St. Luke’s in the Meadow Episcopal Church, 4301 Meadowbrook Drive, Fort Worth, TX, 76103, will celebrate 70 Years of Sharing God’s Love on Sunday, October 21, 2018, with 10 am worship and a luncheon. Bishop Scott Mayer will celebrate and preach. Everyone is invited, but asked to RSVP to church@stlukesfw.org.
St. Luke’s was the site of the ordination of the first woman to the priesthood in the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, 33 years after the Episcopal Church approved the ordination of women as priests and bishops in 1976. The Rev. Susan Slaughter was ordained November 15, 2009, and immediately installed as rector of St. Luke’s. Slaughter retired in 2013. The current priest in charge is the Rev. Karen Calafat.
St. Luke’s, not yet “in-the-Meadow,” began the process of becoming a mission on July 14, 1946. In February, 1948, having added -in-the-Meadow to its name as well as demonstrated healthy growth and financial stability, St. Luke’s received full parish status. For 70 years this congregation has been serving their East Fort Worth Meadowbrook neighborhood and beyond, worshiping God and loving their neighbors.
Ministries and outreach
St. Luke’s houses the 4Saints Episcopal Food Pantry, a partner of the Tarrant Food Bank, and a ministry of St. Luke’s, St. Alban’s, worshiping in Theater Arlington; St. Stephen’s, Hurst, and St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Keller. St. Luke’s also offers spiritual food, with their regular Sunday worship and a Taize service the first Friday of every month. They hold Church in the Park with a Blessing of the Animals in Oakland Park each October around St. Francis Day and invite in the entire neighborhood and their pets. They offer a Blue Christmas service each year for those for whom the holidays are a difficult time. And they offer Ashes to Go on Ash Wednesday to commuters and parents dropping off children at school.
They have a lively ministry to Meadowbrook Elementary School just across the street from them, providing school supplies and volunteers, offering field trips, and supporting the school and its parents in big and small ways, including offering coffee-on-the-corner, during which St. Luke’s provides free coffee, fruit, and breakfast bars to parents and students on Friday mornings. Members participate in the City of Fort Worth’s Drop Everything and Read program with Meadowbrook students. Their Little Free Library offers free books to passersby, especially to the students from the elementary school and Meadowbrook Middle School. They work with East Side Ministries to make sure families in need have Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas presents for children.
They had a booth at the recent Fort Worth Pride Parade, participated in the Love, Not Hate March in the wake of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, and have a float in the annual Parade of Lights in downtown Fort Worth. They participated in the Prayer Service for the Children put on by the Diocese of Fort Worth, United Fort Worth, and Tarrant Area Churches in reaction to the separation of children from parents at the border. They are a Blue Zones Project Affiliated Faith Center with the City of Fort Worth and have hosted Cooking Matters, a cooking-based nutrition class put on by Tarrant Area Food Bank. It is for children ages 8-12. They also host Living Room Conversations each month, modeling ways to have civil conversations about difficult topics. And just as they rented space in a Methodist church when they were getting started, they now rent space in their building to a Seventh Day Adventist congregation.
History
St. Luke’s first worship service as a mission was held in a Sunday school classroom at Meadowbrook Methodist Church, rented for $5 a month with an additional $5 for the janitor. Fifty-five people were present for that service conducted by the Rt. Rev. C. Avery Mason, bishop of Dallas. Fort Worth was part of the Diocese of Dallas at that time.
By the end of 1947 the St. Luke’s Mission had 115 communicants. A Sunday school was operating with 52 students. The congregation acquired six large lots on Meadowbrook Drive for $4000 and built a limestone church of Gothic design for $14,574.18.
As the congregation and the space has changed, the parish has continued to cherish its heritage. The original altar is now in the narthex, the anteroom to the sanctuary. The wooden cross once above the altar in the original building is now above the baptismal font at the north end of the current worship space. The cross on the roof of the original church is now on display on the east wall of the current parish hall. Paul Horn, a parishioner, crafted the Christ the King statue that is above the altar and Charles J. Snell, parishioner, made the mahogany cross. The striking stained glass windows were made by the Smith Stained Glass Company of Fort Worth.
4Saints Episcopal Food Pantry now occupies the 1949 parish hall. The rectory at 4308 Lambeth Lane, constructed in 1954, is now rental property. The Diocese of Fort Worth has its offices in the 1960 educational building that housed a Tuller Day School, operated for approximately 3 years by the Order of the Sisters of Charity, an Episcopal convent of nuns who were teachers. In the early 1960s, that space became St. Luke’s Day School which thrived until the mid-1990s, when it was closed.
The Kilgen and Son 13-rank, 13-stop mechanical action pipe organ, built in 1909 and used for 53 years in the Temple Moses Montefiore in Marshall, Texas, was found in that building, empty since the synagogue had discontinued services in the 1960’s. St. Luke’s bought it and hired organ builder Roy Redman to renovate, revoice, and modify this historic organ that included 750 additional pipes from Germany and Holland. The organ was installed in St. Luke’s choir loft in March, 1973.
In 1982 the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas was split in half. The new diocese became the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth. A. Donald Davies became bishop of Fort Worth. In 1986, Clarence C. Pope was elected Bishop and Jack L. Iker was elected bishop in 1995. All three of these bishops eventually left The Episcopal Church.
When Iker left The Episcopal Church in 2008, he claimed ownership of Episcopal Church property. The diocese was reorganized in early 2009 and the Rt. Rev. Ted Gulick was named provisional bishop. Litigation to secure return of Episcopal Church property was instigated and is still ongoing. Gulick was followed later that year by provisional Bishop C. Wallis Ohl. St. Luke’s is part of the reorganized diocese.
On November 15, 2009, Deacon Susan Slaughter was ordained to the priesthood by Gulick, and then immediately installed as rector of St. Luke’s by Ohl. Slaughter served as rector until she retired in 2013. In 2012, Rayford B. High, Jr. became provisional bishop of the diocese, and served until May 2015, when J. Scott Mayer, current bishop of Northwest Texas, was elected provisional bishop. Calafat was called as priest in charge at St. Luke’s in 2014.