A Parish at Work on Deerfield Avenue
St. John's Episcopal Church sits on Deerfield Avenue in Westwood, Massachusetts, a short walk from the town's public schools and a leafy residential grid that has shaped this congregation for more than seventy years. Founded in 1953 and consecrated in its first home in March 1955, the parish has grown from a doorbell-knocking mission into a multi-generational community that worships, forms, and serves throughout MetroWest and well beyond it. Its members call themselves, simply, Christ's beloved community - energized by the Holy Spirit for service to the world, mutual care, a wide welcome, and loving and wise faith formation for children and all who seek God.
The congregation gathers around two Sunday Eucharists, an active formation program for every age, a music series built around a 23-rank C.B. Fisk organ, and a remarkable portfolio of outreach that feeds unhoused neighbors in Boston and runs service-learning trips to Honduras. A ninth rector, the Rev. V. Michael Bousquet, was called in January 2023, and the parish looks ahead to celebrating its 75th anniversary in September 2028.
Sunday Worship at St. John's
Sunday is the heart of the parish. Holy Eucharist, Rite II is celebrated at 10:00 a.m. and again at 5:30 p.m., and the morning service is livestreamed for those who cannot be in the nave. Worship follows the Book of Common Prayer and draws its Scripture from the Revised Common Lectionary, in keeping with the parish's identity as a member congregation of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. The rector preaches and presides at both services, supported by the parish's priest associate and a vested choir led by the Director of Music.
The evening service takes different shapes across the program year. On many Sundays it is a quiet, candlelit service in the spirit of Taizé - reflective, sung, and brief. On other Sundays it is a Family Holy Eucharist, with dinner and a family formation hour following at 6:15 p.m. in the Narthex.
Children are part of the assembly from the opening hymn onward. After the opening hymn at the 10:00 a.m. service, children in kindergarten through fourth grade are dismissed to the Upper Room for Children's Liturgy of the Word, returning to their families at the Sign of Peace for Holy Communion. A staffed nursery is available for the youngest children in the School Wing. Coffee Hour follows the morning liturgy in the Parish Hall at 11:00 a.m. and is one of the easiest ways to meet regulars and newcomers.
Faith Formation for Every Age
Formation is woven into parish life rather than treated as a separate program. On Sundays, the morning formation hour and the evening family hour give adults, children, and youth parallel entry points into the same lectionary.
For adults, three recurring gatherings carry the work. A Bible Study meets online every Tuesday evening from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. via Google Meet, reading and praying through the texts appointed for the coming Sunday. A Book Group gathers roughly four times a year around novels and memoirs that engage theology or spiritual experience. A periodic Adult Forum offers lectures by the rector, group reflections during Advent and Lent, and small-group study of programs such as the Episcopal Church's Sacred Ground and Bexley Seabury's Exploring the Doctrine of Discovery. The Autumn 2025 book group selection was Louise Erdrich's The Night Watchman.
For children, in addition to the weekly Children's Liturgy of the Word, the parish gathers once a month for an immersive Formation Sunday at 9:15 a.m. in the Nave, with themes that follow the church year - the Wheel of the Church Year in September, the Saints in October, Advent Preparations in November, the Christmas Pageant in December, Epiphany in January, and continuing through Lent, Easter, and Pentecost. These Formation Sundays roll into a shortened Eucharist at 10:00 a.m. and an extended brunch in the Parish Hall.
For youth, formation meets once a month at 4:45 p.m., just before the 5:30 p.m. Holy Eucharist, and serves three cohorts: middle school youth (grades 5 through 8), Confirmation preparation (a pre-Confirmation class co-led by the rector and the Youth & Children's Minister, with the next Confirmation service planned for June 2027), and high school youth (grades 9 through 12). The Youth & Children's Minister, Brother Gabriel J. Giella, oversees these programs and brings experience spanning Episcopal, Lutheran, and Roman Catholic formation work.
Music at the Heart of Worship
Music has been a distinguishing mark of St. John's since 1991, when the parish completed a 23-rank organ designed by C.B. Fisk and dedicated it to the memory of Dorothy Chace. The instrument anchors a choir program that supports both Sunday Eucharists and a Sunday afternoon concert series at 2:00 p.m. Recent and upcoming concert partners have included Quartetto Mosso and the Juniper Point Porch Quartet.
Natacha Rist, a Franco-American organist and pianist trained at the École Normale de Musique de Paris and Boston University, became Director of Music in September 2025. In addition to her work at St. John's she is a founding member of Kharis Chamber Players, teaches piano and chamber music at the Wayland School of Music, and maintains a private studio in Jamaica Plain and Westwood.
Three Feeding Ministries, and the Wider Outreach Network
St. John's describes itself as having three core Feeding Ministries. The oldest, Oasis, was co-founded by parishioner Joan Russell in the 1970s and is now an independent coalition that runs programs for unhoused neighbors out of the Old West Church in Boston. St. John's parishioners continue to deliver a hot dinner - lasagna, salad, fresh fruit, and cookies - to approximately sixty people one Monday each month.
The most locally impactful, the Westwood Food Pantry, is supported through a designated shelf in the Narthex where healthy, non-perishable food and cleaning products are collected, then delivered monthly to the pantry on Nahatan Street. Each February, the parish's children take the lead on the Souper Bowl of Caring, an annual fundraiser for the food pantry.
The third, partnership with Ecclesia Ministries (also known as common cathedral), provides sandwiches and fresh fruit once a month on Boston Common, in collaboration with Epiphany Parish, Walpole. Twice a year the parish invites members of the common cathedral community out to the suburbs - to a summer picnic at Hale Reservation in August and to bowling and ice cream in February.
Beyond the feeding ministries, St. John's runs or supports a striking range of other outreach work. Parishioners stock and sort books for the Prison Book Program in Quincy. A long-running relationship with UrbanPromise Honduras sends service-learning teams to Copán each summer to work alongside staff at after-school and summer camp sites for Honduran children. Through the B-SAFE and B-LOVE summer programs, St. John's partners with the Church of the Holy Spirit, Mattapan, the Church of the Advent, Medfield, and Epiphany Parish, Walpole, to host summer field days and to provide weekly groceries for dozens of local families.
Outreach for young people is woven into the year. Middle school youth volunteer at the Norwood Food Pantry one Saturday each month during the program year. High school youth bowl with friends from common cathedral each February, then travel into Boston in March for the CityReach overnight at St. Paul's Cathedral to learn about homelessness from those who have lived it. Teens sort clothing at Cradles to Crayons in Newtonville and help prepare and serve after-school meals at the Epiphany School in Dorchester.
Sacraments and Pastoral Care
St. John's offers the full round of Episcopal sacramental life. Baptism is available to any person desiring to become a member of Christ's Church and is always administered in the context of Sunday worship - either at the 10:00 a.m. or 5:30 p.m. service. The rector meets with families in advance to schedule and prepare, and Baptisms are not celebrated during Advent or Lent.
Confirmation completes the Rite of Initiation. The next pre-Confirmation course meets monthly at 6:15 p.m. on Sunday, after the evening Eucharist; on class Sundays, the confirmands help to lead and serve at the service that precedes the class time. The Confirmation itself takes place in June 2027, with the bishop presiding.
Marriage preparation at St. John's is treated as both celebration and life-long formation. Couples should contact the rector early in their planning; preparation typically takes a couple of months. The parish also offers funeral and memorial planning, encouraging members to make their own arrangements in advance as a thoughtful gift to those they love, and welcomes conversations with the rector at any time about either marriage or burial.
The Building, the Grounds, and How to Visit
The church sits opposite the Deerfield School, an arrangement that goes back to the parish's earliest days when services were held in that public school before the present building was constructed and consecrated by the Bishop of Massachusetts in March 1955. By the parish's tenth anniversary the original structure had been outgrown; an enlarged church and a new parish hall were dedicated in 1965 and remain the center of parish life. A wing of the complex houses the nursery on Sunday mornings.
Three parking options are available to those visiting St. John's. Public angled parking on Deerfield Avenue is usually open on weekends. A small lot sits in front of the main doors, with additional spaces along the main driveway. A larger rear lot is reached by driving past the front doors and around the Nursery School; the rear lot also provides access to the church office entrance.
The parish office is generally staffed from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., Monday through Thursday; a call ahead is appreciated to make sure someone can greet a visitor. The parish's weekly e-newsletter carries the full schedule of upcoming services, formation gatherings, concerts, and outreach opportunities.
Leadership and Stewardship
St. John's is led by its ninth rector, the Rev. V. Michael Bousquet, who previously served as Associate Rector at the Parish of the Good Shepherd, Waban, and at St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Barnstable, and as a chaplain at Massachusetts General Hospital. He holds a Master of Divinity from Harvard and an A.B. in chemistry and philosophy from Dartmouth. He also serves on the Diocesan Council, the Diocesan Finance Committee, and as a Title IV Advisor for the Diocese of Massachusetts.
Brother Gabriel J. Giella, a member of the Community of Francis and Clare, joined St. John's in November 2024 as Youth & Children's Minister. Natacha Rist directs the music program. The Rev. Karen A. Fraioli, the parish's retired priest associate, has been affiliated with St. John's since 2011 and continues to serve in a supportive role. Denise Watson cares for the youngest children in the Sunday morning nursery. The work of the parish is overseen by a Vestry with two wardens - Suzanne Cogan and Greg Berry - treasurer Michelle Nuñez, and a clerk, with members rotating on a three-year cycle. Two former rectors, the Rev. Karen A. Fraioli and the Rev. Dr. Jennifer M. Phillips, are remembered as part of the parish's recent history.
Members support the parish through annual pledges of time, talent, and treasure. Financial gifts can be given in the Sunday plate, by mail, by transfer of securities coordinated through the Treasurer, or through the parish's Venmo account.
From a canvass of 1,200 Westwood doorbells in the early 1950s, to a feeding ministry on Boston Common, to a service-learning trip to Copán, St. John's has built its life around a single conviction: that a parish is most itself when its members are reaching both inward toward God and outward toward their neighbors. In Westwood, that reaching has been underway for more than seventy years, and shows no sign of slowing.