Disciple: A Community Cornerstone
Holy Comforter’s 114 years of service to the Charlotte community
By Summerlee Walter
Holy Comforter is known for many things in the Charlotte community: La Escuelita Weekday School, the award-winning bilingual preschool serving an economically diverse population of students; the striking Tiffany window framing the altar, donated in 1919 by grieving widower E.A. Smith, who swore the rector to secrecy about the window’s origins until after Smith’s death; and, recently, the election of its former rector, the Rev. Kevin S. Brown, as the XI Bishop of Delaware. It is a church whose grounds are dedicated to the mission of worship and outreach, whether it’s the magnificent image of Jesus and his disciples at the Last Supper overlooking worshipers, the entire building dedicated to high-quality bilingual education or the numerous organizations that find a home at Holy Comforter.
A HISTORY OF FIRSTS
Founded as a mission in 1903, Holy Comforter was initially named for the Rt. Rev. Thomas Atkinson, remembered as the first southern Episcopal bishop to attend a national church gathering in the aftermath of the Civil War. Atkinson’s spirit of courageously reaching out has permeated Holy Comforter since its beginnings, and a dedication to community remains a hallmark of the church.
In 1913, Boy Scout Troop 1, the first troop in North Carolina, was founded in the former church building on South Boulevard and remains active today. Four decades later, in 1955, Holy Comforter launched a weekday preschool in its newly constructed parish house at the church’s current location on Park Road. At the time, offering childcare for the children of working parents was a desperately needed innovation. The school merged with La Escuelita in 2016 and continues today in the form of La Escuelita Weekday School, a preschool offering high-quality bilingual instruction to children ages one through five.
Another lasting Holy Comforter ministry began in 1975, when the church founded what became the Loaves & Fishes network of food pantries. Today, the Loaves & Fishes location at Holy Comforter is the only food pantry in the area open five days a week, serving 71,766 people in 2015.
MOVING FROM OUTREACH TO COMMUNITY
In response to Charlotte’s growing Latino population, several years ago Holy Comforter began offering English as a Second Language classes with childcare and tutoring available for parents. The classes grew to serve 30 or so students each week. Soon, though, “there was a recognition there was more we might be able to offer,” the Rev. Amanda Robertson explained in 2014. At the same time the church felt energy gathering around starting a Spanish-language worship service, Lauren Cavins, Holy Comforter’s director of Hispanic ministries and director of children’s ministries, was working on beginning La Escuelita, a bilingual preschool targeting low-income Latino students in the community, many of whom lagged far behind their Anglo peers in preschool readiness.
Begun in 2009, La Escualita grew rapidly. In 2016, under Brown’s leadership, the church entered a period of discernment resulting in La Escuelita merging with the Weekday School.
“One thing [Brown] is so good at is consensus building and making sure people feel like they’ve been heard,”Cavins explains. “He invited us to think about [the merger] all together.” Brown’s idea to join the preschool programs proved a savvy one; La Escuelita Weekday School now serves 90 children in seven classes, and the number of parishioners with children enrolled in preschool at the church has tripled. Families pay on a sliding scale, so the preschool is able to continue La Escuelita’s original mission while introducing children from a variety of backgrounds to each other.
“They realize some children speak Spanish at home, and some children speak English at home,” Cavins explains.
As La Escuelita grew, so did attendance at la misa, Holy Comforter’s weekly Spanish-language worship. The church’s leadership was not content, however, simply to offer the Eucharist in Spanish. Instead, they recognized Holy Comforter as a church shared by those who worshiped in English and in Spanish, and they knew leadership needed to be shared, too. As a result, the church partnered with El Instituto de Liderazgo in 2014. El Instituto is a two-year leadership development program started by the Diocese of Los Angeles to train Spanish-speaking members of churches in pastoral care, evangelism, Christian formation and outreach so they are equipped to assume leadership roles.
FORMATION AND OUTREACH
In addition to its educational and feeding ministries, Holy Comforter also offers its building to shelter homeless men, women and families on Saturday evenings from November to March through Room in the Inn. During the 2015-16 season, the church sheltered and fed 200 individuals. In addition, Holy Comforter shares its buildings with outside groups 30 times per month, on average.
The church also looks for ways to serve outside its campus. Starting with engagement around the sweet potato challenge offered a few years ago by the Diocese in support of the Episcopal Farmworker Ministry (EFwM), the people of Holy Comforter have continued to learn about and support the ministry. Last year, the congregation committed to “be mindful about the food we eat and the hands that have worked so hard to provide it,” during the “Blessing the Hands that Feed Us” campaign. Members of the congregation pledged to learn more about the contributions of farmworkers and the collaboration between the Dioceses of North Carolina and East Carolina to support them through EFwM. They actively supported “Water in the Fields,” an EFwM initiative to provide farmworkers with specialized water carriers so they can stay hydrated as they work long rows of crops.
While the list of outreach opportunities at Holy Comforter is extensive, the church is equally focused on formation through worship and study. With support from a John M. Belk Foundation grant that covers the cost of books, food and childcare, the people of Holy Comforter have engaged in a series of well-attended book studies since the summer of 2016. Participants have read and discussed Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and a Culture in Crisis, and Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. The series encourages participants to seek connections between the trends presented in the books and the realities facing the Charlotte community. During their study of Evicted, for example, readers also looked at local data on evictions and discussed ways individuals could engage the housing crisis low-income families face in growing cities like Charlotte.
For 114 years, the people of Holy Comforter have gotten to know their community, examined their resources and implemented innovative solutions to serve both their fellow parishioners and their neighbors. Whether creating a new model for others to follow or transforming a long-standing ministry as needs evolve, Holy Comforter has adapted to meet the needs of its community. No doubt the church and its people will adapt to Brown’s new call, too, and carry on their work in whatever way the future requires.
Summerlee Walter is the communications coordinator for the Diocese of North Carolina.
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