Incumbent Priest, Parish of St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, Kelowna

The Bishop of the Diocese of Kootenay is seeking applications for the position of Incumbent Priest for the Parish of St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, Kelowna, on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan Nation.

This is a full-time, permanent position in a vibrant, growing parish.

The Anglican Diocese of Kootenay is in a time of transition, renewing its commitment to support Thriving Communities. As a diocese, we have dedicated resources to helping community-based ministries (including camps, congregations, chaplaincies, ecumenical shared ministries, parishes, partnerships, worshiping communities, and new witnessing communities) to enter into processes of self-reflection, transformation, and renewal. You can find more information about the Thriving Communities process here.

The Diocesan Salary scale is currently under revision because of a significant rise in housing prices.  The Diocese and Parish are committed to help the successful applicant with securing housing.

St. Andrew’s Anglican Church has been serving God’s people for over one hundred years.

Bringing about God’s Kingdom in the world is at the heart of St. Andrew’s mission. During the COVID pandemic, St. Andrew’s engaged in an extensive visioning process. Through listening to the desires of parishioners and discerning the will of the Spirit, we identified three new Mission Goals: to celebrate our Anglican heritage, to cultivate each one of us as disciples and leaders and to connect in relationship as we serve our community. To better live into these goals, we undertook significant structural changes, moving from 11 standing committees to 3 interconnected Ministry Circles.

As it turned out, the Spirit meant “cultivate” literally! In 2021 St. Andrew’s was gifted with the use of land, which germinated into the Gift Farm-Garden. Led by experienced organic farmers and tended by diverse community members and organizations, the Farm-Garden has blossomed beyond all expectations. Through the Farm-Garden, St. Andrew’s has fostered relationships with other Anglican churches in Kelowna, diverse Christian denominations, a public school, a Rotary club and the Vancouver School of Theology. The produce we cultivate is gifted to those living with food insecurity, both via St. Michael’s Cathedral Cupboard and the Gospel Mission and directly to group homes and individual households. In the 2024 growing season, St. Andrew’s gifted 3,022 lbs. of produce. We view the Farm-Garden as a living metaphor for God’s kingdom: a way of being, glimpsed in community when our love and relationships mirror God’s own.

Our original Heritage Church was consecrated in 1911, and the graveyard was established in 1912. St. Andrew’s later came to require a larger building, and so the main church was consecrated in 1987. St. Andrew’s is situated in the heart of the Okanagan Mission, a suburban, primarily residential area in southern Kelowna.

Liturgy at St. Andrew’s is rooted in our Anglican tradition, with a willingness to explore contemporary practices. Our weekly Sunday service is rich with meaningful, theological preaching and a wide range of music, and the Eucharist is at the heart of our worship. Since liturgy is the work of the people, lay people participate as readers, intercessors, servers, communion administrants and altar guild members. Evening prayer is offered seasonally over Zoom and is likewise led by lay people.

St. Andrew’s is a welcoming, thriving and loving community which is growing steadily, both spiritually and numerically. Parishioners at St. Andrew’s reside both in the vicinity of the church and across the whole of Kelowna and include both newcomers and members of multi-generational families. A significant percentage of our parishioners are retired, semi-retired or working baby boomers. In 2023, the average weekly attendance was 55 people. The majority of the parish’s income is derived from pledged giving, supplemented by rentals, Diocesan Trust interest income and open offering. Some income also comes from cemetery plot sales and endowment bequests. Despite steady, circumspect fiscal planning, small operating deficits have impacted the parish’s reserves. St. Andrew’s has also been blessed with a number of bequests, which have been used for specific projects to honour the donors.

St. Andrew’s recognizes the need to encourage young families to join our Sunday services and the challenge of maintaining connection with our teens. Our Ministry Circles are working to shift our perspectives from works of charity to seeking justice and from providing outreach to building community and strengthening our mission goal of cultivating leadership.

St. Andrew’s acknowledges our historic roots in the community and looks to the future for growth and deeper understanding of God’s call to us to celebrate, cultivate and connect.

The Leader We Seek  

The parish profile provides a window into worship, relationships and life at St. Andrew’s. This window also helps describe the characteristics of the leader we are seeking. The new leader at St. Andrew’s:

• Will listen to the congregation and will honour the sacred work that has been done since COVID;
• Will be a skilled and passionate liturgist who will be able to include the congregation in the liturgical life of the parish;
• Will support us to celebrate through music;
• Has a passion for discipleship formation and will hold that at the heart of our ministries;
• Will offer faithful pastoral care to all ages;
• Will help us continue to learn how to move from a culture of programs and roles to one of discipleship in community;
• Will help us continue to learn how to grow from a production-oriented mindset to a gift-oriented way of being;
• Will help us grow numerically as a congregation and engage evangelism within the gift-paradigm we are living;
• Will continue to integrate the life of the Farm and parish;
• Will welcome the use of technology in the service of our mission.

To Apply, please request the full Parish Profile and Diocesan Profile by emailing [email protected]