Category: General News

Christ Church is a historic Anglo-Catholic parish in Chattanooga. Our congregation draws from the surrounding area and the UTC community who come for our distinctive worship and warm welcome. We value music as an integral part of our liturgy that allows us to worship together in song and explore the devotional riches of our tradition. Christ Church seeks a director of music with a mature faith who can take on this leadership position to help grow this ministry within our church. The director should be conversant in the Anglican musical tradition and open to making use of the full resources of the Catholic tradition.

Please send a cover letter, resume, and references to frwill@christchurchchattanooga.org

You may have seen them these past few Sundays, and we would like to formally introduce our two seminarians and our new interim director of music!

Our upcoming feast days are:
The Transfiguration, this Thursday the 5th at 6 pm
The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Monday the 16th at 6 pm
And St. Bartholomew, Tuesday the 24th, at 9 am.

Our vestry meeting will be on August 22nd at 12 pm, via Zoom or in-person.

Project Canterbury kicks off the school year with a cookout in the Christ Church parking lot, Sunday the 15th, from 5-7, and then begins having evening services on Sundays on the 22nd at 6 pm.

Many of you will be aware that with the arrival of the Delta variant of COVID-19 we have seen an increase in the number of cases in our area. The CDC and Hamilton County Health Department have now both recommended a return to wearing masks indoors for everyone regardless of whether they have received the vaccine. The safest option at this time for us will be a return to wearing masks indoors during our services. The altar party will be wearing masks except for when reading or preaching. A return to wearing masks at worship will seem tedious to many of us but masks appear to be the most prudent option at this point.

To protect the vulnerable people in our community, especially our children, I am asking that everyone who can safely wear a mask do so inside during worship.

The service will otherwise remain unchanged for the time being. We will continue to sing and to receive the sacrament in one kind. Please maintain distance from other folks as you able especially younger people who are not able to be vaccinated. My hope is that this change will be temporary and the number of cases will begin to decline again. I want to implore you once again to get vaccinated if you are not already.

-Fr. Will

Please join us for cake and champagne this Sunday, July 25th, to celebrate Karla on her last official day as choirmaster and organist. We will be in the Memorial Garden, weather permitting, after the 10:30 am service is finished.

Beloved in Christ,

I am writing to update you again about our precautions around COVID at Christ Church. Many of you have reached out to me to ask questions and to request changes to our current practice. The pace for these changes has been and will continue to be determined by a number of factors including safety concerns as well as what is practically possible for everyone involved. We are looking into the feasibility of starting some of our autumn programs early, but it may be that we need to have some patience as we wait for the regular rhythms of the year to return.

We will be making two changes going forward.

First, we will return to singing hymns at our 10:30 service. All of our vaccinated folks at the 10:30 service will once again be able to make a joyful noise to the Lord.

Second, we will no longer be requiring folks to register for services ahead of time. I want to thank all of you who have been diligent in registering for services throughout the pandemic.

Initially, our other safety precautions at our Sunday morning services will remain in place. As we begin to see what the attendance numbers are like on Sunday morning we will be able to relax some of these precautions as seems prudent. Many of you have asked about returning to the common cup, receiving at the altar rail, celebrating the early service in the Lady chapel, returning Adult Education to church, and after-service hospitality. All of those changes are of course in our future. My approach to making changes during the pandemic has tried to be slow and steady and erring on the side of caution. I will make announcements about these changes when it seems prudent to resume those activities.

We will continue to livestream services on Facebook for the foreseeable future.

Groups who would like to meet in the church or in Fox Hall are in principle welcome to do so but please be in contact with me to confirm those details.

If you have any questions or concerns please be in touch with myself or with your Senior Warden, Charlotte Boatwright.

—Fr. Will

The Christian life does not happen just on Sunday. One of the joys of Anglo-Catholicism is that gives us a reason to gather together and to enjoy the means of grace throughout the week. To that end we will begin to celebrate some of the feasts of the Church during the week with the hope that these will form the basis for more regular midweek services in the fall.