The Church of Our Redeemer stands at 6 Meriam Street in Lexington, Massachusetts, an Episcopal parish founded in 1884 and known for its 9:30 a.m. Sunday Eucharist, its relaxed but unmistakably liturgical worship, and a long record of mission work in Lexington and around Boston. The congregation draws people from Lexington and several surrounding towns, ranging from older adults who were baptized in the parish to families and children new to town.
Redeemer's life reaches well beyond the Sunday service. Children gather for a Montessori-based formation program in the Atrium, teenagers share dinner and discussion on Sunday evenings, adults meet for study and conversation, and singers from the Adult Choir and Atrium Singers join other congregations for an interfaith choral festival. Outdoors, a labyrinth and memorial garden invite quiet reflection, and inside the parish house the Great Hall hosts a weekly shared meal. The parish began as a mission recognized by the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, and it still carries the practical spirit of one: worship, learning, music, food, and service for the town.
A Small Mission That Became a Parish of Many Generations
Redeemer was recognized as a mission by the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts in the spring of 1884 and incorporated as a parish in October 1885. Construction of a church building began almost immediately, and the church on the corner of Meriam and Oakland Streets was consecrated on June 16, 1887. Lexington at the time was generally a farming community, and the largest church was Unitarian. The Episcopal congregation remained small and was served by several short-term clergy until the Reverend R. Eliot Marshall was called in 1930. His unexpected death in 1937 was a shock to the church.
The Reverend Harold T. Handley was called as rector in 1939 and remained until 1973, becoming the face of Redeemer in the community. He took a deep interest in Lexington's colonial past, served as chaplain for the Lexington Minutemen, and founded the Battle Green Guides. After World War II, Lexington became a thriving suburb of Boston, and the congregation grew with it. The small original building could no longer hold the active parish, so after years of fundraising a parcel of land across the street was purchased in 1954, and the new church was dedicated on September 8, 1957. The old building was sold to the Greek Orthodox Church of Lexington, St. Nicholas', in 1965, and a parish house was added to the new church in 1966. Church organizations and a church school grew with it, along with a Thursday afternoon Sunday School program, adult education, and Lenten Study.
Through the 1960s and 1970s, the active congregation turned outward. Members joined projects such as the Heifer Project International, Rosie's Place, and the Lexington Cambodian Resettlement, and that involvement in mission has continued to grow both locally and around the world. Redeemer has long been a site for the Lexington Interfaith Food Pantry, and members tend the Interfaith Garden. The Reverend Ted Petterson, who became rector in 1974, strengthened the parish's connection to the wider world as lay leadership grew, opening a dialogue with Temple Isaiah and providing food and clothing aid to St. Stephen's in Lynn. The Youth Group ran a food stand on the rectory lawn on Patriot's Day, and local organizations, including Alcoholics Anonymous and the Lexington Council on Aging, used the church's facilities as meeting places.
The Reverend Alden B. Flanders became rector in 1985 as the congregation became more diverse and inclusive. Although the 1980s brought a broad decline in mainline church attendance, new families with young children arrived, and Lexington Playcare, an independent day care facility, expanded into the parish house. After the Reverend Flanders resigned in 2003, the Reverend Terry McCall served as interim and the Reverend Tricia de Beer served from 2005 to 2009. The Reverend Kate Ekrem arrived as priest-in-charge in 2009 and was called as rector in 2011; when she left in 2021 to become the first female rector of Christ Church in Cambridge, the parish marked her final day with a large outdoor service. The Vestry later announced that the Reverend Megan Holding had accepted the call to become the next rector, beginning during Advent 2023, drawn by the strength of her personal faith, her creativity, her spirit of collaboration, and her commitment to social justice.
Sunday at 9:30: A Reverent but Relaxed Eucharist
The Sunday Eucharist begins at 9:30 a.m. at 6 Meriam Street. Redeemer describes itself as a fun, family church, and the atmosphere is reverent but relaxed. Episcopalian worship tends toward ritual and ceremony, using symbols and actions that carry meaning beyond words, and the congregation takes part: prayers are read aloud together, people kneel and stand at different points in the service, and hymns and songs are sung together. Lay people and clergy share leadership roles. A small red Book of Common Prayer sits in the pew racks and the blue Hymnal holds the music, so newcomers can follow along with a service order and join the singing without knowing the pattern by heart.
Everyone who seeks Christ is welcome at the Lord's Table. Children may receive Holy Communion at whatever point their parents are comfortable, and children who cross their arms over their chests receive a blessing instead. Adults may do the same if they prefer not to receive bread or wine. At the altar rail, the priest places the bread in the palm of the hand, and communicants are asked to hold the bottom of the chalice to guide it to their lips when receiving the wine. The congregation normally shares from the common cup as a symbol of unity in Christ. The parish's guidance is simple: there is no wrong way to receive Communion.
Children are present and active rather than sidelined. They join the liturgy, take part in special parties and feast days for the whole church, help burn the palms on Shrove Tuesday, make Advent wreaths and other seasonal decorations, and are invited to play a part in the Christmas Eve pageant. Older children serve as acolytes, beginning as early as third grade. Sunday worship can also be followed online through the parish's livestream.
Scripture, Tradition and Reason
Redeemer is an Episcopal church, part of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Its stated faith is the Christian faith, held without additional dogma or confession beyond the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds shared by all Christian churches. The Anglican tradition it describes rests on a three-legged stool of scripture, tradition, and reason: belief is rooted in the Bible, in two thousand years of Christian teaching, and must make sense to God-given reason, with no one leg allowed to outweigh the others.
At the center is Jesus Christ, the Son of God who became incarnate as a human being, died for our sins on the Cross, and destroyed the power of death by his resurrection. Through the Holy Spirit, Jesus offers new life of joy, peace, and love, and that faith is lived out by seeking and serving Christ in all people, respecting the dignity of every human being, striving for God's justice and peace, and sharing the Good News of God's love. Because the church holds the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds rather than a strict confession of doctrine, it also has a long Anglican history of expecting and respecting diverse views, with the common ground being a shared commitment to Jesus Christ and worship together. The Book of Common Prayer, rather than a book of doctrine, is the central book of the church.
The Atrium and the Journey to Adulthood
Children from age three through fifth grade are formed through the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, a Montessori-based approach rooted in Scripture, Liturgy, and respect for a child's rich relationship with God. The Atrium is a space of handmade materials that focus a child's attention on key scripture passages or liturgical moments. Atrium I serves ages three through kindergarten, Atrium II covers first through third grade, and Atrium III covers fourth and fifth grade. Trained catechists and assistants work with the children, and formation meets twice a month at the end of the main Sunday service, because the whole community worshiping together is central to the approach. There is singing as well: simple songs sung as prayer for younger children, and more difficult pieces learned with the music director in Atrium Singers.
For students in grades six through twelve, Redeemer uses Journey to Adulthood, a two-year program that keeps students and adult leaders together. Rite 13, for sixth and seventh graders, focuses on forming Christian community and helping young people explore and affirm their gifts and creative powers, with a ceremony in Sunday worship around the young person's thirteenth birthday. Journey to Adulthood, for eighth and ninth graders, blends action and contemplation with skills for faithful living, and the group ends its two years with a holy pilgrimage. Both programs use Bible study, prayer, age-appropriate rites of passage, outreach ministry, and serious and playful activities, and both meet on Sunday mornings at the same time as the Atrium and Adult Forum.
Confirmation classes are offered every other year for students in grades ten through twelve. They meet in the evenings before Youth Group and cover the basic beliefs of Christianity as well as the particulars of the Episcopal Church in the Anglican Communion. Students may choose to be confirmed by the bishops in a special diocesan service as an adult statement of faith. On Sunday evenings from 5:30 to 7:15 p.m. during the school year, Youth Group gathers for dinner, discussion, and games. It is open to all, including young people in the congregation and their friends, regardless of ability to take part in Sunday morning activities, and members take part in service, parish leadership, and diocesan youth ministry. The youth also organize the annual Shrove Thursday pancake supper, help at the annual Patriot's Day breakfast, and take a large role in the Christmas party for children at the Grow Clinic.
Adult Forum and Education for Ministry
Adult Forum meets on Sunday mornings from September through May for lectures, movies, and small group discussions on topical issues. Recent subjects have included parenting in the pews, mission partners and stewardship with the Vestry, an Advent series on civil rights and Jonathan Daniels, money theology, creation care, and conversations about Redeemer's future. Many sessions are offered in a hybrid format as well.
Education for Ministry is a worldwide adult formation program built around deep Bible study and theological reflection in a small group of six to twelve people who gather weekly for study and worship. The program runs four years, which may be taken consecutively or with gaps, and each year concentrates on a different subject: the Old Testament, the New Testament, the history of Christianity, and theology. The program year is thirty-six weeks long. Redeemer's group meets via Zoom on Tuesday mornings from 9:30 a.m. to noon, September through May, and scholarships for tuition are available.
Choirs, Hymns and the Interfaith Festival
Music is a substantial part of Redeemer's worship and outreach. The music director, Dr. Bernadette Colley, leads the Adult Choir and works with Atrium Singers, and the parish's ensembles have taken part in the Lexington Interfaith Choral Festival, where choirs and ensembles from area churches, temples, and religious communities sing from their own traditions and then join as one massed choir. The festival has drawn more than a hundred singers from seven different congregations and communities, spanning western classical to contemporary Jewish and everything between.
The Altar Guild and a rotating Liturgy Team care for the worship setting itself. The Altar Guild keeps linens and altar settings in order and arranges flowers and greens for Advent and Lent, often in honor or memory of a person or event, while multi-generational teams of children, youth, and families set up the altar, welcome, read, pray, collect and present the offerings of bread, wine, and money, and serve the chalice at Holy Communion. Families are encouraged to sign up together for a calendar month, and each month's group divides the roles to suit the schedule, interests, and abilities of its members.
The Food Pantry, the Garden and the Great Hall
Redeemer's commitments are practical and long-running. The parish provides space and food for the Lexington Food Pantry, has been a site for the Interfaith Food Pantry for many years, and members tend the Interfaith Garden, a vegetable garden that supplies fresh produce to the pantry. A team of gardeners keeps that work going. Members also cook for the Bristol Lodge soup kitchen in Waltham, and Let's Eat Together, an initiative that provides a weekly dinner to people who need food or fellowship or both, serves a meal in the parish house's Great Hall.
Beyond the immediate area, mission teams support a mission trip to St. Christopher's Mission in the Diocese of Navajoland, hold a science fair at Esperanza Academy middle school in Lawrence, and provide supplies for the Grow Clinic at Boston Medical Center, which cares for infants and young children who are failing to thrive. Redeeming Knitters knit hats and mittens for the annual Christmas party for Grow Clinic families, and youth help with that gathering. The parish also works with Habitat for Humanity, joins with Lexington houses of worship to address racism, and takes part in El Hogar service trips to Honduras.
The parish asks for sustained engagement rather than one-off help, with the idea that serving Christ means using wealth, work, and wisdom in the life of the congregation and the wider community. Members serve on the Altar Guild, the Vestry, formation teams, and committees; they teach children, youth, and adults; they prepare meals; and they share their experience with mission partners. That continuity of relationship is why the same commitments keep appearing in the life of Redeemer year after year.
Coffee Hour, Dinner Groups and the Parish Retreat
Worship is followed by a weekly coffee hour, where newcomers can connect with the parish and with one another. Monthly dinner groups offer smaller fellowship in the round, summer brings family activities after worship with crafts, games, and a splash in a pool, and the annual parish retreat takes the whole congregation to Barbara C. Harris Camp. The calendar of parish life also includes all-parish breakfasts, a Patriot's Day pancake breakfast fundraiser, and summer home communions. For members who like to knit, Redeeming Knitters meet to make hats and mittens. This mix of ordinary gatherings and occasional retreats is how a parish that includes long-time Lexington families and newcomers keeps building the kind of community that notices one another.
A Labyrinth Open Around the Clock
In the northeast corner of the church's property, at Meriam Street and Patriots Drive, a low-walled memorial garden surrounds a walking labyrinth set among plantings designed by Monica Connor. The labyrinth was installed in June 2007, and the garden landscape followed in spring 2008. It is open to the public 24 hours a day and serves as a place to follow a path, sit quietly, remember friends and family who have died, and find peace. For a church whose worship is built on ritual and ceremony, the garden offers a second, quieter form of spiritual practice, and it is one of the few parts of the property that welcomes visitors with no worship service attached.
The Vestry and the Stewardship of Wealth, Work and Wisdom
The Vestry is the church's board, sharing with the rector responsibility for identifying the vision, mission, and goals of the congregation, making and implementing plans to reach them, and serving as trustees responsible for the church's finances and property. Vestry members are elected by parish members. The care of parishioners, especially children and vulnerable adults, is a priority, and the church has written policies for vulnerable adults and for children and youth that set guidelines and the training required of Vestry members and others in leadership roles. The assistant rector is the point of contact for those policies.
Stewardship at Redeemer is described in terms of wealth, works, and wisdom, a way of naming the gifts people offer rather than choosing among them. Members give financially through annual commitments, non-pledge gifts, and planned gifts that can be made from retirement plans, life insurance policies, or a will or revocable trust. The parish also invites people to give their time and talent, and lists roles such as Altar Guild member, Vestry member, formation teacher, committee member, or volunteer with a mission partner such as Esperanza Academy, the Lexington Food Pantry, LexEat, the Grow Clinic, Bristol Lodge, Habitat for Humanity, St. Christopher's Mission in Navajoland, and the Lexington interfaith racial justice partnership. Giving can be made online or by mailing a check to the church office. Rental income pays for the maintenance and upkeep of the buildings, which the parish says means every dollar pledged goes to support worship, formation, and social action outreach.
Each autumn the Stewardship Campaign invites the congregation to make a financial commitment for the coming year and to reflect on why they give, with members sharing such reflections as living epistles. All of this comes back to the same rhythm that has carried Redeemer since 1884: gather for the Eucharist, teach one another across generations, sing, share food, and put hands to work for neighbors near and far.