PARISH PROFILE 2016

TABLE OF CONTENTS
SAINT JOHNS CHURCH
IN THE WILDERNESS.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
MISSION, VISION,
AND CORE VALUES .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

OUR CORE VALUES IN ACTION

Welcoming .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Signs and Portents.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
A More Welcoming Welcome. . . . . . . . . .
Annual Ministry Celebrations.. . . . . . . . .

4
5
5
6

Serving
Faith in Action. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Missioner-in-Residence. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Serving Those Who Are Homeless. . . . . .
Serving Those Who Are Hungry.. . . . . . .
Serving the City. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

7
7
8
8
8

Celebrating
Worship. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Worship Spaces.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Music .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Giving
Treasure .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Anemic Pledging: A Brief History . . . . . 15
Annual Stewardship Campaign . . . . . . . 15
Major Gifts and Planned Giving . . . . . . . 15
Time and Talent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Nurturing
Fellowship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Formation for Adults .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Formation for Children .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Formation for Youth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Pastoral Care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Respecting
Spiritual Inventory of a .
Diverse Congregation .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, .
and Queer (LGBTQ) Inclusion .. . . . . . . . . 21

Photos courtesy of Samuel Lucas Gove

Reconciling
Interfaith Initiatives.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Advocacy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Reconciling in a Time of Transition .. . 24

DENVER AND CAPITOL HILL. . . . . . . . . . . 25

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH
IN COLORADO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

About The Rt. Rev. Rob ONeill,

Tenth Bishop of Colorado . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Our Hopes for the Tenth Dean .. . . . . . . 28
Our Rectors and Deans:
A Short History. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Early Women Leaders of Saint Johns.. . . 31

SAINT JOHNS CHURCH

IN THE WILDERNESS
Finances and Demographics . . . . . . . . .
Membership Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Geographic distribution by ZIP code . . .
Balance Sheet .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Operating Revenues and Expenses. . .
Statement of Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . .

33
33
33
34
35
35

APPENDIXES
Worship Services: A List . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Cathedral Chapter and Staff.. . . . . . . . .
201617 Vestry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dean Search Committees, 20152017 . . .
Profile. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Interview.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Hospitality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Integration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dean Search Listening Sessions, 2015 . .
Bibliography and Useful Links .. . . . . . .
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

36
36
37
37
37
37
37
37
37
38
40

SAINT JOHNS CHURCH IN THE WILDERNESS

SINCE ITS FOUNDING IN 1860,
SAINT JOHNS CHURCH IN THE
WILDERNESS HAS REPEATEDLY
RISEN TO CHALLENGES AND
EXPANDED MINISTRIES,
FULFILLING ITS MISSION
STATEMENT, TO KNOW CHRIST
AND TO MAKE CHRIST KNOWN.

Our tradition of faithfulness and

civic engagement dates to the Gilded
Age, when the congregation played
a central role in creating a city out of
the wilderness. In the 19th century the
congregation built its first cathedral,
then it built a great hospital (twice)
and helmed movements that wrought
change for great good. In the 20th
century the congregation built a
second cathedral, after the first one
succumbed to arson, then it built a
parish hall, a chapel, an education
building, and established nonprofits
and mission churches to meet postwar

demand then surging in the suburbs.

Since then, of course, the religious
landscape in the United States has
altered dramatically. Yet a 21st-century
Saint Johns bustles with the energy
first shown by its founders. Each
week the cathedral hosts dozens of
community and parish meetings and
events. More than 30 music concerts
are held each year (sjcathedral.org/
Concerts). Twenty-six nights a year,
volunteers turn the parish hall into
a dormitory for women who are
homeless.
Demographic trends in Metro
Denver would seem to favor
membership growth at the cathedral.
Our own membership losses since
the year 2000 track those seen
nationally across the Mainline
denominations. Statewide, 64
percent of the population consider
themselves Christians; 2 percent
identify as Episcopalians, which is

close to the norm nationally.1 But

the nondenominational, ethnically
diverse churches are drawing the
lions share of Millennials. We are an
inclusive, beautiful cathedral in the
city. Vital Hispanic neighborhoods
are just a stones throw west, but we
have yet to develop plans for direct
outreach to one of the fastest-growing
demographics in The Episcopal
Church.2 Around us the city is awash
with new residents, most of them
young and religiously unaffiliated.
These exceedingly well documented
Nones (as in none of the above) are
poised to form households, marry,
and raise children downtown.3 Can we
grow our membership? With the right
leadership we believe we can.

Death and Rebirth: An Uptown Church

The death and likely rebirth of a neighboring church, Saint Pauls UMC,
is instructive. The Rev. Paul Kottke, superintendent for the metro district of
the Rocky Mountain Conference of the United Methodist Church, recently
announced that Saint Pauls would close in May:
In the 80s and 90s, it was hard to find LGBT-inclusive churches, Kottke
explained. People would drive from far outside Denver to attend, he
said. But things changed. The need to drive 20 miles to find an open and
affirming congregation? They dont need that. They can drive 2 miles to
find an open and affirming congregation.
Kottke says the influx of Millennials and Generation-Xers in Uptown (a
neighborhood just north of Capitol Hill) creates opportunities for progressive
churches because they value diversity, they value justice, they value integrity,
and we need to figure out how to help them make that real in their life. In
point of fact, a young pastor at Trinity UMC downtown is said to be moving his
young congregation into Saint Pauls in 2017.4

Saint Johns recognizes the need

to revitalize. A longtime parishioner
has observed in a recent Mustard
Seeds post, We have closed in on
ourselves.5
Hard words. But we hear voices
of encouragement, too. In 2014
we instituted formal and facilitated
conversations called the Dream
Together conferences. In 2015,
on the heels of our second annual
conference, we held dozens of
listening sessions as part of our
Search process. People said they saw
a congregation filled with potential.
We have caught glimpses of this
potential over the past few years
in new ministries of outreach and
of engagement. For example, our
campus will soon build supportive
housing for more than 50 individuals
who have been homeless. Working
with community partners and the
City of Denver, Saint Johns is poised
to construct a 17-plot learning garden
on its grounds. A missioner-inresidence, hired in 2015, engages us
in theological reflection and action.
Our leaders, ordained and lay, and
our historic connections with the city,
point to a future that builds on the
original vision for the parish, To know
Christ and to make Christ known.
2

In this, our season of discernment,

the congregation has seen the need
to commit to:

basic Christian formation

advocating for systemic change
increasing our giving
forging a shared identity
surrendering anxiety for joy

Finally, our bishop has told us that

we must embrace mission.
There is no mystery in Jesus
parable of the fig tree: A man had a
fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he
came looking for fruit on it and found
none. So he said to the gardener, See
here! For three years I have come
looking for fruit on this fig tree, and
still I find none. Cut it down! Why
should it be wasting the soil? The
gardener replied, Sir, let it alone for
one more year, until I dig round it and
put manure on it. If it bears fruit next
year, well and good; but if not, you can
cut it down. Luke 13:69
We seek a new deana gardener
who can help us tend our cathedral
parish, for we want to bear fruit, and
for it to be said of us, well and good.

OUR MISSION, VISION, AND CORE VALUES

MISSION

CORE VALUES

Saint Johns Cathedral is

welcoming and inclusive of all.
Our mission is to know Christ and
to make Christ known.

Welcomingto open our doors

to all and invite others to join in
our Eucharistic community as
living witnesses to the good news
of God in Christ.
Servingto put our faith into
action by ministering to the needs
of the sick, the bereaved, the poor,
the homeless, and those most in
need in our community.
Celebratingto celebrate our
love of God joyously in worship,
music, and art in the Anglican
tradition.

VISION
Saint Johns Cathedral seeks to be
a vibrant, growing, diverse spiritual
community, a house of prayer and
worship for all, where seekers are
nurtured and transformed by Gods
love and led to reach out in service
to others.

Nurturingto be a community
where children, youth, and adults
know each other by name and
are supported through education,
fellowship, and pastoral care.
Givingto be faithful stewards
of our Cathedral both now and for
generations to come through gifts of
our time and treasure.
Respectingto honor the dignity of
all persons and embrace diversity as
essential to the body of Christ.
Reconcilingto seek common
ground with each other and with
those of other faiths and work toward
a society of justice where Gods love is
reflected in the healing and restoring
of relationships.
3

OUR CORE VALUES IN ACTION

WELCOMING

TO INVITE ALL OTHERS TO JOIN

US IN OUR EUCHARISTIC
COMMUNITY AS LIVING
WITNESSES TO THE GOOD NEWS
OF GOD IN CHRIST.

We say we are Welcoming and

Inclusive of All at Saint Johns. It
is a fundamental statement of our
identity, and we can be a welcoming,
inclusive, warm placeonce you find
the doors that open to let you in.

Communicating that welcome to

the stranger (and to the sometimesbewildered newcomer) has been a
challenge. For more than 100 years
the cathedral has dominated one
of the great blocks in Capitol Hill
neighborhood. We are bounded
north and south by two of the citys
busiest thoroughfares, 13th and 14th
Avenues. Commuters daily hurtle
past the church, on 13th Avenue
heading westbound, hurtling home in
the evening on eastbound 14th. The
traffic is just as prolific on Clarkson
and Washingtonour north- and
southbound boundary streets.

SIGNS AND PORTENTS

In 2006 an enterprising sub-dean
had a novel idea: why not erect signs
saying we were a church? Saint
Johns had in fact been a signless
place of worship for about a century,
lacking even the traditional Episcopal
Church Welcomes You signs, which
have extended Episcopal welcome for
more than 55 years. The new signs
would say, the sub-dean explained,
Saint Johns Episcopal Cathedral
and even provide the times of our
services. He submitted a proposal to
the design and historic-preservation
people at Saint Johns who act as
arbiters of the cathedral aesthetic.
Why would we need signs? they
asked, Everyone knows who we
are! There was more conversation.
But after a year of meetings and
increased amity, everyone agreed
that, yes, signs were a good idea. A
design was approved, and the signs
were installed on our landscape,
visible to all manner of passersby.6

We recently installed signage

indoors. Newcomers can now find
the parish hall for coffee or the
chapel for prayer. They can locate
the Nursery and a restroom. Fully

integrated members recall their early

wayfinding difficulties at Saint Johns.
I feel like a perennial newcomer,
confessed one longtime parishioner,
who now serves on the vestry.

A MORE WELCOMING WELCOME

A 2014 spiritual inventory captured
this challenge of welcome at Saint
Johns (for discussion, see pp. 21).
Upon the recommendation of a lay-led
data-analysis team, the vestry voted
to approve a full-time welcome-andintegration coordinator. The position
was filled in September 2014. The
coordinators office is off the Welcome
Center, just as one enters Saint Johns
from the parking lot. He is also present
for the Sunday services and on
Wednesday for Cathedral Nite, greeting
and welcoming people. After filling out
welcome cards, visitors receive a phone
call and email within a week. They are
then invited to a monthly gathering.
In creating this new staff position,
Saint Johns hopes that newcomers,
and former parishioners too, will find
their way eased into community.
We recently installed the Blackbaud
congregational tool,
used to track both membership
and financial data.

ANNUAL MINISTRY CELEBRATIONS

Toward this goal of improving
welcome and integration, Saint
Johns recently instituted annual
ministry celebrations. These are acts
of thanksgiving for those who have
responded to Gods call to seek and
serve Christ in all others. This year, on
Pentecost Sunday, an all-day event
celebrated the gift of the Holy Spirit
throughout the day. The cool spring
weather drove us indoors, to the parish
hall. It was a packed and joy-filled day,
with live music and great food. The
celebration was also an invitation to
discern new forms of service.
E Welcome

& Integration

E Welcome

Center reception

E Cathedral
E Ministry

tours

celebrations

E Mosaic

Muse concerts

E Ushers

(youth and adult)

It is a truism in corporate churches

like Saint Johns that every member
of the congregation is essential to
the living ministry of the community.
We aspire to be one body, of many
partsall of them necessary. Yet busy,
well-run churches like Saint Johns
can seem more self-sufficient than
they are. We could be more ardent
in asking parishioners to support the
staff in the work of the churchto step
forward both for their own spiritual
growth and for the health of the
churchs wider ministry.
Individuals intent on finding their
way to deeper spiritual practice and
growth will be met at Saint Johns by
compassionate and bright clergy, staff
members and fellow parishioners. But
if Saint Johns is to become a place
of genuine welcome and inclusion,
the parish must master new, more
intentional behaviors of outreach,
invitation, welcome, and integration
into community.

E Faith

in Action at Saint Johns

E Cathedral

Co-operative of Gardeners

E Cathedral

Learning Garden

E Grants

Committee

E Missioner-in-Residence
E Imitation
E Mustard
E Days

Seeds Blog

of Service

E Womens

SERVING
TO PUT OUR FAITH INTO ACTION
BY MINISTERING TO THE NEEDS
OF THE SICK, THE BEREAVED,
THE POOR, THE HOMELESS, AND
THOSE MOST IN NEED IN OUR
COMMUNITY.

walls. Homelessness and hunger were

among their chief concerns. Yet how
would the congregation organize
itself around mission and outreach?
It was agreed that the best way
forward would be to identify and hire
a missioner-in-residence. This staff
position was approved by vestry in
2015 and filled in the fall.

FAITH IN ACTION

Missioner-in-Residence

Saint Johns has seen and

responded to human suffering
outside its doors from the beginning.
The city was enmeshed in a tangle of
relief problems, writes Allen D. Breck,
just as parishioners were building the
first cathedral.7 The so-called climate
cure for those with lung ailments,
particularly tuberculosis, brought
hordes of health-seekers, many of
them penniless, to Denver. They
died on sidewalks and in makeshift
boarding houses. The 19th-century
matriarchs at Saint Johns (see pp. 31)
responded by building, staffing, and
managing a great hospital, the first in
city limits, to meet this urgent human
need. But there is still suffering just
outside our doors.
Parishioners were asked in the
2014 parish survey how Saint Johns
might respond to need outside its

The job responsibilities for this

new post were built from the ground
up, as the missioner developed
relationships within the community
and began to discern the gifts and
desires present. His position took form
around the responsibility to provoke
and support theological reflection
within the parish, and then to help
develop this reflection into practice.
The missioner divides his time
between the cathedral and the
Denver community, spending
half his time serving and building
relationships with the cathedrals
mission partners, including Metro
Caring, Saint Francis Center, and
Network Cafe (among others).
He also works to foster new
relationships and looks to aid
those who arrive at the cathedral
in need of immediate and vital

of Christ book group

Homeless Initiative

assistance (see sjcathedral.org/Serve/

TheMustardSeedsBlog/PostID/604).
The other half of the missioners
time is used to support spiritual
discernment and relationship building
within the cathedral community.
The most public example of this is
the Mustard Seeds blog, which
has garnered a steady readership
since it was launched in November
2015nearly 5,000 pageviews to
date. It provides a platform for
diverse voices from or connected to
the Saint Johns community, voices
that both challenge and support
us as we put our faith into action.
On a more intimate level,
the missioner facilitates group
discernment. At present, this is
focused on the Imitation Book Club
(which took its name from the first
text it studied, The Imitation of Christ).
The book club meets weekly to
discuss the fundamentals of Christian
faith and how they might be put into
practice. In doing so, the group is
fostering a community that can serve
as a spiritual basis for advocacy and
service. The missioner writes up and
distributes meeting summaries so
that those who are unable to attend
can still benefit from discussions and
learn of opportunities for work.

SERVING THOSE WHO ARE HOMELESS

Grant recipients, agencies,

parishes, ministries, and
organizations supported by or
connected with Saint Johns
Abrahamic Initiative
Capitol Hill United Ministries
(CHUM)
Denver Catholic Worker
Colorado Episcopal Foundation
Colorado Episcopal Service Corps
Foundation Campus Ministry,
University of Denver
Diocese of Colorado (Episcopal
Church in Colorado, or ECC)
Episcopal Relief & Development
Everding Lectureship
Family Promise
General Theological Seminary
Giving Tree
Habitat for Humanity
High Plains Region (ECC)
Inner City Health
Interfaith Alliance
Loaves & Fishes
Metro Caring (an ECC institution)
Network Caf
Our Merciful Savior Episcopal
Church
Project Angel Heart
Rainbow Alley Drop-in
SafeHouse Denver
St. Francis Center (ECC
institution)
St. Martins Chamber Homeless
Choir
32nd Ave. Jubilee Center (ECC
institution)
Urban Peak
Work Options for Women

Organized five years ago by a

canon at Saint Johns, the Womens
Homeless Initiative is a coalition
of 16 communities of faith that
provide overnight shelter for up to
25 homeless women, 365 days a
year. As the Monday-night site on
alternate months26 nights a year
volunteers transform the parish
hall at Saint Johns into a dormitory.
What can I bring? partners always
ask the organizers, and Can I do
more? People prepare supper, keep
company and then keep vigil, and, in
the morning, provide snack-bags togo as the women are shuttled back to
St. Francis Center (sfcdenver.org).
Parishioners know about Monday
night WHI at Saint Johns and cite
it with pride when speaking of our
outreach. People outside the parish,
and often outside of any formal
church affiliation, participate in
it, bringing needed items for the
women and helping in other ways,
like laundry and shopping. Groups
from across the city participate. One
organization donated funds as part
of its own commitment to helping
women. One group prepared gift
bags at Christmas, and then showed
up to prepare a dinner. A local school
prepared and served dinner one
night. The grade-school children
wrote notes of love on Valentines Day.
The students had a good time and
have asked to come back.

SERVING THOSE WHO ARE HUNGRY

Since it was formed in 2011, the
Cathedral Co-operative of Gardeners
(CCG) has grown, gleaned, and
delivered about 10,000 lbs. of
produce. During the growing season
(JuneOctober) volunteers take fresh
food to Metro Caring (metrocaring.
org), an agency that assures timely,
safe distribution of food and services
to people who are hungry and
seeking to return to self-sufficiency.
Each summer the congregation
takes part in Loaves & Fishes, a
citywide event that raises awareness
about local hunger. Last year Saint
Johns collected 3,000 pounds of

nonperishable food items.

Early in 2016 the Mayors Office of
Economic Development approved the
congregations $30K grant request
to build a 17-plot learning garden on
campus. A collaboration with Denver
Urban Gardens (DUG) and Metro
Caring, the landscaped area will feature
17 raised beds for groups of guest
gardeners and interested parishioners.
It resembles a traditional community
garden, except guest gardeners will be
earning a job-training credential in what
is in essence their outdoor classroom.
We offer Days of Service for
members wanting to serve on a dropin basis. By grounding these service
days in theological reflection (see p.
8), parishioners find they are helped in
making sense of their service to others.

SERVING THE CITY

In 1966 Saint Johns formed
the Clarkson Corporation to hold
a block of land between 14th and
Colfax Avenues, calling it Cathedral
Square North. The congregation
then looked for ways to develop the
parcel to further the mission and
ministry of the cathedral. After fits
and starts over the decades, the
vestry commissioned the Clarkson
Community task force in 2010 to
develop a plan. Using a parishioners
generous gift in 2011, the cathedral
developed a memorial park as a quiet
urban space for contemplation and
transition to worship as members
of the congregation approach the
cathedral from the north parking lot.
In 2013 the task force helped
to forge a partnership between
Saint Johns and Wartburg College
(Waverly, Iowa) to locate the Wartburg
West program on Cathedral Square
North and in the buildings on the
cathedral campus. The young men
and women who participate in the
program serve at Denver nonprofits
and engage with the parish. The task
force also helped to establish the
cathedrals relationship with Sewall
Child Development Center, which
uses classroom and play space on the
Saint Johns campus to provide

The Saint Francis Apartments

at Cathedral Square North:
Permanent Supportive Housing

instruction for preschoolers from

Denvers Public Schools (DPS), a third
of whom have special needs. Sewall
has been a test program. We hope to
continue to explore ways to leverage
our resources and relationships to
meet the changing needs of our city.
When he met with the members
of the Profile Committee on January
7, 2016, Bishop Rob ONeill told them
that vital and dynamic parishes
are those in which 1 out of every 4
members are engaged in hands-on
ministry to the poor, the marginalized,
and the otherwise disadvantaged,
isolated, ailing, and alone. Because
the proportion of Saint Johns
parishioners who serve in these
capacities is well below 1:4, the bishop
called the congregation to take up
this work.
The tenth dean of the cathedral will
likewise want to be prepared to equip
the saints for the work of ministry, for
building up the body of Christ, until
all of us come to the unity of the faith
and of the knowledge of the Son of
God, to maturity, to the measure of
the full stature of Christ (Eph. 4:12).

CELEBRATING
TO CELEBRATE OUR LOVE OF
GOD JOYOUSLY IN WORSHIP,
MUSIC, AND ART IN THE
ANGLICAN TRADITION.

WORSHIP
The charism of the early church
was joy. At Saint Johns we offer
traditional, transcendent, joyful
cathedral worship, suitable to our
Gothic Revival structure and space.
Worship here has been in line both
theologically and liturgically with the
vision of the 1979 Prayer Book since
about 1982.
Since the 19th century, most of
the Episcopal clergy in the diocese
were formed at Nashotah House
Theological Seminary, a school
founded in the 1840s as a center
for Christian formation in what
was then the Wisconsin wilderness.
Influenced by the Oxford movement,
the founders hoped to form lay
and ordained leaders who would
propagate the faith in frontier
communities.

In 2015 the Clarkson task

force announced that Saint
Johns and the St. Francis Center
had formed a partnership to
develop permanent supportive
housing for those previously
homeless. A 52-unit apartment
building will rise on Cathedral
Square North on property
owned by Saint Johns/Clarkson
Community. The project was
approved for funding by the
Colorado Housing and Finance
Authority (CHFA) and the
Colorado Division of Housing.
The contracts are signed. The
project will break ground in June
2016 and be completed about
15 months later. Residents will
be assigned a case manager
who will help them set goals,
obtain financial benefits, and
stay healthy both mentally and
physically. The apartments
will bring relief to some of our
neighbors and, for Saint Johns,
an opportunity for service.

A view from the pews

A Sunday service at Saint Johns in the Wilderness is always a little bit
different. There are four services during the season, and each is tailored
to the needs of a different group of parishioners. Having been to all four,
the appeals of each are evident. The commonalities of the services are a
clearer indication, however, of what binds the parish together. One senses
an intentional balance being maintained, preserving the informal, personal
connections among parishioners and between the parishioners and the
clergy. This balance of relationships is supported by the critical formality
of liturgy and its connection, through time, to all ages.
From the rustling sounds of older parishioners being helped to their
feet by younger members, to the squeaks and squawks of children
wrestling with their impatience and the kind looks of recognition and
understanding of those in the pews, the love of God is celebrated,
recognized, and felt as the clergy guide our worship.

An early and steady infusion of

Nashotah House clergy lent the
church in Colorado a theology
and liturgical style that leaned
toward ritualism. Not so at Saint
Johns. Perhaps because the
congregation saw the cathedral as
the sole cosmopolitan outpost in the
diocese, not suitable for Nashotahs
frontier-trained mystics, it resisted
the importunings of the liturgical
movement. Today the cathedral is
both theologically and liturgically in
line, as we say above, with the vision
of the 1979 Prayer Book.
The 7:45 a.m. Sunday service is
a quiet Rite I Eucharist with organ
and usually one hymn. At 9 a.m.
a Rite II Eucharist overlaps young
childrens formation; members of
our youth group (middle and high
schoolers) serve as ushers during
the school year, and children of all
ages participate in the choirs each
week. At the Peace, young children,
who have just celebrated a Godly Play
service in the Saint Francis Chapel,
join the rest of the assembly. They
then take part in collecting the alms
and gather close to the altar for
the Eucharistic prayer.8 While this
Eucharist is inherently connected to
childrens formation, and children
exercise particular roles in it, it is not a

10

childrens liturgy.
The Eucharist is celebrated again
at 11:15 a.m. according to Rite I.
Evensong is celebrated once a month
at 3 p.m. and draws a congregation
from around the diocese, as well as
members of other religious traditions.
They are attracted as much by the
English choral tradition as by the
spirituality of the Divine Office (see
pp. 36 for a list of worship services).
The later Sunday morning Eucharists
(9 and 11:15) enjoy the ministry of a full
choir. Occasionally, especially on major
feast days, the choir sings a choral
mass setting. But for the most part, all
the music, with the exception of the
anthems, is congregational. In general,
Saint Johns celebrates according to
the principles of progressive solemnity
so that in the course of the liturgical
year, the parish draws upon expressions
from the restrained to the exuberant,
not only in music but also in ceremony,
decoration, and vesture.
On Sunday evening at 6 oclock the
parish celebrates according to An
Order for the Eucharist. Called The
Wilderness, this service holds an echo
of the congregations patronal saint,
John the Baptist (see pp. 13). Perhaps
the most striking element is the
protracted time of prayer after the
sermon. Participants move about the

church from prayer station to prayer

station in what is at once active and
contemplative. Many who regularly
attend The Wilderness identify this
time spent in focused reflection
as the root of their life of prayer.
Effervescent, ceremonial, sensual,
mysterious, The Wilderness points
toward something true more broadly
of the cathedralalthough Saint
Johns is formed by tradition, it is not
bound by traditionalism.
The Eucharist celebrated at 5:30
p.m.; on Wednesday the Eucharist
is celebrated twice, at 7:00 in the
morning and 5:30 in the evening.
Noonday Prayer is offered Monday
through Friday. The noon service
replaces Evening Prayer. The midweek
services are well attended. The earlymorning Wednesday liturgy draws a
faithful group of regulars who meet
to study scripture afterward. In the
evening, many of those who take
part in Cathedral Nite events, like
the catechumens, come first to the
Eucharist. The parish leadership, both
ordained and lay, has recognized
that the evening liturgy in particular
presents an opportunity to broaden
the congregations liturgical
experiencean opportunity not yet
fully explored.

WORSHIP SPACES
When the second cathedral was
built (190611), the plans drawn up
by Tracy and Swartwout, a New
York architectural firm, called for
a much larger structure than was
eventually built. During construction,
the walls collapsed, and the failure
of the congregation to prevail in a
lawsuit against the builders led the
congregation to begin again, but
only the first portion of the planned
church was ever built. Even then, the
cathedral is 185 feet long. The roof
towers 65 feet above the floor.
The nave is Indiana limestone. For
the chancel, the builders defaulted
to a matching and more economical
brick after the wall collapse. The
Romanesque style of the chancel
allowed the builders to incorporate
the rounded windows salvaged from
the first cathedralpredecessor of
the current churchwhich had been
destroyed by arson in 1903. The
nave is a fine example of the Gothic
Revival style. The two styles and the
two building materials, limestone
and brick, coexist harmoniously, and
most people notice the disparities
only when they are pointed out. The
nave and chancel are separated by a
wrought iron and brass rood screen,
which, like the chancel windows, the
carved wooden reredos, and the
high altar, was salvaged from the
former cathedral after the fire.
The history of those elements, as
well as of the 45 aisle and clerestory
windows, is documented in Ann
Joness Glory in the Wilderness (see

Bibliography, p. 38). Most of the glass

was created in England in the studio
of Edward Frampton and, in Boston,
by the Connick Studio. A small
window above the central (liturgical)
west door is Tiffany.
In 1927 the congregation added
a detached parish house to hold
clergy offices, a meeting hall, the
womens guild room, now the library,
and a chapel. The architecture of
this building reflects the efforts
of Elisabeth Spalding, a daughter
of Colorados first bishop, and
Marion Hendrie, a Colorado artist
and philanthropist. Together they
persuaded the diocese to establish
the Commission on Church
Architecture and the Allied Arts
to encourage and guide parishes
and missions in obtaining the best
possible design in buildings and
furnishings. Named for Martin of
Tours, the chapel is considered one
of the finest buildings produced
by the American Arts & Crafts
movement. Designed and executed
by Colorado artists, the chapel
includes works by Hendrie, John
Thompson, Josephine Hurlburt, and
Arnold Rnnebeck, the first director
of the Denver Art Museum.9
Today the chapel is used for
the Noonday Office and the daily
Eucharist at 5:30 p.m., and for small
weddings and funerals.
In 1956 a three-story building,
intended primarily for education,
was built to connect the cathedral
to the parish house. It includes a
childrens chapel dedicated to Saint

Francis of Assisi. That chapel has

since been altered. The forwardfacing pews were removed, and a
folding partition, which separated
the chapel from a sizable narthex,
was taken down. The room is, in
the style of the time, spare. The
cinderblock walls are inlaid with
Venetian glass mosaics and fitted
with stained-glass windows designed
by Mina Conant and Edgar Britton.
The Saint Francis Chapel continues
to be used for the childrens Liturgy
of the Word during the 9:00 a.m.
Sunday Eucharist and for other
occasional services. It is the only
liturgical space at Saint Johns that is
almost entirely flexible.
The cathedral grounds encompass
two outdoor liturgical spaces. To
the left of the north doors is a large
plaza, beneath which are vaults
for the burial of the ashes of the
dead. All Souls Walk is fitted with
paving stones and brass plaques
identifying the saints whose remains
rest there. Across the street a
labyrinth, a replica in brick of the
one at Chartres, fills an area called
Dominick Park. In view of the crime
on Capitol Hill, this devotional space
is kept locked most of the weekan
unfortunate, and we hope shortterm, solution since it renders this
devotional space unusable and
therefore cries out for change.
We are working with the Wartburg
students and others to determine
how best to use these spaces in view
of the security challenges common
to an urban parish.

Our Diversity
MANY OF THOSE WHO HAVE MADE SAINT
JOHNS THEIR CHURCH HOME COME FROM
OTHER FAITH TRADITIONS. During our
listening sessions this past fall, these newer
Episcopalians named beauty as a chief draw,
citing our liturgy, music, and architecture.
They also invoked the peace they experienced
during meditation and worship. Parishioners
also approvingly cited the diversity offered at
Saint Johns, marveling at different liturgies
and the implied freedom, observing that no one
was telling them what to do.
The Wilderness was singled out (It changed
my life was a refrain during listening sessions),
in addition to the acceptance parishioners
said they experienced in being able to choose
among diverse worship offerings.
Like the Episcopal Church more broadly,
Saint Johns is home to former Roman
Catholics and Mormons, former Presbyterians
and Evangelicals, former no-church and somechurch, high church and low. Many of our newer
members are LGBTQ refugees from their lessinclusive church families of origin.
The diocese is large and varied as well, and
it is a humbling responsibility to be a place
where Episcopalians from across the church in
Colorado can worship in the beauty of holiness.

12

MUSIC
The music program at Saint
Johns began in 1872 and consisted
of a decent boy choir and an
efficient organist. Since then the
congregation has committed itself to
excellence in church music. Today the
choir program is divided into three
youth choirs who train according
to a scheme devised by the Royal
School of Church Music, with which
the cathedral has been affiliated for
decades. Saint Johns has a total of
six choirs designed to overlap across
generations. The choirs sing at
regular Sunday morning services.

E Choir

SchoolSaint David,
Saint Cecilia, Probationers
E Choir School Parents Association
Cathedral Choir
E Parish Choir
E Organ task force
E Saint Cecilia Music Guild

The Cathedral Choir sings monthly

Evensong; a guest musician plays
a 25-minute prelude. This service
attracts a number of worshipers from
other parishes. The choirs also sing at
annual services, among them Advent
Lessons & Carols, Christmas Lessons
& Carols, and five Christmas Eve
masses.
Saint Johns is home to one of the
finest and largest pipe organs in the
western United States. Built by the
Kimball Company of Chicago, the
organ was given to the cathedral
in 1938 by Mrs. Lawrence C. Phipps
in honor of her father Platt Rogers,
Denvers mayor from 1891 to 1893.
Mrs. Phipps asked in return that
all of the cathedrals organ recitals
be free to the public. The cathedral
has faithfully honored this request,
a gift to the city. After a 30-month
restoration, the Phipps organ was
rededicated in 2011. With 96 ranks,

the organ comprises nearly 6,000

individual pipes, some the size of
drinking straws and others that are 32
feet high. It plays 61 harp notes and 25
chimesall powered by a 25-hp motor.
To complete the original design of the
Kimball, an antiphonal organ will be
installed this year, a gift to Saint Johns
from parishioners.
Concerts and recitals are held
throughout the year and feature local,
regional, national, and international
performers. These events have
brought innumerable choirs, including
those from Canterbury, Gloucester,
and Westminster Abbey. Chamber
choirs sing here, among them the
Tallis Scholars and Anonymous
4. Important organists perform
hereMarilyn Keiser and Ral Prieto
Ramirez, to name but two. Many
concerts are free. The public is
welcomed by staff members, clergy,
and the many music-program
volunteers.
In listening sessions and informal
conversation with parishioners,
members of the Profile Committee
have heard people say they are
interested in hearing an expanded
repertoire of church music.

Music of The Wilderness

Our Sunday evening community,
The Wilderness, is supported by
professional musicians who provide
a distinctive worldbeat sound. The
music changes seasonally, drawing
inspiration from the 1982 Hymnal,
and also from root, folk, and
pop standards and everything in
between. Songs are rearranged and
set with the meditative and mystical
Wilderness service in mind. A lead
vocalist helps the congregation with
the melodies, while instrumentation
ranges from piano and keyboard, to
percussion of all sorts, upright and
electric bass, electric guitar, zither,
and other specialty instruments.
Recent seasons have featured
music from the film soundtrack
to Interstellar, modern Syrian
rhythms with spoken word,
ancient Chinese instruments, Celtic
melodies, Simon and Garfunkel
tunes, and more. The music
transitions smoothly between
the liturgical seasons under the
attention of our lead musicians
and liturgist. After more than ten
years, the music of The Wilderness
continues to draw people to
worship on Sunday nights.

13

GIVING
TO BE FAITHFUL STEWARDS
OF OUR CATHEDRAL BOTH NOW
AND FOR GENERATIONS TO
COME THROUGH GIFTS OF OUR
TIME AND TREASURE.

TREASURE
Saint Johns in the Wilderness
enjoys significant assets in both its
physical structure and its financial
endowment. The congregation must
nevertheless address the physical
maintenance needs of an aging
historic-landmark structure and the
reality of an aging congregation,
both crucial steps if the cathedral is
to survive beyond the 21st century.
The congregation therefore has
some internal work to do, foremost
in addressing its perplexingly belowaverage annual pledging. We will need
the next dean to be a confident and
accomplished fundraiser.
Owing to the extraordinary
generosity of some benefactors, Saint
Johns has an endowment of about
$25 million. While the endowment
contributes to the financial security of

14

the parish, we believe the existence of

the endowment wrongly conveys the
message that Saint Johns primary
needs are covered and that pledge
and plate merely augment our
operational costs. Nothing could be
further from the truth.
In 2013, responding to the
congregations request for more
care and support, the church
leadership made a decision to invest
in human capital. The vestry decided
to increase the number of full-time
clergy to five. It also filled the thenempty positions of canon steward,
himself a priest, and director of
finance and administration. (N.B.: As
this Profile goes to press, our curate,
whose term of service was three
years, is departing, and our director
of finance and administration
has taken a position elsewhere).
The goal in 2013 was to revive the
congregation and then to challenge
it. The goal in 2016 remains the
same: to revive and challenge the
congregation. This investment is
beginning to show returns, if not
on our bottom line yet, then in our
congregational life.

The Big Bang of 2013

In listening sessions in
2015, we began hearing a
new phrase, the Big Bang,
bubbling to the surface of
conversation. I remember
the flow of energy, one
longtime parishioner recalls.
Now in her 90s, she is
teacher of centering prayer.
It was as if the wind of the
Holy Spirit blew into the
church, gracing us. There
had been something of a
slow and stagnant sense,
she added, for some
time. Then these dynamic,
diverse, talented men and
women suddenly appeared,
and it seemed to me we
came alive again.

ANEMIC PLEDGING: A BRIEF HISTORY

In 2015 the average pledge to Saint
Johns increased by $700 to $2,500
from 526 pledging units. Seventy-two
of those 526 pledging units were new.
To be clear, this level of pledging at
$2,500 represents a breakthrough.
The congregation has historically
given, on average, only about $1,800
per year. Among Episcopalians
nationally and in Colorado, the average
is closer to $2,800 annually. Our
anemic giving was the subject of at
least two powerful sermons in the fall.
While national averages tell us
that most churches have as many
attending families as pledging families,
Saint Johns has a much higher-thanaverage number of pledging units. We
are still analyzing this unusual pattern
and weighing possible responses. At
the same time, targeted giving has
grown. Parishioners recently gave
gifts that have paid for state-of-the-art
audio and teaching technologies, in
both the nave and the parish hall. Gifts
and grants for mission and outreach
have made significant impacts on
what we can do to serve the poor in
the city, to improve the facilities, and to
expand our music and liturgy.
Gifts and grants have not been able
to bridge the gap in funding, however,
and steep rises in health insurance
and other staff expenses consumed a
larger portion of the budget than we
had planned for. Meanwhile, we know
we want to increase the budget for
outreach and servicethat fig tree,
and the gardener, mentioned in the

introduction. As a general matter,

the cathedral has not made a capital
reserve fund a priority. The 2016
budget includes such a fund, which
we hope to maintain going forward.
Possible grant monies from the
Colorado State Historical Fund would
cover the costs of some of the nearterm repairs. But the congregation
must pledge more to cover the

GivingStewardship
and Governance
Building & Grounds
Standing Committee
Art & Architecture
Archives
Library
Artisans Group
Green Initiatives
Landscape & Gardens
Cathedral Bees
Safety
Vestry and Its Committees
Executive
Finance
Investment
Personnel
Stewardship
Art of Hosting
Invitation
Legacy Society
Major Gifts

balance so Saint Johns can pay its

operating expenses and augment a
reserve fund. (See pp. 33 for a fuller
discussion of our finances.)
Four new stewardship groups have

been formed since the arrival of our

new canon steward in 2013.
Planned Giving, which secures
bequests and planned gifts.
Invitation team members, who
face out to the city to promote
congregational growth.
The Art of Hosting group, which
trains members in facilitation and
discernment.
Major Gifts, which matches
potential givers with missions and
ministries.
The 2015 stewardship campaign
had to maintain existing giving during
a search for a new dean, a time of
transition when giving generally dips.
And while Saint Johns saw pledges
dip, new pledging units filled the gap;
more than $1.3 million was raised
in 2015 from a total of 526 donor
families and individuals. In doing so,
Saint Johns was able to maintain one
large gift while increasing the average
pledge to nearly $2,500up from the
2012 average of $1,800. Our leaders,
lay and ordained, also asked for, and
received, six major gifts in 2015. These
gifts have allowed Saint Johns to
install a new sound system for the
nave and new technology for teaching
in the parish hall. Gifts to support the
new antiphonal organ will make Saint
Johns a preeminent host for events
in Denver. More than 200 members
have included Saint Johns in their
wills. The intent is to encourage more
parishioners to give in this way.

15

Cathedral Work Days

What does it mean, really,
to take care of something?
To loved ones, we give care.
No mysteries in the whys
and wherefores of that. But
when 50 or 60 people gather
to take care of a building
so immense in their lives,
interesting things happen.
Saint Johns in the past year
has instituted Cathedral Work
Days to help the Artisans
Group with its ministry of
repair and upkeep. They have
been a huge hit.
What is so striking at first
glance is the level of effort
every participant puts forth.
The amount of expended
elbow grease is amazing.
But then other telltale
signs indicate this is a good
day: halting introductions
and forging of friendships;
occasional outbursts of
cheer and laughter; amiable
conversations over lunch;
sharing of personal stories.
Cathedral Work Days at
Saint Johns offer solutions
that parishioners know they
themselves have the power to
provide. In a large, old facility
that daily taxes both staff and
budget, an army of members
giving one days work reduces
those burdens while also
building bridges between
clergy, staff, and members. In
the three Work Days held over
the past year, volunteers have
performed well over $35,000
worth of cleaning, painting,
repairs, and odd jobs. Whats
more, by performing simple
tasks together in fellowship,
those members have invested
more deeply in Saint Johns
than their checkbooks alone
ever could. They understand
how the care they put into
their church is the care they
also get back.

16

TIME AND TALENT

The work of the church at Saint
Johns requires more than generous
annual pledging. Also essential are
the ministries of welcome, hospitality,
and compassion (see Pastoral
Care, p. 20) that help to make the
church One Body. Maintaining a
historic-landmark structure, likewise,
requires well-populated ministries
of preservation, upkeep, and beauty.
These are challenges at Saint Johns.
A few do most of the hard work

of maintenance, and they admit

to needing time for refreshment.
Most parishioners freely offer their
administrative and governance
skills. But we need artisans and
tradespeople too.
There is percolating the idea that
leaders, both lay and ordained, could
set an expectation that everyone
needs to lend a hand instead of
assuming it will be taken care of by
someone else. So the new dean may
want to lead by example, getting their

hands as dirty on Cathedral Work

Day as everyone else. Pitching in, like
family, no matter ones ability, is an
ethic most homeowners understand
when faced with the need to keep
their house in order. Given the right
leadership at Saint Johns, we could
change assumptions about how best
to care for our buildings and grounds.
The pro bono work of the many
white-collar professionals at Saint
Johns is also a vital ministry.

Pro Bono Time and Talent

Saint Johns a preliminary injunction

that restricted protesters ability to
interfere with religious services at
Saint Johns. The Court ultimately
made the preliminary injunction
permanent. On two separate
occasions, the protesters appealed
the decision to the Colorado Court
of Appeals, the Colorado Supreme
Court, and the Supreme Court of
the United States. At each stage, the
courts affirmed the injunction. During
the summer of 2013, the Supreme
Court of the United States declined
to hear the protesters final attempt
at appeal. The permanent injunction
that allows all the parishioners
of Saint Johns to freely worship
remains intact today.
Throughout the nearly ten-year
process, a number of attorneys gave
freely of their time and talent. The
matter was tried and defended, on a
pro bono basis, through all appeals
by dedicated parishioners and friends
of Saint Johns working at some of
Denvers most prominent law firms.
This litigation was a substantial
risk for the cathedral. The case, in
all its twists and turns, could have
been decided differently. The courts
could have simply added fuel to the
protesters angry fire. But one thing
drove Saint Johns to march onall of
those attending Saint Johns should
be able to freely worship, regardless
of their age, or gender, or sexual
orientation. That care for the entire
congregation ultimately won the day.

Saint Johns did not simply coin a

motto, welcoming and inclusive of
all, and let it go. The congregation
has been called to create and secure
that welcome, sometimes under
harrowing circumstances.
Saint Johns was the target, for
over a decade, of organized, graphic
protesting on Palm Sunday and
Easter. A local group of anti-abortion
and anti-gay protesters gathered at
the cathedral at least twice a year to
express their views. They preferred
protesting during Palm Sunday and
Easter services because they knew
they would benefit from exceptional
attendance numbers and a captive
outdoor audience, including many
young children holding Easter baskets.
The protesters gathered along the
sidewalk, on the street, and on top of
their cars, holding aloft 4x6 posters
that portrayed images too horrible
to describe here. It was unrelenting.
Inside the cathedral walls, the
protesters shouts drowned out the
service.
In the spring of 2004 a group of
attorneys in the congregation resolved
that Saint Johns had endured enough.
On behalf of the cathedral and its
parishioners, and with the bishops
support, they sought an emergency
temporary restraining order against
the group.
After months of argument and
filings with the Court, culminating in
a weeklong trial, the Court granted

NURTURING
TO BE A COMMUNITY WHERE
CHILDREN, YOUTH, AND ADULTS
KNOW EACH OTHER BY NAME
AND ARE SUPPORTED THROUGH
EDUCATION, FELLOWSHIP, AND
PASTORAL CARE.
LISTENING SESSIONS
RESONATED WITH APPEALS
FROM PARISHIONERS FOR MORE
CHRISTIAN FORMATION, THE
GREATER NURTURE OF OUR
YOUTH, AND PASTORAL CARE
FOR OUR ELDERLY. BUT STAFF
CHANGES AND BUDGET CUTS
HAVE REDUCED THE NUMBER OF
STAFF WORKING WITH YOUTH.
THE HOPE IS THAT A NEW RECTOR
WILL BRING ENERGY TO AND
PASSION FOR YOUTH MINISTRY,
DEMONSTRATING THAT SAINT
JOHNS IS A WELCOMING HOME
WHERE FAITHFUL FAMILIES CAN
GROW TOGETHER AND WHERE,
TOO, LATER IN LIFE OUR ELDERS
WILL HAVE CONNECTION AND
NURTURE THROUGH FAITHFUL
COMPANIONING, COMMUNION,
AND PASTORAL VISITS.

18

FELLOWSHIP
The fellowship extended at Saint
Johns, especially in smaller groups, is
evident on Sundays, as parishioners
and friends infuse coffee hour and
other community events with the
nurture of friendship. But fellowship
is evident throughout the week,
not least every Wednesday, when
parishioners gather for Cathedral
Nite. Parishioners arrive at 5 p.m. or
so in the parish hall and congregate
in twos and threes, with coffee, while
volunteers set up tables. A 5:30 p.m.
Eucharist in Saint Martins Chapel
precedes the blessing and supper,
when tables fill with parishioners.
The parish survey found that this
ministry of nurturing, one of our core
values, could be strengthened. The
welcome and integration coordinator
organizes social events by ministry
interest and demographic. But just
as Jesus disciples struggled with the
definition of neighbor, we too need
more discernment around whom we
welcome and how we welcome them.
(See pp. 21 for a fuller discussion of
the 2014 parish survey.)

Cathedral Nite and the

Kitchen Crew
On most Wednesdays
during the program year
a fellowship of cooks and
kitchen helpers convenes
in the Saint Johns kitchen.
Their mission? Prepare a
Cathedral Nite supper for as
many as 150 souls attending
formation classes that
night. This midweek kitchen
ministry is an entry point for
a number of newcomers.
The group is organized by
the lead cooks, who plan,
shop, and coordinate their
food-prep and cooking teams.
Lead cooks mostly learn on
the job. The Nursery is open,
so young parents are able
to join us. People bring their
joys. Sorrows are shared.
Food is on the buffet table
by 6:15 p.m., and everyone,
including the children, sits
down to eat together. Then
its time for
classes and,
finally, cleanup.

FORMATION FOR ADULTS

In addition to offering
an adult formation hour
on Sunday mornings (the
Deans Forum, which has
been thronged this year),
clergy and lay leaders also
offer Education for Ministry
(EfM), book clubs, parish
retreats, and instruction on
scripture, prayer, and the
Christian life throughout the
year, usually at our midweek
Cathedral Nite. The recent
resurgence of interest in
teaching was foreshadowed
in the 201415 program year,
when we together read
and studied The Story
during the week to discuss
on Sunday at the Deans
Forum. Our parish hall was packed every Sunday and tables
hummed with conversation and excitement.
Saint Johns also has a well-loved library stocked with
more than 4,500 books. It is open weekdays and Sunday
morning and has a number of works on church history,
prayer, spiritual life, the Bible, other religions, and art and
architecture. It is a quiet place to study and meditate as well.
We have recently offered a series of three- to six-week
classes, with two or three class options. We also offer a
Catechumenate program for adults preparing for Baptism,
Confirmation, or Reception that runs September to May.
Combined attendance for the Sunday and Wednesday
programs is between 250 to 300 adults.
A number of fellowship groups offer church-based
activities by demographic (see them in the text box,

Formation
All-parish, womens, and
youth retreats
Catechumenate
Cathedral Camp
Cathedral Nite formation
classes
Deans Forum
Education for Ministry (EfM)
Godly Play
Nursery
Sunday School, children and
youth
Fellowship
Cathedral Kitchen Crew

below). These include an

annual all-parish retreat at
Cathedral Ridge, the camp
and conference center of
The Episcopal Church in
Colorado. See cathedralridge.
org

FORMATION FOR CHILDREN

Younger children,
preschoolers, and kids
(K3d grade) are taught
in small sections through
Godly Play, a curriculum
that reveals God inviting
us into, and pursuing us in
the midst of, scripture and
spiritual experience. Godly
Play sessions are offered
SOWhAT Mural
on Sunday mornings and
Wednesday afternoons.
This is an important subcommunity at Saint Johns.
SOWhAT (Stories, Outreach, Wonder, Arts, & Theology)
is a program for fourth- and fifth-graders that was
developed at Saint Johns. It builds on the Godly Play
stories, helping children to respond artistically and
understand themselves as part of the parish community.
The children engage in service and create legacy projects.
Concurrent with the Liturgy of the Word during the 9
a.m. Sunday Eucharist, children ages three through grade
3 may attend Childrens Chapel, which offers a lesson and
an age-appropriate homily, a modified Creed, and Prayers
of the Children. Many children stay with their parents for
the adult service. The others rejoin their parents in the
cathedral shortly after the Peace to take part in worship
with the rest of the community.

Cathedral Nite
14th & Clarkson
(intergenerational)
Saint Marthas Guild
SOAR (Seniors on a Rampage)
20s & 30s
Wilderness Community
Health & Wellness ministries
Blood-pressure screening/
Parish Nurse
Living Compass courses
Recovery groups
Saint Lukes Health/Wellness
Fair
Pastoral Care

Blessings for newborns and

families
Cathedral Bakers
Clergy home communion
visits
Grief groups
Lay Eucharistic Visitors
Nursing-home masses
Pastoral counseling
24-hour emergency pastoral
on-call priest

19

Children and Youth Formation

Through Singing and Music Education
The formation of children and
youth lies at the heart of the choir
school at Saint Johns. They are
formed as Christians through
singing and education. They read
scripture and theological texts.
They learn to deal with failures and
success. They learn to strive for
excellence, together.
An adaptation of the RSCM
training scheme teaches young
singers to use their voices and
gradually master music theory.
Through their increasing mastery of
skills and knowledge, the children
grow in confidence and the esteem
of their fellow singers. They are
valued as contributing members of
the community.

FORMATION FOR YOUTH

On Sunday mornings, middleschool youth transition to discussionand activity-based learning about
God, with an emphasis on communal
and personal rules of life. High-school
youth engage in separate discussions
that address questions of faith, the
Bible, and Episcopal identity and
prepare them to leave home for
college. Our bishop confirms youth
aged 15 years and older. In recent
years we have merged preparation
for Confirmation with our regular
Sunday formation.
One of our strongest programs for
children and youth is Cathedral Camp,
offered every summer for a week
at Cathedral Ridge, the camp and
conference center of The Episcopal
Church in Colorado. Cathedral Camp
hosts up to 65 children, in addition
to the approximately 20 youth who
serve as junior and senior counselors.
Cathedral Camp has been called
a magical week when reality is
suspended and some of the best
conversations of our lives take place.
Many of our teens stay engaged at
Saint Johns because of Cathedral
Camp. This is a week that builds
20

community and involves children in

daily prayer.
Recent listening sessions with
members of the youth group
revealed their desire that church
be a safe place for young people
to talk about the hard stuff of life.
They want clergy who are there for
them no matter what. And they
want recurring service opportunities.
In the past few years Saint Johns
has responded by offering more
mission trips and participating more
in diocesan mission and retreat
activities. The youth describe these
as valuable experiences, and they

have expressed a desire for increased

funding and staffing for mission trips,
pilgrimages, diocesan retreats, and
youth programming.

Pastoral Care
We are called as Christians to visit
with our neighbors and members
who are ill, convalescing, or elderly.
We have 17 Lay Eucharistic Visitors
(LEVs) who take up some of this work.
After reviving a moribund program in
2010, a lay leader administers it still,
with clergy oversight. We are able to
bring communion once a month to
our parishioners in need.

RESPECTING
TO HONOR THE DIGNITY OF
ALL PERSONS AND EMBRACE
DIVERSITY AS ESSENTIAL TO
THE BODY OF CHRIST.

SPIRITUAL INVENTORY OF A DIVERSE

CONGREGATION
In the fall of 2013, Saint Johns
began to discuss the need to commit
the congregation to an exploration of
its spiritual practices. Leaders found
RenewalWorks, a planning tool that
provided a process for:
Assessing the spiritual vitality
of a congregation;
Training a task force of
congregational leaders to
interpret the results;
Examining the life of the congregation
in light of the survey results to
determine how better to meet
congregants spiritual needs; and

Challenging the congregation to

support its spiritual health through
practices such as regular worship,
study of scripture, personal prayer,
and service to people in need.
The inventory went live two years
ago and garnered a response rate of
more than half the congregation51
percent, or 350 members. Large
congregations generally have
response rates of 20 percent.
During the weeks-long process, the
congregation hummed with energy,
some of it critical, as respondents
observed that the survey language
was suited more for an evangelical
megachurch. With the excellent
response rate, however, lay leaders
persisted in forming a strong
community. They shared their faith
stories and trained together to
analyze the data coming in.

What We Mean When We Say Diversity

Saint Johns is a church like no other. It is a church
like any other. It attracts different people seeking
different things. In our Sunday bulletin, we say we are a
Community of Communities.
This range of people and interests is a kind of
diversity. Does it make us stronger? We dont know.
Does it make us more interesting? Certainly. Some
of us participate in a number of church-based social
activities on top of our regular attendance. Others
come only on Sunday, attend their service, and leave
immediately afterwards. Still others pursue their faith
more deeply through study, prayer, or service, and
sometimes all three. Some experience their faith
through our choral music. Others come for the clouds
of incense and rising chantexperiencing with their
senses the beauty of the divine presence. Others see
smoke and head for the door, coughing and muttering
into their handkerchiefs.
We wrangle about liturgical issues, and we come from
a number of different placesspiritually, income levels,
and neighborhoods. Some of us live on Capitol Hill and

walk to church, while others drive in from their suburban

homes. We have parishioners whose great-great
grandparents worshiped at the first cathedral. The present
writer is one of those parishioners. Others are new to
the Christian faith and to church and were baptized last
Easter. Some folks speak up boldly and expect to be heard.
They sit on the vestry and hold powerful committee posts.
Some sit in the back pews, say little, and expect not to be
heard when they do speak.
We all want to worship, though, in this beautiful
cathedral in its scruffy neighborhood among an
interesting congregation.
For as in one body we have many members, and
not all the members have the same function, so we,
who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually
we are members one of another. We have gifts that
differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in
proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher,
in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in
generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in
cheerfulness. Romans 12:48
21

Saint Johns has a spiritually young

congregation, according to the
inventorys continuum for spiritual
development. Nearly 20 percent of
the cathedrals members said they
were exploring a life with God, while
nearly 60 percent responded that
they were growing that life. Nineteen
percent of the respondents said
they were deepening their life with
God, while only 4 percent of the
congregation replied that God was at
the center of their lives. In short, 77
percent of the respondents said they
were in the earliest stages of their
faith journeysexploring or growing
their lives with God.
It may be important to note, in
this context, that it was not clear to
the congregation how these terms
were developed and statistically
normed for this particular inventory
of our spiritual practices. In other
words, our data may not mean quite
the same thing as in an evangelical
congregation. For example, exploring
may not be associated with quite the
same spiritual profile when applied
to Episcopalians, where challenging
authority and being encouraged to
question are seen as spiritual and
personal strengths. Maybe were not
young Christians at all. Perhaps we
see exploring as a sign of spiritual
maturity.
In any event, the inventory
determined scores across a dozen
beliefs and attitudes on faith. In 9 of
the 12 categories, the percentage of
those at Saint Johns who strongly
agreed with the listed beliefs and
attitudes was below the norm for
The Episcopal Church. For example,
according to the matrix, strong
agreement with the phrase, I
am willing to risk everything that
is important in my life for Jesus
Christ, is considered the best
indicator of spiritual health. Only 10
percent of Saint Johns respondents
expressed strong agreement with this
statement.

22

The 80 Percent Challenge:

Basic Christian Formation
We have said this elsewhere, but there is emphasis in
repetition: Our new dean will need to be an accomplished
teacher of basic Christianity. We need help, too, in
developing a culture of listening, encounter, and dialogue
as a way of being better and more loving Christians.
This was clear from the listening sessions during
the fall of 2015, which revealed a church terrain with
significant obstacles to conversation, only some of the
difficulties rooted in the size of the congregation. A real
obstacle to conversation is the lack of basic knowledge
of our Christian faith. When nearly 80 percent of
respondents in a parish survey say they are in the
earliest stages of their faith, then we have a significant
teaching and formation challenge.10
The good news is that the congregation has
demonstrated a hunger for learning, as evidenced by
its recent and doting attendance at the Sunday adult
formation hour (the Deans Forum), where our interim
dean has this past year taught basic Christian doctrine
(for example, on baptism and the Eucharist) and
Anglican history and liturgy.
We hope, in fact, that this season of discernment
and transition will continue under our new dean with
a continued and sustained period
of teaching and learning, and
help to inaugurate a new culture
at the cathedral enjoining the
congregation to a new culture
of encounter, dialogue, and
transformation.

Respondents expressed
dissatisfaction with the following
areas at Saint Johns:
Helping me feel like I belong.
Helping me in my time of emotional
need.
Church leaders modeling and
reinforcing how I can grow
spiritually.
Prioritizing my spiritual growth over
my church membership.
Church leaders being authentic
about their own struggles.
The respondents expressed
satisfaction with the following
statements about Saint Johns:
Encouraging me to be respectful
and welcoming to people of other
faith traditions.
Engaging me in the sacraments in
ways that help me grow spiritually.
Providing liturgy that encourages
encounter with God in worship.
Providing liturgy and music that
feeds my spirit.
Providing worship that is

LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, TRANS, AND

QUEER (LGBTQ) INCLUSION
Saint Johns affirms and welcomes
laity and clergy who identify as
LGBTQ, embracing their full inclusion
as members of Christs Body and
sharers in Christs eternal priesthood.
The road to full inclusion at Saint
Johns has a more than 30-year
history, dating to the late 1970s with
the acceptance of openly gay and
lesbian individuals as members, and
to some degree as couples. During

challenging and thought-provoking.

In their self-assessments, members
talked about wanting to root
themselves in a relationship with
Jesus Christ and with one another to
study scripture and to cultivate skills
to help them think more theologically
through both action and reflection.
The following programmatic shifts
were undertaken to support the
congregations spiritual growth:

Large-group study
Outreach (Faith in Action)
Personal spiritual practices
Small-group study

In addition, the All-Parish Weekend,

held at Cathedral Ridge every August,
now focuses on one spiritual theme.
In 2014 retreat-goers focused on
prayer; forgiveness was the theme
in 2015. The arrival of the heritage
edition of The Saint Johns Bible
in 2014 gave the parish a yearlong
opportunity to encounter the
Bible in imaginative ways. There
were workshops on manuscript
illumination. Seeing the Word

the 1990s, the then-dean encouraged

LGBTQ members and friends to help
raise awareness of their presence and
ministry in the church. The ensuing,
facilitated dialogue spurred on the
process toward full inclusion. There
were setbacks and recalibration
following the consecration of Bishop
Gene Robinson, when Saint Johns
leadership assumed a more cautious
approach to building a base for
full inclusion. Since the turn of the
21st century, however, Saint Johns
has consolidated its policies of full

visio divina studies were held on

Cathedral Nite (Wednesday) and
after the Sunday night Wilderness
worship service. Saint Johns also
reencountered scripture in a
parishwide study of The Story at the
Deans Forum, an undertaking that
routinely packed the parish hall. Finally,
responding to the expressed need for
greater engagement in outreach, the
parish added a missioner-in-residence
to develop the Faith-in-Action ministry
of service and Christian formation.

inclusion. LGBTQ individuals are

active in a variety of Saint Johns
ministries. They serve in leadership
positions as clergy, committee chairs,
and members of the vestry, and they
are now married in the cathedral in
accordance with the laws of the State
of Colorado.
The congregation could
nevertheless benefit from greater
awareness around its majority-culture
assumptions about people who are
more fluid in expressing their gender
or cultural identities.

23

RECONCILING
TO SEEK COMMON GROUND
WITH EACH OTHER AND WITH
THOSE OF OTHER FAITHS AND
WORK TOWARD A SOCIETY OF
JUSTICE WHERE GODS LOVE IS
REFLECTED IN THE HEALING AND
RESTORING OF RELATIONSHIPS.

INTERFAITH INITIATIVES
The mission of The Abrahamic
Initiative (AI) is to foster mutual
understanding and appreciation
among Abrahamic faith traditions
through education, dialogue, and
action. It was founded in the spring of
2001 by parishioners who noted the
isolation of Denvers growing Muslim
community, while the cathedrals
once-strong friendship with the
Jewish communities had frayed.
After 9/11 the program was therefore
positioned to convene adherents and
religious leaders from the three faith
traditions for dialogue, advocacy, and
good works.
AI became a resource not only
to Denver but also to statewide
organizations, then nationally
and internationally as religious
communities, nonprofits, and
government leaders began to ask
AI leaders for help in developing
programs in their own communities.
With time it was agreed that an
interreligious steering committee,
rather than cathedral staff and
parishioners, should assume AIs
leadership. The program flourished,
and the steering committee
appointed an imam to serve as
its first director. Major Denver

24

foundations funded the work of AI,

which also attracted new parishioners
because of our leadership in this
area. In view of the sometimeshateful rhetoric surrounding religious
identity and recent immigrants,
Saint Johns is investigating ways
to reconnect parishioners with the
work of the Abrahamic Initiative. See
abrahamicinitiative.org to learn more.

ADVOCACY
Reconciliation involves doing what
is just and what is right, says our
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, and
reordering the way we live together
so that none has need. . . .
A group of parishioners has been
meeting to see how Saint Johns might
make reconciliation, advocating what
is just and right, a part of the parishs
faith practice. The groups discernment
involves study, prayer, and community
conversations, led in part by the
missioner-in-residence. The group
has marched as a parish in Colorados
annual Martin Luther King Jr. Parade,
which in Denver is called The Marade,
attended advocacy-group meetings,
and taken part in interfaith actions.
Saint Johns could accomplish many
things through a more active ministry
of advocacy, including the deepening of
our faith; renewing our sense of urgency
about the need for justice, engagement,
and hope; addressing systemic problems
in Colorado; empowering lay leaders;
and partnering with other parishes,
churches, and interfaith groups. Finally,
we could develop a greater awareness
of our social location as a people of, for
the most part, privilege.

RECONCILING IN A TIME OF TRANSITION

Our catechism states that the
mission of the Church is to restore
all people to unity with God and each
other in Christ (BCP, 855). Our interim
dean, The Very Rev. Dr. Patrick Malloy,
has exemplified the call to restore
the community to unity with God,
accomplishing this through pastoral
presence, thoughtful conversation,
and teaching focused on the
fundamentals of the faith. We have not
always had the opportunity, at Saint
Johns, to engage in community-wide
conversations regarding our common
life and our spiritual lives. Imagine
lifting the lid off a steaming pot of
water and watching the escaping,
rising energy. You have imagined Saint
Johns over the past year. During that
time we have move toward each other
with more compassion. Our interim
dean has focused us on the basics of
our faith: baptism, liturgical practice,
and the theology of the Eucharist.
With teaching and through facilitated
conversations, the congregation
has practiced being in conversation,
practiced respectful disagreement,
and asked questions arising from
genuine curiosity. By revisiting the
fundamentals of our Christian
faith in the Episcopal tradition, the
congregation is coming to master a
common lexicon. With this shared
language, working with our next
dean, we believe we might continue
to recognize Christ in one another,
joyfully, in spite of, and through, our
differences.

Denver, Colorado.
The view from
City Park.

DENVER AND CAPITOL HILL

CALLED THE MILE-HIGH CITY
AND QUEEN CITY OF THE
PLAINS, DENVER, TO THE
PEOPLE OF SAINT JOHNS
CATHEDRAL, IS SIMPLY HOME.
AND IT IS BOOMING.11

At first a forlorn supply town to

the gold camps in the mountains, a
days ride west, Denver has grown to
be more than a frontier depot, more
than a state capital, and more than a
place to spend the night before the
family camping trip in the mountains.
Denver is the regions supply town for
arts and entertainment, the hub for
government, commerce, bio-tech, oil
and gas, education, and, of course,
urban-ag innovation rooted in a legal,
billion-dollar cannabis industry filling
the citys tax coffers.
Denvers sunny economy has been
brightening U.S. business news for the
past few years:
Colorado hit bottom in the mid80s when energy prices collapsed.
Nearly a third of the office space in
downtown Denver, the states oil-andgas headquarters, sat empty. Many of
the citys cultural institutions teetered,
and a cloud of brown smog smeared
the horizon. Now the brilliant blue

skyline is punctuated with red cranes,

and Denvers soundtrack includes the
steady thrum of power drills operated
by hard-hatted construction workers
who are putting up office buildings
and housing at a feverish pace. . . .
What Denver and its surrounding
cities share with other boomtowns
is an appealing environment for
a skilled workforce, which has
increasingly meant the difference
between prosperity and stagnation.12
Integral to Denvers history and
identity, Saint Johns is many things
to the city: cool Gothic structure,
neighborhood chapel, host for state
funerals. Dogs chase balls on the
shaded lawns, people sit quietly,
remembering the departed interred
at All Souls Walk. Others hurry into
their recovery groups, retrieve their
CSA shares (Community-Supported
Agriculture), attend $5 yoga classes,
go to free concerts, run into friends,
and make new ones. Despite city
ordinances that ban camping on
sidewalks and private property, and
our own cathedral security protocols,
the Saint Johns lawns are also home
to impromptu encampments of
people who are homeless.

The City and County of

Denver has a diverse ethnic
population including 11.1%
African American; 31.7%
Hispanic; 2.8% Asian and
1.3% Native American.
Metro Denver has an ethnic
population of 5% Black; 18%
Hispanic; 3% Asian; 1% Native
American and 3% multiracial.
(See hometodenver.com/
stats_denver.htm)

25

A message chalked on the east wall

of the Roberts Building, perhaps after
a spigot people were using to shower
with was deactivated.

26

The campus sits on nearly two

city blocks, called Cathedral Square
(bounded to the south by 13th Ave.
and the north by 14th) and Cathedral
Square North bounded to the north
by Colfax (15th) Ave. and by 14th Ave.
to the south. The Office of the Bishop
and the cathedral complex occupy
Cathedral Square. The Wartburg
West Apartments sit at the southeast
corner of Cathedral Square North.
The St. Francis Center Apartments
will rise from the parking lot along
Washington Street; Slice Works Pizza
and Argonaut Liquors front on Colfax.
Saint Johns is located on historic
Capitol Hill, in 2015 ranked one of the
ten most beautiful neighborhoods
in the United States.13 Extending
east from the steps of the state
capitol building, just five blocks
away, the neighborhood includes
state government office buildings,
coffee shops and diners, grocery
stores, apartment buildings, Victorian
mansions, halfway houses, and
restaurants, and, of course, the tattoo
parlors, liquor stores, comedy clubs,
strip joints, and entertainment venues

along Colfax., a block north of Saint

Johns. Also known as U.S. Route
40, Colfax is said to be the longest
continuous commercial street in the
United States, celebrated in Jack
Kerouacs On the Road.
Mixed in with the old Denver are
newly arrived Millennials who have
brought a hipster arts-and-culture
vibe to the neighborhood. There
is also blight and suffering. In 2012
the City Council passed a camping
ban that criminalized homelessness,
mentioned above. The offenders
were moved east, away from the
16th Street pedestrian mall where
they were close to service providers.
Saint Johns and our neighbors on
Capitol Hill have had to accept the
brunt of this movement of people.
Tensions in the congregation, and the
neighborhood, have grown around
the need for Saint Johns to be a safe
place for those who worship, work,
and serve at the cathedral while
being welcoming and inclusive
of all, including our neighbors who
have been dispossessed of nearly
everything.

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN COLORADO

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN

COLORADO HAS 114 WORSHIPING
COMMUNITIES COMPRISING
30,000 ACTIVE MEMBERS.

We take our call to God through

Jesus Christ seriously, with joy and
curiosity, exploring the truth of
our faith in community, together
proclaiming that:
We are followers of Jesus in our
lives, every day.
We are here to bring the Kingdom
of God to the complex and
uncertain world.
We look for common ground from
our different places on a common
spiritual path.
We are open to and we welcome
differences in their many
manifestations; we stand, as Jesus
would, with the world.
Our way is discipleship,
servanthood, and proclamation.
Being Episcopalian means being
engaged with each other in love.
It does not mean we agree on
everything or are perfect in every
way. We dont agree on everything,
and were not perfect.

Presiding Bishop Michael

Curry tells us:
We are part of the Jesus
Movement, and he has
summoned us to make
disciples and followers of all
nations and to transform this
world by the power of the
Good News, the gospel of
Jesus. I dont care who you
are, how the Lord has made
you, what the world has to
say about you. If youve been
baptized into Jesus, youre
in the Jesus Movement and
youre Gods.
What if you dont call
yourself a Jesus follower? We
welcome you here to explore,
participate, learn, and grow.
Your formation matters to
us. Although discipleship to
Jesus defines who we are, we
welcome everyone to join in the
conversation and the journey.

THE RT. REV. ROB ONEILL,

TENTH BISHOP OF COLORADO
The Right Reverend Robert (Rob)
J. ONeill came to Saint Johns in
June 1982, where he was ordained
a transitional deacon. In December
of that year he was ordained as a
priestalso at the cathedral, which is
now his seat. He served here for 10
years as canon educator before being
called as rector to the Parish of the
Epiphany in Winchester, Mass.
ONeill is the tenth bishop of The
Episcopal Church in Colorado. Elected
as Colorados bishop coadjutor on
June 21, 2003, he was consecrated on
October 4, 2003.
During ONeills tenure as bishop,
The Episcopal Church in Colorado
has established a number of Jubilee
Ministries, the Congregational
Development Institute, two chapters
of the Colorado Episcopal Service
Corps (Denver and Steamboat
Springs), and a disaster preparedness
and recovery office.
Bishop ONeill was the driving force
in 2011 behind the acquisition of
Cathedral Ridge, the churchs camp and
conference center in the mountains
near Pikes Peak. A capital campaign will
fund its development and expansion.
Most of the cathedrals summer
programs take place at Cathedral Ridge.

27

OUR HOPES FOR THE

TENTH DEAN
AT SAINT JOHNS CHURCH IN
THE WILDERNESS WE BELIEVE
JESUS CHRIST IS THE SON OF
GOD AND THAT HE ROSE FROM
THE DEAD AND THAT HE OFFERS
US NEW LIFE NOW AND THE
PROMISE OF RESURRECTION.
FOR TO BELIEVE OTHERWISE,
AS SAINT PAUL TELLS US,
WOULD MEAN WE ARE OF ALL
PEOPLE MOST TO BE PITIED
(1 CORINTHIANS 15:19). WE FULLY
EXPECT THAT OUR NEW DEAN
WILL PREACH THE FULLNESS OF
THIS LIFE-CHANGING TRUTH.

In our listening and praying during

the transition, we learned that the
congregation is craving spiritual
leadership, a pastor who will guide us
to a clearer, deeper understanding
of our baptismal covenant and a
stronger commitment to living that
covenant among ourselves and in
the world beyond the parish walls. We
need our next dean to be primarily
a parish priest and then the dean of
the cathedral. We expect that the next
dean will see how these two roles can
nourish each other. We need our next
rector (and dean) to be ambitious for
us and for our formation into mature
Christians. Our next dean will be kind
to everyonekind to themselves, kind
to their staff, and kind to the volunteer
in the hallway. It is a long hallway.
The next dean will enjoy working with
our bishop and engage with civic and
religious leaders, working to promote
mercy, justice, and reconciliation.

28

We have significant financial

challenges, which we describe
elsewhere in the Profile (see pp. 33).
The next dean will therefore need to
have embraced stewardship as part
of their ministry and will possess
experience with leading a capital
campaign. The next dean will want
to work with the canon steward
to raise these monies annually
and to help secure major gifts for
capital-improvement projects. And
the next dean will have to work
with the vestry and staff to exhort
parishioners to increase their giving.
Asking for increased giving is at root
the work of relationship.
To thrive as a leader at Saint Johns,
our next rector (and dean) will have and
demonstrate a well-developed sense of
self and have and be accountable to a
spiritual director. We have heard from
the congregation that it desires a rector
(and dean) who both likes and knows
how to plan and delegate. This means
knowing how to assemble and bring
out the best in a team.
The next dean will be skilled at
hosting safe, loving conversations
that yield growing relationships
and growing Christians, even when
those conversations are difficult. The
next dean will have done personal,
spiritual, and emotional work. The
next dean will be able to demonstrate
success in bringing together a diverse
community of believers, fostering
individual and personal spiritual
growth, and helping to build a stronger
community of faithful Christians.
The next dean may find it
necessary to address our need for
congregational formation, which

is to say that the worshipers at

our three morning services, along
with the Wilderness congregation,
manage to avoid each other. Its
nothing intentional and is perhaps
the inevitable sprawl of a large
congregation. But we do not seem to
have a common language or shared
iconology. And so we are what we
say we are in our Sunday bulletin, A
Community of Communities, rather
than a congregation with a clear,
shared identity.
Most of all, we want our next dean
to be present with us, placing the
needs of the parish and its people
above a desire to be active in the
broader church. This is not to say the
tenth dean of the cathedral will not or
cannot be connected to the broader
church. Rather, we believe the next
dean will know how to strike a balance
between being present with us and
being connected, elsewhere. We
recognize that this balance may shift
with time. What is right in the first
year of the next deans ministry may
not be right in the tenth year of their
ministry. We will find the right balance
with experience and dialogue.
Finally, our next dean will have the
gift of priestly leadershippossessing
that ability to call together a diverse
body of the faithful so they hear and
respond to the Word of God and offer,
with joyfulness and hope, their own
gifts. Our longing is that our many gifts
can be paired with Gods great offering
in Christ and consecrated for the
feeding and service of the holy people
of God who are everywhere around us.

St. Johns Church

OUR RECTORS AND DEANS:

A SHORT HISTORY
THE CONGREGATION HAS
CALLED NINE DEANS SINCE
BISHOP JOHN FRANKLIN
SPALDING DECLARED SAINT
JOHNS A CATHEDRAL CHURCH
IN 1879. IN 1860 THE DENVER
FLOCK HAD NO CATHEDRAL,
NO BISHOP, AND NO DEAN.
ON JANUARY 29, 1860, THESE
VENTURESOME EPISCOPALIANS
HAD ONLY A LOG CABIN IN
WHICH TO WORSHIP, EACH
OTHER, SOME PRAYER BOOKS,
AND A SHARP-FACED PARISH
PRIEST WHO HAD JUST
STEPPED OFF A STAGECOACH.
HE WAS JOHN H. KEHLER, OF
SHARPSBURG, MARYLAND,
FATHER OF THE COUNTY
SHERIFF.

Surveying the High Plains to the

east and the Rocky Mountains to the
west, vestry members agreed their
new church would be Saint Johns in
the Wilderness, meaning John the
Baptist. Nineteen years later, when
the bishop incorporated his system
as the Bishop and Chapter of the
Cathedral of Saint John, Spalding
substituted John the Evangelist,
placing H. Martyn Hart as the dean in
charge of the chapter. To this day the
congregations patronal saint remains
John the Baptist. John the Evangelist
is the cathedral chapters saint.
Hart drew up plans for a
Romanesque Revival cathedral, by
most accounts the third or fourth

Dean H. Martyn Hart

Episcopal cathedral to be built in

the United States. Hart recalled in
his memoirs how Eastern Clergy
disparaged the cathedral as a piece
of impudence, and for years Hart was
the bemused recipient of scornful,
unsolicited mail from American
clerics, including bishops, he wrote
in his memoirs. Denver clergy from
Emmanuel and Trinity Memorial,
neither of them self-sustaining, piled
on, rejecting the bishops vision for
a cathedral system. Bishop Spalding
had envisioned all Denver clergy
serving as cathedral canons. They
spurned the dean as well. They
were in no mood to take the slightest
direction from me, Hart recalled.14
These conflicts were rooted in
notions of power and independence,
not whether liturgies were high church
or low church or broad church or
skinny church. Bishop Spalding, a
high churchman, and Dean Hart,
an Englishman and member of the
Evangelical wing of the Anglican church,
were practical men.15 The bishop wanted
a cathedral system for its organizing
power. He saw the need for stronger
episcopal oversight throughout the
church, particularly in a fractious
missionary district like his, encompassing
Colorado, Wyoming, and New Mexico.
Hart, for his part, had been called
to pastor a congregation that had
already raised money for a cathedral.
He would help them build one and
fold in any clergy who would be
canons to lead the Daily Office on
a rotation, to sit as canons in their
chancel stalls, and to help lead the
parish of Denver. At the time there

First St. Johns Cathedral fire

was no settled opinion as to what

a cathedral was, or as to what a
cathedral dean did, not to mention
a cathedral located in the Wild
West.16 With no chapter of canons
to lead as primus inter pares, Hart
focused on building the cathedral
his congregation wanted. The first
service was held on November 7, 1881.
Meanwhile, church planters went
on a spreebefore the Saint Johns
vestry was able to retire the building
debt. Three homeowners, not
wanting to walk the seven blocks to
the cathedral, lobbied the bishop
for a pretty stone church on their
block of Lincoln Street. The bishop
indulged them, and so Saint Marks
was built. Dean Hart recalls his
dismay: It has always appeared to
me to be reasonable never to build
a church in a neighborhood which
will not supply a congregation of
at least three hundred; a smaller
church under the most favorable
circumstances cannot adequately
support its pastor and must prove an
incubus on the Diocese.17
And so it happened that a number of
Episcopal parishes cluster in Denvers
first neighborhoods, close by Cherry
Creek. Many of these parishes survive
to this day. Saint Marks is now a
nightclub called The Church.
In 1903 arsonists burned the first
cathedral to the groundthe culprit
was never found. The congregation
rebuilt in the Gothic Revival style,
relocating the cathedral to Capitol
Hill, then Denvers most fashionable
neighborhood. The congregation
worships here today.
29

After the death of the Great Dean

in 1920, a period of uncertainty set
in, but in 1924 the congregation
called Benjamin Dagwell, and building
recommenced. The congregation
added a parish hall and an Arts &
Crafts jewel-box of a chapel called
Saint Martins. A decade later, after
Dagwell was elected bishop of
Oregon, the congregation called Paul
Roberts. Remembered as a preacher,
civic leader, and pastor, Roberts led
the congregation through the end
of the Depression and World War II
into the late 1950s. He oversaw the
installation of the Kimball organ and
the construction of the education
building, named for him. Parish rolls
grew to 3,000 members. Some recall
affectionately that the worship style
at the time and into the 1960s and
70s was lower than a snakes belly.
After Roberts retired in 1957, Dean
Herbert Barrall arrived to lead the
cathedral. The 1960s and 1970s brought
disaffection, felt deeply in Denver and
at Saint Johns. Longtime members
left their downtown neighborhoods,
decamped to suburban churches, or
stopped attending church altogether.
Dean Barrall was active in politics,
protesting among other things the

Vietnam war and segregation. Then

came the 66th General Convention
(1979), held, as it happens, in Denver.
On the last day of the convention,
delegates voted in favor of womens
ordination and a complete and historic
revision of the 1928 Book of Common
Prayer. The cascading disruptions
proved too much. Sunday attendance
plummeted, as it did in Episcopal
churches across the country.
In 1981 Donald S. McPhail was
called as dean. Our liturgy became
high church, in keeping with the
revisions of the Prayer Book, and the
congregation began to grow again,
along with a notable music program.
The appointment of a new canon
educator, Robert J. (Rob) ONeill, was
auspicious. Today ONeill is bishop of
Colorado (see pp. 27). The sudden
departure of Dean McPhail, who had
been a charismatic leader, caused
distress for the congregation, and the
effects reverberate to this day.
Arriving as the eighth dean of Saint
Johns in 1991, Charles E. Kiblinger
brought emphasis to formation and
instituted the Catechumenate. After
leading the congregation through a
major renovation and celebrating the
congregations 140th anniversary in

President Clinton visiting

the year 2000, Kiblinger accepted
a teaching position at Virginia
Theological Seminary.
In 2001 the congregation called
Peter Eaton as the cathedrals
ninth dean. Cathedral governance,
administration, and worship styles
underwent notable changes. Lay
worship leaders devised an alternative
Sunday evening Eucharist, called
The Wilderness, now emulated in a
number of Episcopal parishes. The
institution of Cathedral Nite five years
ago renewed programs of adult
fellowship and Christian formation,
while outreach ministries like the
Womens Homeless Initiative flowered
and worship space was extended to
the Sudanese Community Church.
Eaton was elected bishop coadjutor
of Southeast Florida in January 2015
and seated as bishop in January 2016.

Sunday School, circa 1954

30

First St. Lukes Hospital

EARLY WOMEN LEADERS OF

SAINT JOHNS
ONE COULD ASSUME FROM
READING THIS SHORT ACCOUNT
OF OUR DEANS (ABOVE) THAT
SAINT JOHNS IS THE SOLE
PRODUCT OF WHITE MEN,
MOST OF THEM LONG DEAD.
WERE SHE WITH US TODAY,
LAVINIA SPENCER SPALDING
(18401929) MIGHT RESPOND
IN HER STRONGEST POSSIBLE
LANGUAGE, NONSENSE!

The wife of our first bishop, Lavinia

would tell you about the women
of Saint Johns. Father Kehler and
Bishop Talbot would agree. They both
singled out for praise the women in
their frontier congregations. Writing
in his history of The Episcopal Church,
Robert Prichard notes that Talbots
first seven confirmands in Colorado
were all women. Father Kehler
reported that the most important
sources of financial support for his
parish [Saint Johns] was a group
of devout women always given to
good works who had secured $165
through a mite society.18
Although the 19th-century
engines of church finance and good
works, their husband on the vestry
mere figureheads,19 women were
nevertheless ineligible to vote in civic
elections, Lavinia would remind us,
until 1893. Nor were they allowed to
usher, serve as lectors, hold a chalice,
carry the offertory, or lead worship.

They could not preach or celebrate

the Eucharist. The women could
and did, however, raise families, run
households, care for the sick, comfort
the dying, take in orphans, hold teas,
incorporate societies, wield Roberts
Rules, and provide tuition to university
scholars. Dean Hart recalls the
generosity of one lady who put thirtyfour young men through college and
stayed in touch with each of them.20
The women could serve, persuade,
cajole, and bake. When hens were
donated to the hospital, and then a
cow, for fresh milk, the women had
a poultry house and then a pen built.
They raised funds, staged charity balls.
They are receptions, Lavinia would
say, not balls. They hired doctors
and supervised accounts, created
a school to credential nurses, and
then they ran a great hospital as full
members of the Board of Managers.
When Gilded Age homeowners on
Capitol Hill secured a city ordinance
against hospitals, decrying them as
a public nuisance, the Honorable
Moses Hallett, chief justice of the
Colorado Supreme Court and a
member of the parish, closed his
courtroom to argue the case in
Police Court. He won and the church
ladies prevailed. The morning after
the buildings cornerstone was laid,
to the indignation and dismay of
the hospital authorities, it was found
covered with black paint, the work
of vandals. The paint was removed,
Sarah Griswold Spalding recalls,
but showed for many years in the

letters.21 Saint Lukes Hospital was

built at 19th and Pearl, an intersection
that today still anchors Denvers
downtown healthcare infrastructure.
The women knew the demands
of their Christian faith and were not
averse to reminding the men of theirs.
The Saint Johns men once hesitated
to help the hospital with improvements,
saying there was no money. The
women had more initiative, Bishop
Spaldings daughter recalls:
Mrs. Henry Hanington was a very
active member of the Ladies Aid
Society and also its secretary, and at
the same time she was a member of
the [Saint Lukes] Board of Managers
and on its Executive Committee. The
Ladies were very eager to have some
needed improvement made but the
men did not think the hospital could
afford this expense. But at a dinner of
the Board one night Mrs. Hanington
brought up the subject again and in
answer to objections said, If each of
you here tonight would give a thousand
dollars, we would have the money.
This appeal struck a responsive note
and the needed money was subscribed
then and there.22
We must not yield to the
temptation, Lavinia wrote in 1924,
to dwell on the past. We must link
the past to the present, which is full
of opportunity for our work, and our
influence, and our money, believing
that as long as life lasts, we have our
part to do in building up the Kingdom
of Christs Righteousness on Earth.23

31

Organizations, Laws, and Movements

of the Cathedral Ladies
The Ladies Relief Society
The Ladies Hospital Aid Society
Visiting Nurses Association
Home for Old Ladies
The Craig Colony for
Consumptives
The Womens Christian
Association
Saint Lukes Hospital
The Denver Orphans Home
The Jacob Downing Home for
Aged Couples
The Charity Ball
(Saint Lukes annual fundraiser)
Charity Organization Society
[United Way, Denver]
Public Playgrounds
Matron in the City Jail
Prohibition
Child Labor Law
Beautiful City Parks
[the City Beautiful movement]
Parent-Teacher Organizations
Housewives Leagues
Eight-hour Laws for women
And now of course the Red
Cross work
This list is Lavinia Spaldings own,
taken from her Recollections and
Reflections: Denver 50 Years Ago.
Bishop John F. Spalding and Lavinia
Spalding Papers, WH738, Western
History Collection, The Denver Public
Library.

32

SAINT JOHNS CHURCH IN THE WILDERNESS

FINANCES AND DEMOGRAPHICS
In 2013 Saint Johns began a
seven-year strategic plan to invest in
its human capital, that is, its clergy
and senior staff. We spent much of
the previous five yearsfollowing the
Great Recession of 2008realigning
our staffing structure, believing it
was time to grow to meet increasing
demand for a mission-shaped church.
The only way to make this investment
was to run a budget deficit for
several years as the new clergy and
staff established relationships in the
parish, gained some traction with new
programming, and found new ways
to raise money. The expectation was
that membership growth, increased

Our strategic initiatives for 2016 are:

1. Buildings and Groundswe have
repairs that cannot wait. Our
Buildings and Grounds Standing
Committee will submit a prioritized
list of repairs and recommendations
to the vestry by June 30.
2. Employee Benefits and
Compensationa task force has
been assigned to devise a plan that
balances the compensation and
benefits we must offer to attract the
best clergy and staff available with
what we can afford. The Personnel
Committee is working with the task
force and will have recommendations
to vestry by June 30.
3. Cathedral Staffing Structurethe
interim dean, senior warden, and the
Personnel Committee are working
on the optimal staffing levels for the
cathedral. The vestry will review their
recommendations by June 30.

pledging, and improved fundraising

would increase our income and
offset the additional costs. Although
some of this did happen, expenses,
many of which were unexpected,
mushroomed, and by 2015 we knew
our plan needed revisions.
We have a strong Finance Committee
that works well with the vestry. They
agree as to the serious nature of
the deficit and the need to properly
address it and return to an annual net
surplus. With discernment and prayer,
we developed a set of five strategic
initiatives, which Saint Johns believes
will yield a reasoned and sensible path.
This multifaceted approach encourages
us to continue the positives but
manage the negatives.

4. Revenue GrowthWe are trying

to identify new revenue streams
and opportunities for increased
giving. The vestry will review the
recommendations not later than
September.
5. Strategic Matching of Mission and
Resourcesthe senior warden and
several members of the vestry are
reviewing our current offerings and
will create a process for evaluating
all that we do in terms of time,
talent, and treasure in relation
to our mission. The information
and findings will be discussed
throughout the year.
Below is a 12-month budget for
2016, although spending has been
approved only through June 30 to
ensure we are on target to meet
expense reductions. We have begun
to address the deficit, reducing it by
$62,000 in the middle of an ecclesial
transition.

33

BALANCE SHEET
Operating Fund

Fixed Assets

CSBT Checking Accounts

(151,478)

CSBT Restricted Savings

CSBT Clergy Discretionary Checking Account

Petty Cash

Temp. Restricted

Total All

Columbarium

Fund

Endowments

(58,387)

39,870

294,445

106,064

230,514

87,805

87,805

16,304

16,304

1,500

1,500

25,568

800

26,368

(108,106)

(58,387)

39,870

383,050

106,064

362,491

ASSETS
CASH

Deposits in Transit

TOTAL CASH

INVESTMENTS
Colorado Episcopal Foundation

76,784

468,647

545,431

76,784

468,647

545,431

Accounts Receivable

50,000

Total Net Capital Campaign Pledges Received

44,121

261,591

76,784

468,647

545,431

TOTAL INVESTMENTS

RECEIVABLES

TOTAL INVESTMENTS

50,000
305,712

OTHER ASSETS
Prepaid Expenses

56,406

56,406

56,406

56,406

CSBT SJC Investment Account- Endowment

21,133,355

21,133,355

Accrued Interest and Income- Endowment

6,591

6,591

Cathedral Ridge

1,308,800

1,308,800

1,810,019

1,810,019

634,596

634,596

24,893,361

24,893,361

1,935,439

TOTAL OTHER ASSETS

ENDOWMENT ASSETS

Clergy Houses
External Endowment- Herzan A. Johnson Trust

TOTAL ENDOWMENT ASSETS

FIXED ASSETS
Land

1,935,439

2,863

10,108,393

10,111,256

3,800,979

3,800,979

2,863

15,844,811

15,847,674

27,947

15,880,545

39,870

1,113,288

24,999,425

42,061,075

Current Liabilities

110,363

12,766

50

123,179

Accrued Expenses

145,074

145,074

Buildings
Furniture, Fixtures, & Equipment

TOTAL FIXED ASSETS

TOTAL ASSETS
LIABILITIES AND NET ASSETS
LIABILITIES

Due to/ (Due From) Clarkson Corp

Note Payable- Line of Credit
Loan Payable- Wartburg (Kimberly Pipe Repair)

(1,957)

985,000

26,375

26,375

1,238,480

39,141

50

1,277,671

27,947

15,880,545

39,870

1,113,288

24,999,425

42,061,075

Beginning Balance with Current Year Adjustments

(365,063)

15,493,323

27,503

1,433,550

26,040,349

42,629,662

Total Net Surplus/ (Deficit)

(845,472)

348,082

12,317

(320,262)

(1,040,925)

(1,846,260)

TOTAL ENDING NET ASSETS

(1,210,535)

15,841,405

39,820

1,113,288

24,999,424

40,783,402

TOTAL LIABILITIES
TOTAL LIABILITIES AND NET ASSETS

34

(1,957)
985,000

OPERATING REVENUES AND EXPENSES

REVENUES
Pledges, Bequests and Other Contributions

2013-2016

2016 BUDGET

2015 PRE-AUDIT

2014 AUDITED

2013 AUDITED

1,566,750

1,523,579

1,489,474

1,399,996

Programs and Services

62,275

138,545

116,551

109,247

Investment

10,000

2,930

31,312

59,103

Other Revenue

90,540

138,935

252,807

130,162

1,210,928

1,157,637

1,113,110

1,054,118

221,775

163,248

174,599

202,423

TOTAL REVENUES

3,162,268

3,124,874

3,177,853

2,955,049

EXPENSES
Worship and Ministry

1,201,768

Endowment Draw
Funds Released from Restriction

1,314,845

1,541,662

1,291,831

Faith in Action and Outreach (1) (2)

216,295

209,302

282,823

330,493

Music

452,981

447,539

396,002

365,895
214,820

Christian Formation

224,910

205,552

209,710

Stewardship

227,259

303,932

267,516

45,014

Communications

257,983

134,802

170,241

135,596

Administration

526,174

502,905

567,599

498,445

Buildings and Grounds

725,595

624,651

491,571

495,591

TOTAL EXPENSES

3,946,042

3,970,345

3,677,293

3,287,622

BEGINNING NET ASSETS

(1,210,534)

(365,153)

144,740

477,313

NET SURPLUS/(DEFICIT)

(783,774)

(845,472)

(499,440)

332,573

TRANSFERS

91

(10,453)

(1,994,308)

(1,210,534)

(365,153)

144,740

1 - Direct Outside Organization Support

96,500

93,060

24,608

68,492

2 - Direct Family Assistance

25,000

16,785

33,295

45,514

ENDING NET ASSETS

STATEMENT OF ACTIVITIES for the period of January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2015
UNRESTRICTED

TEMPORARILY RESTRICTED

FIXED ASSETS

Temporarily
Restricted

Columbarium

1,523,579

179,928

138,545

2,930

Other Revenue

138,935

30,000

Endowment Draw

1,157,637

Funds Released from Restriction

163,248

TOTAL REVENUES

3,124,874

42,126

EXPENSES
Worship and Ministry

1,541,662

Faith in Action and Outreach (1) (2)

209,302

Music

447,539

447,539

Christian Formation

205,552

205,552

Stewardship

303,932

303,932

Communications

134,802

134,802

Administration

502,905

3,037

16,964

522,906

624,651

500

95

625,246

3,970,345

500

3,132

16,964

3,990,941

OPERATING FUND

REVENUES
Pledges, Bequests and Other Contributions
Programs and Services
Investment

Buildings and Grounds

TOTAL EXPENSES
TRANSFERS
BEGINNING NET ASSETS
ADJUSTMENTS TO NET ASSETS

Endowment

Total All Funds

1,700

1,705,207

138,545

(3,296)

108,677

108,311

9,937

13,750

192,622

(1,157,637)

12,126

(175,374)

11,195

15,450

(1,048,960)

2,144,685

1,541,662

209,302

(306,456)

331,456

(25,000)

(365,063)

15,493,323

1,447,594

27,503

26,040,349

42,643,706

(14,043)

(14,043)

NET SURPLUS/(DEFICIT)

(845,472)

348,082

(320,262)

12,317

(1,040,925)

(1,846,260)

ENDING NET ASSETS

(1,210,535)

15,841,405

1,113,288

39,820

24,999,424

40,783,402

35

APPENDIXES
WORSHIP SERVICES: A LIST
SUNDAY
7:45 a.m.: Rite 1: A simple, quiet,
said service with organ prelude and
hymns.
9: a.m.: Rite 2: A sung service that
offers the pageantry of a cathedral
service with full choirs, banners,
torches, bells, and occasional incense.
11:15 a.m.: Rite 1: A choral Eucharist
that offers the pageantry of a
cathedral service with full choirs,
banners, torches, bells, and occasional
incense.
3 p.m.: Monthly Evensong;
25-minute musical prelude
6 p.m.: The Wilderness, a
contemplative service
Summer: Two morning services are
offered in the summer: 7:45 a.m. and
10 a.m. Hospitality is offered on All
Souls Walk. The Wilderness is at 6
oclock in the evening.
WEEKDAY SERVICES
Noonday Office, MondayFriday,
Saint Martins Chapel
Daily Eucharist, MondayThursday,
5:30 p.m., Saint Martins Chapel;
a Wednesday morning (7 a.m.)
Eucharist is also celebrated.
Cathedral Nite (SeptemberMay)
5:30 p.m., a sung Rite 2 Eucharist
with incense
6:158:30 p.m. Supper,
Catechumenate, and Christian
education
8:30 p.m. Compline and Benediction

36

CATHEDRAL CHAPTER AND STAFF

SPECIAL SERVICES
Advent Lessons & Carols
Christmas Lessons & Carols
Christmas Eve 1 p.m., 3 p.m., 5 p.m.,
8 p.m., and 11 p.m.
Christmas Day 10 a.m.
Ash Wednesday 7 a.m., noon, 7 p.m.
Palm Sundayall Sunday services
Holy Monday
Holy Tuesday
Tenebrae
Maundy Thursday
Good Friday12 noon & 7 p.m.
The Great Vigil of Easter 7 p.m., with
brass & timpani
Easter Day7:30 a.m., 9 a.m., & 11:15
a.m., with brass & timpani
Spring (usually the first Sunday in
May) Kirkin o the Tartan 11:15 a.m.,
with Denver & District Pipe Band
Pentecost
Saint Johns Day
Saint Francis Day Blessing of the
Animals
All Souls Requiem mass
Thanksgiving mass

Patrick Malloy, interim dean

Liz Costello, curate
Jadon Hartsuff, canon
Robert Hendrickson, sub-dean
and canon
Elizabeth Marie Melchionna, canon

Stewardship
Charles LaFond, canon steward

Liturgy
Billy Baker, worship coordinator
Ian Thompson, worship assistant

Music
Alberto Guttierrez, music
administrator
Lyn Loewi, assistant organist
Stephen Tappe, organist and director

Christian Education
Kim McPherson, director

Facilities
Dalton Kreh, assistant manager
Phillip Moore, sexton
David Porterfield, sexton

Staff Support
Annie Croner, cathedral
administrator
Michelle Geurin, assistant to the
dean and canon steward
Kris Jenkins, business office
administrator
Seth Reese, interim communications
coordinator

201617 VESTRY
The Very Rev. Dr. Patrick Malloy,
interim dean
Tom Keyse, senior warden
Amy Davis, junior warden
Andrew Britton, treasurer
David Abbott, clerk
CLASS OF 2019 David Barr,
Neil Burris, Suni Devitt,
Elizabeth Springer
CLASS OF 2018 Andrew Britton,
Leigh A. Grinstead, Ned Rule,
Jane Schumaker
CLASS OF 2017 David Abbott,
Jack Denman, Tamra dEstre,
Mike McCall

DEAN SEARCH COMMITTEES

Scott Barker and Susan Chenier,
cochairs; David Abbott, David Ball,
Anna Pendleton, 2015 vestry liaisons;
David Barr, Timmy Case, Kathleen
DeMars, Barbara Gillett, Patti Howell,
Ann Jones, Tyler Mahan, Bill Murane,
Mark Queirolo, Angie Thomson,
committee members; Mary Laird
Stewart and Kris Stoever, scribes

Interview:
Diane Barrett and Jay Swope,
cochairs; Mike McCall, vestry liaison;
Larry Kueter, Lise Barbour, Jim East,
Jack Finlaw, Heidi Harris, John Lake,
Carolyn McCormick, Michael Vente,
committee members

Hospitality:
Brad Case and Sandy Mazarakis,
cochairs; Jack Denman, vestry
liaison; Leo Carosella, Margaret and

Michael Cawthra, Roz Greene, Abby

and Bill Humphrey, China Kent, Mike
Koechner, Laurie MacArthur, William
McMechen, Linda Paysinger, Susi
Tattersall, committee members

Integration:
Carolyn Daniels and Tom Stoever,
cochairs; Tamra dEstre and Beth
Springer, 2016 vestry liaisons; Sue
Abbott, Jen Courtney-Keyse, Newt
Klusmire, Pamela Kniss, committee
members

they stayed. Second, they asked what

traits parishioners wanted to see in the
new dean. In addition, they published
four questions in the Sunday bulletin
and the Cathedral Voice soliciting
replies. The questions overlapped
slightly with the focus-group questions:
Q1: Why is Saint Johns important to you?
Q2: What drew you to St. Johns; what keeps
you here?
Q3: What are your longings for St. Johns?

THE DEAN SEARCH LISTENING

SESSIONS, FALL 2015
The Profile Committee was
appointed in August 2015 and began
its work in September, after an
orientation given by the canon to the
ordinary. Comprising 20 parishioners,
broadly representative of the parish,
the committee was bolstered by three
vestry members and a cleric who
belongs to Saint Johns.
Listening sessions were held on two
Sundays following each of the four
services, on four Wednesday evenings
as a breakout session on Cathedral Nite,
and with nearly all of the cathedrals
interested constituencies and affinity
groups. The sessions were conducted
by two to three members of the Profile
Committeeone to lead the session
and another to take notes. The sessions
used skills from Art of Hosting and
some of the spiritual practices set out in
the book Grounded in God. Moderators
posed a two-part question to listening
session participants: (a) what brought
them to Saint Johns and (b) why had

Q4: What skills and gifts do you believe are

essential for the new dean? Please list up
to four qualities, one or two words each.
(Examples: able administrator, open heart,
learned teacher, guide and pastor.)
Finally, Profile Committee members
met to summarize the findings,
identifying six major categories of
challenges facing the cathedral. Saint
Johns faced needs, they said:
for transparency and truth-telling
for long-term lay engagement in
mission
for effective and sustained teaching
and communication
to commit time and treasure to
sustaining the building
for effective leadership and pastoral
care
to deal realistically with our financial
situation.
We have endeavored to treat
each of these challenges, which are
significant, in writing the Profile, above.

37

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND
USEFUL LINKS
Allen DuPont Breck, The Episcopal
Church in Colorado, 18601963
(Denver: Big Mountain, 1963).
Suzanne G. Farnham, Stephanie A.
Hull, and R. Taylor McLean, Grounded
in God: Listening Hearts Discernment
for Group Deliberations, rev. ed. (New
York: Morehouse, 1996).
Leigh A. Grinstead, Molly Browns
Capitol Hill Neighborhood (Denver:
Historic Denver, 1997).
Henry Martyn Hart, Recollections and
Reflections (New York: Gibb Bros. &
Moran, 1917).
Ann Lindou Jones, Glory in the
Wilderness: The Art of Saint Johns
Cathedral, Denver, Colorado, 19112011
(Winter Park, Colo.: Guest Guide, 2011).

38

John Howard Melish, Franklin Spencer

Spalding: Man and Bishop (New York:
MacMillan, 1917). The Rev. Melish
was rector of Holy Trinity Episcopal
Church, Brooklyn, New York.
Mustard Seeds blog, Saint Johns
Episcopal Cathedral, sjcathedral.org/
Serve/TheMustardSeedsBlog
Robert Prichard, A History of the
Episcopal Church, rev. ed. (Harrisburg,
Pa.: Morehouse, 1999).
Lavinia Spalding, Recollections and
Reflections: Denver 50 Years Ago.
Bishop John F. Spalding and Lavinia
Spalding Papers, WH738, Western
History Collection, The Denver Public
Library.
Sarah Griswold Spalding, A History
of Saint Lukes Hospital, typescript.
Bishop John F. Spalding and Lavinia
Spalding Papers, WH738, Western
History Collection, The Denver Public
Library.

Robert Irving Woodward, Saint Johns

Church in the Wilderness: A History
of Saint Johns Cathedral, 18602000
(Denver: Prairie, 2001).
Abrahamic Initiative,
abrahamicinitiative.org
Cathedral Ridge, camp and
conference center, cathedralridge.org
Community of the Cross of Nails
(Saint Johns Cathedral is a CCN
member), coventrycathedral.org.uk/
ccn/home-eng/
Denver Public Library, A Neighborhood
History of Capitol Hill, history.
denverlibrary.org/capitol-hillneighborhood-history
The Episcopal Church in Colorado,
coloradodiocese.org
Matthew Bloch, Shan Carter, and
Alan McLean, interactive Mapping
America: Every City, Every Block, New
York Times, projects.nytimes.com/
census/2010/map

NOTES
Pew Research Center, Americas Changing
Religious Landscape, May 12, 2015:
pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/
state/colorado/
2
The Episcopal Churchs Strategic
Vision for Reaching Latinos/Hispanics:
episcopalchurch.org/files/strategic_
vision_7-09.pdf
3
Jenn Fields, Heres Whats Bringing
Millennials Back to Churches, Denver Post,
Nov. 29, 2015.
4
Jenn Fields, Landmark St. Paul Methodist
Church Closing After 156 Years in Denver:
Uptown Church Will hold Its Closing
Worship Service May 22, Denver Post,
April 10, 2016, denverpost.com/news/
ci_29749372/landmark-st-paul-methodistchurch-closing-after-156
5
Melanie Rodden, parishioner, The
Call to Saint Francis, The Mustard
Seeds Blog, sjcathedral.org/Serve/
TheMustardSeedsBlog/PostID/573
6
Phone conversation, The Rev. Poulson Reed,
rector, All Saints Episcopal Church and Day
School, Phoenix, Arizona, March 3, 2016.
7
Dean H. Martyn Hart is credited as one of
the original founders of what later came
to be called The United Way: Recognizing
their city s welfare problems and the
need for cooperative action, four Denver
clergymen got together to work out a plan
for organization: Rev. Myron W. Reed, who
had worked in Indianapolis with the Rev.
McCulloch in establishing the COS [Charity
Organization Society]; Msgr. William J.
ORyan, who had worked in England and
was familiar with English fund-raising
methods; Dean H. Martyn Hart of St.
Johns Episcopal Church, and Rabbi William
S. Friedman. Their activities and plans
resulted in establishment of the Charity
Organization Society, launched in 1887 at a
public meeting of agency representatives
and other interested persons. The Rev.
Mr. Reed was elected president. Allen D.
Breck, chairman, Department of History,
University of Denver, letter to Kenneth W.
Miller, executive director, Mile High United
Fund, May 28,1962. socialwelfarehistory.
com/organizations/united-way-pioneers/
This account does
1

not name two women, one of Lavinia

Spencer Spalding, the wife of the bishop,
also responsible for the formation of this
agency.
8
Since 1989 the Eucharist has generally
been celebrated at a freestanding, westfacing altar set midchoir. Occasionally
the high altar has been used, with the
priest at times facing liturgical east. The
congregation values liturgical stability in
addition to explanation and teaching around
innovations and the insights to be gained
from the creative use of its liturgical space.
9
Stan Cuba, The Denver Artists Guild
(Boulder: University Press of Colorado,
2015).
10
James W. Fowler, Stages of Faith: The
Psychology of Human Development and
the Quest for Meaning (San Francisco:
HarperOne, 1981), p. 173.
11
Katie Hearsum, Denver, Number One, 2016
Best Places to Live Rankings, US News
& World Report, realestate.usnews.com/
places/colorado/denver
12
Patricia Cohen, The Cities on the
Sunny Side of the American Economy, New York Times, March 31, 2016,
nytimes.com/2016/04/01/business/
economy/cities-where-us-economy-is-thriving.html?rref=collection/
sectioncollection/us&action=click&contentCollection=usion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=22&pgtype=sectionfront
13
Gianni Jaccoma, The Ten Most Beautiful
Neighborhoods in America, Ranked,
Thrillist Travel, April 9, 2015. thrillist.com/
travel/nation/america-s-most-beautifulneighborhoods-hyde-park-beacon-hill-andcentral-park-west
14
Henry Martyn Hart, Recollections and
Reflections (New York: Gibb Bros. & Moran,
1917), p. 119.
15
Hart.

Writing home in 1888 from General

Seminary, the bishops son Frank, calling
himself a High Churchman, like my
father, described torturous encounters
with fellow students, who were themselves,
Frank noted, new Episcopalians and recent
converts, as well, to an extreme branch of
the Oxford movement: They seek me out
in my rooms at night, taunting him as a
Methodist and, worse, a Presbyterian,
for he was a Princeton man. His father told
him to read Kips Double Witness of the
Church for solace, and ammunition. See,
for an account of young Spaldings spiritual
Gethsemane, John Howard Melish, Franklin
Spencer Spalding: Man and Bishop (New
York: MacMillan, 1917), p. 35, and chap. IV,
Theological Student. Melish was rector
of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, Brooklyn,
New York, which the diocese closed
during the cold war because of perceived
Communist sympathies. He had admired
the younger Spalding, an outspoken
socialist.
17
Thomas J. Noel, ed., The Glory That Was
Gold (Denver: n.p.), p. 56.
18
Robert Prichard, A History of the Episcopal
Church, rev. ed. (Harrisburg, Penn.:
Morehouse, 1999), p. 162.
19
Prichard, p. 162.
20
Hart, p. 127.
21
Sarah Griswold Spalding, History of Saint
Lukes Hospital, typescript. Bishop John
F. Spalding and Lavinia Spalding Papers,
WH738, Western History Collection, The
Denver Public Library.
22
The congregation was notable at the time
for the enormous wealth of many of its
members. In 2016 $1,000 would be about
$24,000. Spalding, History of Saint Lukes
Hospital.
23
Lavinia Spalding, Recollections and
Reflections: Denver 50 Years Ago. Bishop
John F. Spalding and Lavinia Spalding
Papers, WH738, Western History Collection,
The Denver Public Library.
16

39

1350 Washington Street

Denver, Colorado 80203
sjcathedral.org.