On Newtown Road in Acton, Massachusetts, the Church of the Good Shepherd has gathered Episcopalians around the altar, the table, and the wider community for generations. The parish is known today for the pairing of traditional Book of Common Prayer worship with an unusually deep set of commitments beyond its walls: a quarter-century companion relationship with the village of El Ocotillo in El Salvador, interfaith sponsorship of newly arrived refugee families, an active Creation Justice ministry that has installed solar panels on its roof, and a tuition-free girls' middle school in Lawrence that the parish has supported since 2007. Its motto, written into the closing prayer of its worship leaflet, asks to be "a sanctuary of Christ's love in the wider community," and the parish has spent years turning that sentence into specific work.
Worship That Centers the Eucharist
The rhythm of the week at Good Shepherd begins on Sunday morning with two celebrations of the Holy Eucharist. At 8:00 a.m. the parish offers a Rite II service celebrated "in the round" with a shared sense of intimacy and spiritual connection; the service, including the sermon, lasts about 45 minutes and is held in person only. (During the summer schedule, which runs from the first Sunday in July through Labor Day, this early service is not offered.) At 10:00 a.m. the principal Sunday liturgy gathers the congregation for worship drawn from the Book of Common Prayer and other liturgies of the Anglican Communion, including sources from the Church of England, the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church of New Zealand, and the Church of South India. The 10:00 a.m. service is offered both in person and online through Zoom, with the day's service leaflet available so that remote participants can follow every word; they are even invited to read a Scripture passage, lead a prayer, or add an announcement. During the summer the 10:00 a.m. service moves to 9:00 a.m.
Midweek, the parish gathers for a brief Morning Eucharist on Wednesdays at 8:00 a.m., a 30-minute service that includes a reflection on the life of the saint whose feast day it happens to be. The week closes on Thursday nights with Compline, the ancient night office of the Church, prayed at 8:00 p.m. over Zoom. Together these four regular services give the parish a daily prayer rhythm in miniature.
Twenty-Five Years with El Ocotillo, El Salvador
Since 2001 Good Shepherd has been in a mutual relationship with the village of El Ocotillo in El Salvador. Parishioners describe it not as a project but as walking with the community. The current joint effort is a scholarship program, and the results are concrete: more than 45 students have been supported, and 14 have gone on to graduate from university. The parish shares worship with the village, sends delegations roughly every two years, and hosts an annual pupusa dinner in the parish hall as the major fundraiser for the scholarships. The relationship marked its 25th anniversary in 2026 with an evening of fellowship, music, Salvadoran food, and short videos from each of the current scholarship students, including a heartfelt message from Lilian del Carmen, one of the program's first recipients. Plans for the next delegation are part of the ongoing rhythm.
Opportunities to get involved with El Ocotillo range from helping to plan joint services and translate letters from Salvadoran students, to organizing the annual pupusa dinner, to creating a display in the parish hall, to writing holiday cards, to virtually supporting recent graduates as they learn English.
Welcoming Refugees Through an Interfaith Partnership
In 2021 Good Shepherd joined the Interfaith Partnership for Refugee Resettlement, an organization of seven local faith communities working alongside the International Institute of New England to sponsor newly arrived refugee families. The first family welcomed through the partnership arrived in 2022 from Afghanistan, and a second family is being resettled from a refugee camp in Bangladesh. Parish support is wide-ranging: assistance with housing, furnishings, clothing, transportation, and cultural orientation, plus help learning to drive, resume writing, college applications, and job searches. Through 2025 the parish also helped sustain these families during difficult months with Target gift cards for furnishings and winter clothing, Market Basket cards when SNAP benefits were halted, and holiday baskets of fruit, homemade cookies, and candy at Christmas.
Anyone in the parish can step into the work: organizing fundraisers, donating goods for apartment setup, moving furnishings, making the welcome meal on arrival day, providing rides to appointments, taking the family on excursions to learn their new city, joining interfaith leadership meetings on Zoom, or donating toward rent.
From Creation Care to Creation Justice
Good Shepherd's response to the climate emergency is one of the most distinctive features of parish life. The work began as Creation Care and was recently renamed Creation Justice to acknowledge that climate change disproportionately harms the most vulnerable - both human and more-than-human communities. The transition was marked on Earth Day 2026.
The Creation Justice ministry follows four pillars drawn from an Episcopal path: Pray, Learn, Act, and Advocate. Practical accomplishments on the church property include fully functioning solar roof panels that reduce both electric bills and greenhouse-gas emissions, upgraded lighting and insulation, and a plastic-free kitchen designed as a model for the community. Public witness has been equally central: parishioners regularly attend events like the Stop Private Jet Expansion standout, Sun Day, State House lobbying, and the annual Acton Celebration of Plant-Based Foods, and they participate in the Acton Climate Coalition and Massachusetts Interfaith Power and Light. Education includes a Lenten book study on Refugia Faith and a partnership with St. Anne's in Lincoln in the Love God, Love God's World curriculum.
In April 2026 five parishioners traveled to St. Paul's Cathedral in Boston for "One Sun, One Earth, One People," an Earth Day event where climate activist and author Bill McKibben spoke. A parish group is also discussing a tree-planting project with the Esperanza Academy community for the new Esperanza school and campus in Lawrence, since trees, in the words of the ministry's own framing, "appear more often in Scripture than any member of creation except humans." Summer offerings include spiritual nature walks at the Acton Arboretum and an August Outdoor Liturgy.
Fighting Hunger Locally and Around the World
Good Shepherd has supported local food pantries for many years, and in 2025 the parish's seven-week fall food drive delivered 623 pounds of food to Loaves and Fishes and the Acton Food Pantry. On a larger scale, the parish partners with Rise Against Hunger for a once-a-year fundraising drive and meal-packing day. On a recent Sunday in May, more than 60 volunteers gathered in the parish hall for a rowdy two hours of packaging that produced 10,000 meals, sent to a food-insecure region of the world; in past years those meals have reached the Philippines, Malawi, and the Republic of Congo. Donations underwrite most of the shipping costs. The combination of food drives and meal packing has become one of the parish's signature intergenerational community-building events.
Esperanza Academy in Lawrence
Esperanza Academy is a tuition-free, independent middle school in the Episcopal tradition welcoming girls of diverse faiths, races, and cultures from Lawrence, Massachusetts. Good Shepherd has been in a relationship with the school since 2007. Parishioners have volunteered as education consultants, student sponsors, library helpers, tutors, science fair judges, and student interview mentors for high school entrance. The parish has also expanded Esperanza's library with book titles chosen by the students. A new Esperanza campus is planned for downtown Lawrence, and Good Shepherd is exploring a creation-justice tree-planting partnership for the new site. Each Christmas the parish also helps fund the food the mothers at Esperanza prepare for the school's annual celebration.
Children, Youth, and the Pray Ground
Families of all ages and kinds are welcome at Good Shepherd. A dedicated Pray Ground sits within the sanctuary for the youngest worshippers and their families, filled with toys, coloring pages, and cozy places to sit so children can see and hear the service in a space designed for them. Pray Group meets monthly on Friday afternoons during the school year for children ages three to six, with prayer, crafts, and an introduction to God's love. Church School gathers on the first and third Sundays during the 10:00 a.m. service for elementary-aged children, currently working through the parables of Jesus. Middle and high school youth take part in programming that ranges from Confirmation classes to mission projects, with regular opportunities to serve as readers, ushers, acolytes, and musicians. Recent intergenerational events include mission trips to El Salvador, packing meals with Rise Against Hunger, volunteering at Household Goods in Acton, and coordinating donation drives for the Acton Food Pantry.
Pastoral Care, Prayer Shawls, and the Prayer Chain
The Pastoral Care team reaches out to people in difficult or stressful times by providing meals, visiting housebound parishioners, organizing rides, and sending notes of encouragement. The team also distributes prayer shawls and helps organize receptions after memorial or funeral services. The Prayer Shawl Ministry has been active for more than 15 years, knitting and crocheting shawls with prayers embedded in the very fiber; the group gives them to members, their families, friends, and even friends of friends to celebrate, heal, and comfort, and is always happy to teach new members to knit or crochet, with yarn, needles, hooks, and patterns available. The Good Shepherd Prayer Chain is a powerful prayer group of church members who have volunteered to pray for any concern - large or small - for up to two weeks. Requests can be submitted anonymously or with the requester's name as preferred.
Liturgical Ministries and Music
Worship at Good Shepherd is intentionally participatory, and a wide range of liturgical ministries gives members of all ages a place in the shared work. Lay Eucharist Ministers serve at the altar as acolytes, lead the Psalms and Prayers of the People, help set the table, and distribute the wine at Communion. Lectors read the lessons before the Gospel. Ushers hand out service leaflets, note attendance, find people to bring up the elements, collect the offering, prepare the Communion rail, and direct the flow at Communion. Greeters open the front door and help set a friendly tone. The Altar Guild prepares the table for every service, and the Flower Guild adds a living natural element with flowers donated by members, often given in memory or celebration. The Liturgical Arts Committee shapes the seasonal surroundings of worship. The Tech Team runs the sanctuary sound system, provides the live two-way interactive Zoom link, and publishes the weekly video of the Gospel and sermon.
Music at Good Shepherd draws on the 1982 Hymnal, Wonder, Love and Praise, and other traditional and contemporary sources. The Anthem Choir sings regularly, and instrumentalists from the congregation are welcomed at worship whenever possible. A pre-service singing warm-up gathers at 9:15 a.m. on Sunday mornings, and the Mixed Choir rehearses on Thursday evenings.
Giving, Planned Gifts, and the Stewardship of the Building
Parishioner pledges represent 73 percent of the parish's total income; the parish receives no money from the diocese and holds no endowment. The annual pledge campaign funds all parish activities, from outreach and pastoral care to worship and the maintenance of the buildings. Beyond annual pledges, the parish offers a full planned-giving program: gifts from retirement plans and life insurance policies, gifts by will or revocable trust, stock transfers, and qualified charitable distributions from IRAs for those over 70 and a half. One-time and recurring online contributions are accepted through the Give Now page, and the Church Shepherds committees - including the Newcomers Committee, Building Committee, and Communications Committee - help tend the parish's life from week to week. The Memorial Garden, tended by parishioners, marks the parish's care for those who have gone before.
Clergy, Staff, and the Welcome
The Rev. Eleanor Applewhite Terry has served as Rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd since 2020, after parishes in Portland, Oregon, Plainfield, Connecticut, and the Old North Church in Boston. Ordained in the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut in 2002, she is a graduate of Smith College and Yale Divinity School, and has lived in Acton with her family since 2012. The Rev. Ken Schmidt, a Vietnam-era Army veteran and graduate of Kutztown University and Andover Newton Theological School, was ordained a Deacon in 2012 after a three-year Deacon Formation program. Ellen Oak serves as Pastoral Associate for Liturgy and Music, bringing graduate degrees from the Yale School of Music and Yale Divinity School to a ministry that she describes as empowering individuals and communities to grow into the full stature of the Body of Christ.
The parish office, reachable at admin@goodshepherdacton.org or (978) 263-5782, sits at 164 Newtown Road in Acton. Anyone interested in learning more can join the weekly email list, sign up for a newcomers' connection through the Newcomers Committee, or simply come to a Sunday service and be met at the door.