About Us
When our church building was constructed right around 1960, it was very much a suburban church. As the pace and perceived size of our modern lives has shifted over the ensuing decades, so has the scope and ministry of St. Michael’s. We stand but a wee three miles from downtown Racine. Depending on which way you turn out of our driveway, you will encounter expensive lake homes or subsidized housing. If you go twenty minutes north, you land in downtown Milwaukee. Sixty minutes south and you are in Chicago. In a word, our community has become diverse and complex; and this is reflected in the fabric that makes up the backdrop of our present-day church.
St. Michael’s cannot help but be integrated into our local community. It is a place where people come to worship, for community, for formation, and to be engaged in mission. This cannot be accomplished, however, in a vacuum. We are one parish in the Episcopal Diocese of Milwaukee whose mission has recently been articulated by our bishop, Steven Andrew Miller: To invite others to know Jesus as Savior and Lord in the fellowship of his church, and to get to know the story of Jesus that is written [in Scripture] as God is writing his story in your life and in your heart.
Our diocese is one of many that constitute the national Episcopal Church – a diverse and motley collection of people from all sorts of backgrounds and experiences. Much has been made of the challenges associated with sharing a common life in a church where people disagree about so many issues facing our modern world. The challenge of the Episcopal Church is very much the challenge of being a part of the global society. How do we live with and respond to those who are different from us? St. Michael’s is confident in our position that stalwartly upholds Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, the authority of Holy Scripture as God’s Word and our rule of life, and the evangelical imperative to make Jesus known to others in word and in deed. We participate freely and humbly in our church and in the world, unafraid - because we know our Lord as he has revealed himself to us.
The Episcopal Church is a member of the World-wide Anglican Communion. To be Anglican is to be in “communion” with the historic See of Canterbury. While more is said about this elsewhere on this site, it is important to note that we are a global church. The Anglican Communion is a collection of thirty-eight provinces in over one hundred sixty countries representing over eighty million Christians! So when you gather at one of our services, whether you are one of thirty others or one hundred and thirty, you are joining your voice with Christians across the world, who sing a common refrain and worship a common Lord.
Protestant or Catholic?
The Anglican Way was given birth in the days of the Reformation (AD 1500’s) when the Church of England and the Church of Rome were separated. We retained the rich liturgy and symbolism thrown out by other Protestant churches while clarifying our theology to reflect a return to more biblical roots. Hence we are a both/and church. We also retain an unbroken line of apostolic succession. That simply means that our bishops, priests, and deacons trace their ordinations directly to beginning days of the Church. We are part of what we profess to be the one holy catholic and apostolic church. Within Anglicanism is the full spectrum of people whose practice of Christianity is on one side “Anglo-Catholic” all the way over to Evangelical and Charismatic on the other. St. Michael's is a true mix of having in its congregation people from these categories and everything in between! Both a common commitment to following Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, and worship from the BCP bind us together in harmony.
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