A Liturgical Episcopal Church on Atlantic Street
Christ Episcopal Church sits on Atlantic Street NE in Warren, Ohio, a campus of stone, glass, and gardens that has served the people of Trumbull County since at least the 1880s. The congregation belongs to the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio and gathers each week for a liturgy held close to the Book of Common Prayer while leaving room for the sound of a Casavant pipe organ, a parish choir, and a handbell ensemble. Its mission statement, "To Love Others as Christ Loves Us," is taken seriously in the building's hallways as well as in the pews: a long list of feeding ministries, school partnerships, and parish-supported outreach links the church to the wider city of Warren and to the villages around it.
Sunday Liturgy at 8 and 10, Wednesday Healing at 10
On Sundays, the parish offers Holy Eucharist twice and in two distinct settings. At 8:00 AM, a quieter liturgy takes place in the Chapel, a room furnished with chancel pieces saved from the church's earlier High Street home, and coffee hour follows in the library next door. At 10:00 AM, the congregation gathers in the Sanctuary for a fuller celebration of Word and Sacrament, uplifted by the Parish Choir, the handbell choir, and the Casavant organ, with a Children's Sermon and frequent guest preachers and musicians. The 10:00 AM service is livestreamed each week on Facebook and YouTube, and the bulletin is posted online for those worshiping at home.
On Wednesdays at 10:00 AM, the parish gathers in the Chapel for the "Growing Deeper Healing Service & Eucharist," a midweek pause for prayer, healing, reflection, and Holy Communion.
Across the year the calendar fills in with the seasons of the church: Ash Wednesday and Lent, Holy Week and Easter, Advent and Christmas, the Feast Days, Christmas Lessons and Carols, prayer vigils, and the occasional themed service such as the Beatles Mass and the Medieval Mass. Coffee and pastries follow the 10:00 service in the lobby, where newcomers can meet the clergy and other members without pressure.
Lay Leadership in the Liturgy
The parish's lay liturgists are organized into small teams that together carry the Sunday worship. Acolytes, young people aged 10 to 18, serve at the altar as Crucifer and Torch Bearers. Lectors read the Old Testament lesson, and Eucharistic Ministers read the New Testament lesson, lead the psalm, carry the Gospel Book in procession, and assist as chalice bearers at communion. Ushers hand out bulletins, take the collection, guide people during communion, and straighten the church after the service. The Altar Guild, led by Jan Henrey, prepares the altar for each Sunday and Wednesday liturgy as well as for weddings and funerals. The Audio/Visual team, led by Deb Murphy and Don Scarmuzzi, runs the slides, the livestream, and the parish's online presence.
The Casavant Organ, the Parish Choir, and the Arts on Atlantic
Music sits at the center of parish life, and the instruments on which it is built are unusually fine for a parish of this size. The Director of Music, Jamie W. Shiell, has held the post since March 2018. He came to Warren from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University, where he was the Seminary Musician and led music at all four weekly services in Cannon Chapel. He holds degrees in sacred music, organ, and conducting from Westminster Choir College in Princeton, served as Artistic Director of the Festival Singers of Atlanta, and has conducted performances heard on National Public Radio.
The instrument that fills the Sanctuary is a Casavant pipe organ built by the Canadian firm Casavant Frères. The Parish Choir, open to high school students through adults, rehearses Thursday evenings from 7:00 to 8:30 PM, September through May, and its repertoire runs from chant and motet to gospel and contemporary music. The Handbell Choir, directed by Jeannine Morris, rehearses Thursdays from 6:00 to 7:00 PM and plays monthly at the 10:00 service. Recordings of organ music written for the Casavant are shared by organist James Wilding online.
Beyond the regular liturgy, the parish runs an Arts on Atlantic concert series that has hosted artists of regional, national, and international standing. The parish describes the series as a way to hold up, through beauty and art, "both sign and symbol of our identity as the body of Christ in the world," making the church an open cultural door in Warren as well as a place of Sunday worship.
Feeding the City and Walking with Lincoln School
Feeding people is the most visible strand of the parish's outreach, and most of it happens within a few miles of Atlantic Street. The longest partnership is with Lincoln PK-8, the Warren public elementary school that sits beside the church. Blessing Boxes at the back of the church and in the Narthex collect clothing, personal-care items, and shelf-stable food such as bread, peanut butter, and jelly that go to Lincoln families identified by the school liaison. Every spring the parish prepares a graduation breakfast for Lincoln's eighth graders; every winter the Megan's Mittens ministry delivers hundreds of pairs of mittens and hats to third graders at four neighborhood elementary schools; and at Christmas the parish wraps gifts for the YWCA Wings Program. Clothing left in the church closet is passed on to the school and to the Warren Family Mission.
For homebound parishioners and a handful of Mobile Meals clients, the Ladles of Love ministry gathers on the second Saturday of each month to prepare and deliver a hot lunch. Members share the cooking (no experience required), share the driving, and share the visits. Once a month the parish supplies a Saturday cook and a Tuesday delivery for the Free Lunch at First Presbyterian Church of Warren. Three times a year, in April, July, and December, a team of eight to ten volunteers heads south to Youngstown to prepare a full hot meal at St. John's Episcopal Church, the only church in the rotation that cooks and serves the entire Sunday Red Door Café, which reaches seventy-five to a hundred guests each week.
A spring Rummage Sale, a year-round United Thank Offering that channels one hundred percent of donations to Episcopal mission grants, a Secret Prayer Partners program, and a sponsorship of Cub Scout Pack 11 round out the parish's outward-facing work. The Brotherhood of men and youth meets on the first Wednesday of each month for breakfast, scripture study, and a planning huddle, and underwrites many of the projects above. The parish is also one of several cooperating congregations for Beatitude House and Second Harvest Food Bank.
Formation, Sunday School, and the Brave Hearts Camp
Spiritual formation is led by Paul Keriotis, the parish's Director of Spiritual Formation. The children's program uses Godly Play, a Montessori-based spiral curriculum that introduces children to the stories of the Christian faith through telling, wondering, and play. Sunday School is open to children from potty-trained age through the fifth grade, and registration forms sit in the hall by the mailboxes marked "Sunday School." During the summer the children gather on the church grounds for Brave Hearts Camp, a half-day program that runs in mid-June, and Vacation Bible School is offered in early summer with a fresh theme each year. Rally Day in the fall marks the reopening of Sunday School and is one of the best-attended gatherings of the year.
For older youth, the parish has a history of sponsoring mission trips and supporting high schoolers in local service events. Pastoral Care, coordinated by lay minister Faith Scarmuzzi, visits parishioners who have been hospitalized or are homebound, while the Lay Eucharistic Visitors bring Holy Communion from Sunday liturgy to those who cannot come to church in person. Secret Prayer Partners pray for an assigned partner throughout the year and gather once a year to discover who has been holding each member in prayer.
The Building and Its Three Gardens
Wherever the visitor stands on the campus, there is a garden in view. The Peace Garden features a walkway of memorial bricks dedicated in honor or memory of loved ones. The Cloister Garden sits just outside the Chapel and hosts outdoor services in the summer. The Biblical Garden is enclosed along the hallway to the Narthex and illustrates the plants and stories of Scripture. The Sanctuary doors face Lincoln Elementary School across a covered carport, with overflow parking behind the building; the 10:00 service often spills out to the Garden Chapel when the weather permits. The 8:00 AM Chapel service, which retains woodwork and furnishings brought from the church's earlier High Street location, is the smallest and most intimate room on the grounds. The church itself sits in the Diocese of Ohio's Southeast Mission Area, which stretches from Warren south to East Liverpool and east to Boardman, and is led by Dean Jeff Baker.
From High Street to Atlantic Street
A photograph dates the first Christ Episcopal Church building in Warren to around 1886, on a site near where the Tribune Chronicle is now located. The congregation later moved to a church on High Street and, after a building campaign, to the present campus on Atlantic Street NE. A pamphlet titled "The First 100 Years," compiled by Griswold Hurlert in October 1938, traces the early decades, and a 1966 letter from longtime member James Allan Kedwards adds his own recollections.
Clergy, Staff, and the Diocese of Ohio
After more than a year of parish-wide discernment led by consultant Mary Staley and a search committee chaired by Sandra Skovran, the Vestry called the Rev. Dr. Robin Woodberry to serve as the next Rector. Dr. Woodberry came to Warren from St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Canton, where she had served as Priest-in-Charge, with nearly thirty years of experience in pastoral care, church administration, missions, and worship leadership. She was preceded in the role by the Rev. Tom Furrer, a well-loved Interim Rector. The Vestry during the call was led by Senior Warden Linda Day, Incoming Senior Warden Sandra Skovran, and Junior Warden John Panagis.
Christ Episcopal Church is a parish of The Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Ohio. The Rt. Rev. Anne B. Jolly, the twelfth Bishop of Ohio, has visited the parish and presided at confirmations there. Office staff keep the doors open Monday through Thursday from 9:00 AM to 2:30 PM and on Friday by appointment, and visitors can drop in to look around. Online pledges and donations may be made through the church's PayPal giving link, and the parish continues to grow into a valued 21st century congregation on the same Atlantic Street where earlier generations of Warren Episcopalians built before it.