Encore: 150 Years Young, Grace Episcopal Church Celebrates Its Saints
By Dave Stoneberg
Summary: Grace Episcopal Church in St. Helena is celebrating its 150th anniversary by focusing on the people — the “saints” — who have shaped its past, present and future. Events include talks, services, a new historical book and a community festival, all aimed at honoring legacy while embracing growth and change. Despite broader church declines, Grace is seeing renewed vitality through intergenerational engagement, children’s programs, small groups and a growing permanent fund for long-term sustainability.
ST. HELENA, Calif. — For Grace Episcopal Church, the story is not about its 150-year history. Instead, it’s all about its saints — past, present and future. And more about the present and future than the past.
As part of its celebration of 150 years, a committee that includes Deacon Diana Deen as chair has put together several events.
Last weekend, the Dr. Rev. Dwight Zscheile, an Episcopal priest and professor at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, discussed a vision for churches based on his book, “Faithful Innovations,” for the public on Saturday afternoon. He also preached during both Sunday services.
In an interview at the end of September, the spiritual leader of Grace Church, the Rev. Amy Denney Zuniga, said Zscheile’s work is really about how the church connects with its neighbors.
“The basic assumption is that God is already at work in our community,” Zuniga said, “How do we partner with God?” She added that Grace reached out to other area churches to come to hear Zscheile’s talk. “I think it’s a question that a lot of faith communities are asking themselves, ‘Where is everybody?’ and ‘What do we do next?’”
Several events will be held this month, culminating in a Festival Eucharist and Celebration on Saturday, Nov. 1. Deen said the events are “all about harnessing the skills, the talents and the ablities of saints present” as well as celebrating the historic relationships that Grace Church has had across the community. Deen, who has been working on this event since January, has had a team that has been identifying the saints from the church’s past.
“They’ve gone through the archives,” Dean said, adding the team has digitally captured the names of saints “from every generation and decade. We will find a way to honor those names during our liturgy, not all of them, but maybe a few per decade to celebrate all those who’ve laid a foundation of prayer and growth” for what Grace Church is today.
St. Helena author Lin Weber has written a new history of Grace Church, “150 Years of Grace,” which will be celebrated with a book release party from 5-7 p.m., Monday, Oct. 20, at the church. Zuniga said Weber’s book is “really also a history of the community and the Episcopal Church in Northern California. It’s really comprehensive,” adding she has gone through the book a couple of times. “It’s really a fascinating read.”
Talking about history, Episcopal Bishop A.W.D. Wingfield conducted the first St. Helena Episcopal service on Dec. 12, 1875, and confirmed 14 people. The stunning stone church was consecrated in 1895 and consecrated again after it was expanded and rebuilt in 2007.
Brian Capener, parishioner and documentary filmmaker, will show his new Grace Church documentary at 5 p.m., Monday, Oct. 27, at St. Helena’s Cameo Cinema.
The 150th Festival Celebration will be held from 2-8 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 1, starting with a two-hour Festival Eucharist, offered by Bishop Megan Traquair, head of the Diocese of Northern California. After the service, all parts of the church will be open for the party, which will feature small appetizers from nine local chefs and local wines, especially from those who have a historic connection with Grace Church. The event includes musical surprises, ending with a performance by the Jazz@7 Vocal Ensemble.
Everyone is invited, especially those from the Upper Napa Valley and members of the three Episcopal churches in the county. To learn more about the festival celebration, visit the church’s website, grace-episcopal.org. To RSVP for any of the events call the church office, 707-963-4157 or send an email to office@grace-episcopal.org.
Grace Is Growing
Surprisingly, after the tumult of the past few years, Grace Church is growing.
“We’re kind of emerging from a time where I’ve had some health issues the last couple of years,” said Zuniga. Add the COVID worldwide pandemic and local wildfires and a pressure cooker was created, both for the St. Helena community and the church community. “But I think we’re kind of coming out into an open space. I think people are looking at the future with a lot of curiosity and openness.”
For several years, Zuniga has been saying that local churches are not a growth industry, especially churches of historic denominations (Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopal and others) and are located on the West Coast.
Even though the population of St. Helena is not growing, Grace Church is. How has that been done?
“I just have to say it kind of by attraction and word of mouth,” Zuniga said. “I feel like we’re well enough known and physically positioned in the community (at the corner of Oak and Spring streets, a block from downtown) so that when people think about maybe going to church, they think about Grace.”
She added: “We still have a mission, one that people need more than ever.”
After serving for nine years at Grace’s altar, Zuniga said she still feels “a call to this community because it’s just such an incredible community of people. You know there’s a depth of love, a depth of spiritual connection to God and one another, as well as a breadth of generosity that’s just really incredible.”
In March, Diana Deen was ordained as a deacon, and her assignment has been to serve in the Napa Valley.
“I’ve been active at St. Luke’s in Calistoga, Grace here in St. Helena and St. Mary’s in Napa,” she said, “and love all my relationships with all three and all the people I’ve grown to fall in love with.” She said both St. Luke’s and St. Mary’s are growing and added, “I’ve been really excited to come back to Grace over this last year because it’s also growing. We’re attracting new people, a lot of younger families, and so that part is really exciting.”
Her leadership of the effort to celebrate Grace Church’s 150 years and its people is something for which Dean is well suited. She has helped organize big events, fundraisers and stewardship.
“My background, even though I’m working in a corporate leadership role, is in project management, which is easy for me,” she said. “It’s one of the gifts I’ve been offering to Grace Church for many years.”
Current attendance at Grace is roughly 80 to 90 people between the two services, 8 and 10 a.m., although during the summer there was just one service at 9 a.m.
“What’s interesting now is the online attendance,” Zuniga said. During the livestreamed 10 a.m. service, there may be 50 people in the sanctuary and Zuniga estimates “another 50 who watch the service. We count anybody that watches during the service itself or during the following week.”
Additionally, a Spanish-language service is held the first and third Saturday afternoons at Grace, and St. Mary’s Episcopal Church holds a Spanish service the last Sunday of each month.
Like most Episcopal churches, Grace Church offers a traditional service — with the shared worship of God, scripture readings and Holy Communion — that go back thousands of years. It is offered in a beautiful, holy and soaring sanctuary that brings the word of God to those present. The services are the same from Sunday to Sunday, and they follow the seasons of the church, Advent, Lent, Pentecost, etc. For Zuniga, the challenge is sharing the experience with the community and making it accessible to people.
Program for Children
For almost the past 30 years, Grace Church has offered a program, the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, which is a mainstay of the church, for children ages 3 to 12. In that time it has obviously seen children from many generations. During the pandemic, Grace continued to run that program and “It has just continued to be a magnet for newer people” and those with children, Zuniga said. Additionally, she knows of one young couple who came to Grace for the program for their children and ended up staying for themselves “because they found something really valuable.”
Permanent Fund Nears Goal
“We should probably talk about our sustaining Grace initiative, which is also culminating with the 150th anniversary,” Zuniga said. During the pandemic, church leaders did a reserve study that focused on the Grace campus and its buildings. It showed what needed to be repaired or replaced — for example the roofs of the church and Bourn Hall or the church organ — in the next 40 years and what it would cost.
“We figured out if we put $4 million or $5 million in the bank now, the income from that over time would be able to pay for all those repairs,” Zuniga said. After all, the “new” social hall and church are now nearly 20 years old.
“I feel like my call here is about weaving the generations one to the other,” Zuniga said. “Of course, the previous generation, the building of this incredible facility, the growth of the church with Mac’s leadership was really phenomenal. It’s not something that happens very often, and I feel like my call has been about helping to pass that gift on to the next generation.”
Mac is the Rev. William McIlmoyl, the former rector of Grace Episcopal Church, who retired and now serves at the altar at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Calistoga.
“We’ve been in the process of raising funds for basically an endowment, where it will give future generations that flexibility to do what they need to do most,” Zuniga said. “In our minds, first and foremost, is maintaining these facilities over time.”
Of the $5 million goal, they have raised a little more than $4 million, either in legacy or current commitments.
Common Table and Small Groups
“The other thing that happened in the last couple of years is we created a thing called common table, which just becomes a meal,” Deen said. “And for a while it was a meal once a week, just a meal for the community, not a meal for the needy, just a meal for whoever would like to be here.”
People from all walks of life from St. Helena, Angwin and Deer Park came together to share a meal, to be part of a community. Currently it is held on the first and third Wednesdays of the month, with a variety of types of meals. The next one will have an Oktoberfest theme.
Deen said the meals are sponsored by different people and community groups and prepared by local chefs. She said she has even provided a meal or two, making huge pots of soup on one occasion and on another chicken pot pies for the 100 or so people who showed up.
Other points of connection are the church’s small groups, typically just men or just women, who meet weekly, usually in person, at someone’s home or sometimes at the church.
“I popped in on one of the small groups on somebody’s front porch last week, and there were a couple of community members, one of whom I knew, who had been in and out of the church and one who had been away from the church for years and years, if she’d ever been a part of it,” Zuniga said. “These small groups still offer a point of connection, even for people that don’t want to come on the physical campus.”
There are about a dozen small groups, including one that meets in Spanish and a couple that meet on Zoom.
“Every Thursday morning, we’ve got people meeting,” Zuniga said. “Holly (Hughson) joins from London, and I have a friend who joins from D.C. A couple of them have stayed on Zoom since the pandemic and they’ve found that folks who have moved away have been able to rejoin their small group, so that’s really nice.”
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Dave Stoneberg is a longtime journalist and editor for Napa and Lake counties. The Stonebergs have attended and financially supported both Grace and St. Luke’s Episcopal churches.
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Thank you Dave for sharing the story of Grace church...one of the historic faith communities here in St Helena...whose hearts and doors continue to be open to all.
I appreciate that Grace Church in St. Helena hosts UpStage Napa Valley performances. A central place for building community.