St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church Profile

St. Augustine of Hippo Church has a membership of 100 with the average Sunday attendance of 45.  The church's real property consists of two city lots being located in the center of Rhinelander and only two blocks from the Oneida County Courthouse.  The church building itself has occupied this same location for over 100 years and three years ago the parish decided to build a new rectory on the lot adjacent to the church.  In addition to the church and rectory, there is also a large guild hall with a very accommodating kitchen, schoolrooms, an office/library and a chapel.  This year a handicap access was added to the church along with handicap parking and new landscaping.

The Guild Hall is used by a number of community groups on a regular basis and six years ago St. Augustine's was instrumental in establishing a feeding ministry for the community, which is called "The Table."  

This program is held in the Guild Hall on the last two days of every month and the average number served each night is 100 people.  Everyone is welcome for a free meal and fellowship with no questions asked and no restrictions.  Various service and business groups along with other churches within the area are responsible each month for cooking and hosting the meals.  There has been a lot of youth involvement in this also.  Members of our parish oversee the operation along with taking their turns as hosts.  The National Church recognized this ministry as a Jubilee Center in 1996.For the past four years we have also hosted a two-day healing mission at St. Augustine's Church that is open to everyone in the area.  We have had featured guest speakers come from as far away as Missouri.

We have been active in the Diocese of Fond du Lac's effort to help rebuild the Honduras community in San Pedro Sula following the devastation caused by Hurricane Mitch.  This has been funded and implemented by Episcopal Relief and Development.  For the past three years some of  our parishioners have gone to Honduras for 2-3 weeks to help in the rebuilding of that community and two members are currently serving in Honduras for one year as teachers in an Episcopal school.  This coming January some parishioners are headed to Belize to help rebuild that community after being devastated by Hurricane Keith.  Our parish has helped provide general financial support for these efforts through donations received at monthly dinners and other activities.

During this past year we have held numerous meetings to establish goals and objectives for the future.  From these meetings a number of "Interest Groups" were developed in order for our members to further pursue and provide definition for their journey with our Lord.  The majority of our active members have committed themselves to participating in these interest groups with the hope of strengthening our parish and at the same time increasing their lay involvement in the parish.

A couple of months ago, members of the parish were encouraged to attend a meeting and to complete a survey of where they feel our church is presently and where they would like to see our church be in the future.  The following is the search committee's interpretation of the result of that survey.

Vestry  | Parishioner's Survey

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staugustineschurch@yahoo.com