not by denomination but by a shared Rule of Life. It has long stood as a sister order to the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, the comparable ministry for laymen, with a constitution said to closely mirror the Brotherhood's own.
Now in its second century, the Order includes both Senior and Junior branches for women and girls across generations, and continues to gather nationally for a Triennial meeting—carrying forward the same simple charge with which it began: prayer, service, and evangelism, undertaken For His Sake.
LOVE IN ACTION
Community Outreach
At St. James, we’re incredibly fortunate to have a community partner in James Island Outreach, a local nonprofit whose building is located on our campus and who feeds countless families on James Island. We have regular volunteer teams and supply some of the pantry shelves with condiments, taking up specific drives as needed.
What to Expect:
✝︎ Regular volunteer opportunities
✝︎ Partnerships with local nonprofits
✝︎ Seasonal donation drives and regular support
✝︎ Fellowship with other volunteers
-
(From the Outreach’s website)
Created out of emergency resulting from Hurricane Hugo in 1989, the James Island Outreach (JIO) was the primary result of area churches coming together to help those who had nowhere else to turn with the rebuilding of storm damaged homes.With the substantial alleviation of housing emergencies in the years following Hurricane Hugo, the focus of JIO changed from coordinating home repairs to providing and coordinating a variety of human services for their neighbors on James Island and Folly Beach.
JIO is a focal point for the community, bringing together neighbors who need assistance and those who wish to help. Their motto: “Helping Neighbors. Uniting Community” is the guiding principle behind the outreach. Churches, civic organizations, schools, businesses, and passionate individuals support our mission with monetary and food donations, volunteer hours and in-kind support.
SETTING THE TABLE
Altar guild
Members of the Altar Guild assist in setting the altar for worship, ensuring they align with the liturgical season. They also help keep all the silverware and linens clean
What to Expect:
✝︎ An opportunity to get involved in worship
✝︎ Fellowship with other members
-
Caring for the altar and the sacred objects of worship is one of the oldest forms of service in the Church, though who did that caring has changed over the centuries. In the early days of the Church of England, tending the altar was the task of clergy alone; only much later were laymen, and eventually women, welcomed into this ministry.
The altar guild as we know it today—a dedicated group of parishioners responsible for the altar, vestments, vessels, and linens—took shape in the Episcopal Church in the late nineteenth century, part of a broader wave of lay ministries that flowered during that era. Individual parish guilds soon began comparing notes with one another, and as early as 1890 in New York City, women recognized the value of sharing knowledge and skill between altar guilds, which eventually grew into diocesan and then national associations supporting this ministry across the Church.
For much of its history, altar guild work was considered women's ministry in particular—a quiet, faithful labor of sewing, polishing, and preparing that ran alongside, and often within, other women's organizations in the parish. That has changed in recent decades: altar guild work is no longer considered the exclusive province of women, and people of all genders and ages now take part, from vestment care to flower arrangement to preparing bread and wine for the Eucharist. At its heart, the altar guild remains what it has always been—a ministry of love and quiet service, working behind the scenes so that the sanctuary is ready and the liturgy can unfold with beauty and order. Serving on the altar guild offers a wonderfully tangible way to draw close to the altar and to the rhythms of the church year, and members old and new are always welcome!
FOOD & FELLOWSHIP
Men’s Breakfast
On the second Tuesday of every month, men from St. James gather for food and fellowship across the street at Bishop Gadsden. It’s a great way to catch up with each other and have time to kick start our week. Join us in the dining hall at 8:30 AM!
What to Expect:
✝︎ Food and friendship
✝︎ Genuine conversation
✝︎ Laugher and jokes
SHARING THE WORD
Lectors
Like our acolytes, lectors play an important role on Sunday mornings reading passages of Scripture and offering up the Prayers of the People. We offer guidance for those who need it but encourage people to use their own distinct voice. If you have a passion for reading and speaking, this is the ministry for you!
What to Expect:
✝︎ Weekly assigned lessons
✝︎ The opportunity to serve in worship
LET’S SERVE TOGETHER
Be Part Of St James
Our ministries thrive because of people like you. Step into a community where your heart, time, and talents help others grow together in faith.