Welcome toSt. Margaret's Church -- or at least,
the virtual version! We are so glad you have found your way to our
website.Please do take a tour of
our site and see for yourself all that is going on in this lively parish.
We understand our church life to be centered
in three areas that nourish and support each other:sacramental worship, our parish community, and mission in
Belfast and in the wider world.If you are looking for a spiritual home, we hope that you will find your
way to us during the several times of the week that we offer services.On Sunday mornings we celebrate the
Holy Eucharist at 8 and 10:15 a.m., and have Christian Education using the
Godly Play beginning at 9:45.We
also have a contemporaryservice
with Holy Communion Saturday evenings at 5.This is an intimate, informal service where we stand or sit
in a circle and you can come as you are.We also celebrate the Holy Eucharist and Healing Service on Wednesday
mornings at 9, and offer morning prayer on Fridays at 8, and evening prayer on
Tuesdays at 5:30.
Our community life provides us many
opportunities to know and support each other on our faith journey, from sharing
a good cup of coffee on Sunday mornings, to adult education, to parish
gatherings throughout the year.We
have people that have been coming to St. Margaret's for decades, and some who
are brand new. You would be most welcome!
We also have a passion for mission, which
runs the gamut from our relationship with St. Etienne's, in Limonade, our
partner parish in Haiti, to Toddlers Play Date. We are very active in the
ecumenical Greater Bay Area Ministerium, and do a lot of work collaboratively
with other churches in our community.
Please do "come and see" for
yourself!We look forward to
getting to know you.
Faithfully,
The Rev. Martha Kirkpatrick
WE CELEBRATE THE ARRIVAL OF OUR NEW RECTOR
St. Margaret's Episcopal Church will celebrate the arrival
of its new rector,the Rev. Martha
G. Kirkpatrick,on Sunday,
September 13.She will conduct the
8 a.m. and 10:15 a.m. services for the first time, inaugurating her role as St.
Margaret's parish priest.
She has already laid to rest one question that often arises
for women priests in the Episcopal Church, namely how to address her. This is a
matter of personal choice, and while many women in the priesthood are addressed
with the honorific "Mother," St. Margaret's new priest prefers to go by her
given name, "Martha." Her formal installation by Bishop Steve Lane will take
place later this year.
Kirkpatrick had a lengthy and distinguished career as an
attorney specializing in environmental law in Washington, D.C. and Augusta
before she was drawn by a call to ministry a few years ago.She earned a Master of Divinity degree
from Harvard Divinity School in 2007 and was ordained to the priesthood later
that year.She has been assistant
rector at Grace Episcopal Church, Bath, for the past two years along with
serving as the Environmental Stewardship Officer for the Episcopal Diocese of
Maine.
She was called to be St. Margaret"s new rector last June,
following a nationwide search by a committee of parishioners that attracted 40
applicants. She was the unanimous choice in a final secret ballot by the
committee tosucceed the Rev. Kent
Tarpley, who has movedto a church
in southwestern Virginia.
A native of Maine, she grew up and attended schools in the
Portland area. She went on to attend Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY,
in the mid-70s, where she majored in history and government. She graduated Phi
Beta Kappa with highest honors in 1978.Her next stop was George Washington University in Washington, D.C., to
earn the Juris Doctor law degree from the National Law Center in 1981, again
with honors.
Focusing on environmental law, she began her legal career as
a pro bono attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation in Boston.Her specialty area was water use,
including protection of wetlands, oversight and leasing rights in the Georges
Bank, management of coastal zones, and site selection for hazardous waste
facilities.
From 1984 to 1991 she held various positions with the
Environmental Protection Agency in Washington dealing with water use and
quality.She assisted in drafting
legislation and worked on the 1991 reauthorization of he Clean Water Act.
Kirkpatrick returned to Maine in 1991 to become director of
the Maine DEP's Bureaus of Land and Water Quality.In 1999 she was appointed DEP Commissioner during the
administration of Gov. Angus King, a post she held until 2003.
In changing her career path to enter the ministry,, she has not forsaken her environmental ethos. Her master's thesis at Harvard was on "incarnational ecology," a growing field of theological scholarship. A revised version of her study is published in the current issue of the Anglican Theological Review, in which she addresses planetary crisis as a challenge to the church, moving from scripture and received tradition toward and ethics of common cause.
