A Congregation on the Same Two Blocks Since 1831

Grace Episcopal Church has stood in the same two city blocks of historic downtown Hopkinsville, Kentucky, since its founding in 1831. For nearly two centuries the parish has occupied the corner of Sixth Street, and the surrounding acreage tells the longer story of the building campaign: nine parcels have been bought over the past forty years, run-down buildings torn down, and the cleared land turned into parking areas and green space that frame the sanctuary today. The result is a small campus of Gothic Revival buildings, a labyrinth open to the public, and a quiet garden tucked behind a little red house at Fifth and Liberty.

The parish describes itself as a Eucharist-centered congregation. Its mission is to embody the compassion and mercy of Christ, to be fully welcoming and inclusive, and to be a community marked by acceptance, generosity, peace, and reconciliation. Members work together to live out their baptismal vows, recognizing that the Christian life cannot be carried out in isolation.

Sunday Morning at 10:15

Worship at Grace centers on a single Sunday morning Eucharist at 10:15 a.m. The service uses contemporary language from Rite II and is sung with traditional hymns and the parish choir. The morning begins earlier with adult education at 9:00 a.m., a short video and discussion built around the coming day's Scripture readings, followed by choir warmup at 9:30 a.m. Families with young children will find a bright nursery in the atrium just off the nave. The service is offered both in person and on the church's Facebook LiveStream for those at home or away.

Laity are deeply woven into the liturgy. Choir members, lay readers, altar guild members, acolytes, chalice bearers, ushers, musicians, bell ringers, and lay Eucharistic ministers all serve each week. From time to time the musical palette expands: Christmas Eve and Easter typically include orchestral ensembles and sometimes incense. During a 2017 renovation, the congregation worshiped in the parish hall and sang with a piano, an experience the rector remembers as its own kind of gift. When the weather permits, services move outside to the labyrinth.

Beyond the regular Sunday schedule, Grace hosts occasional Celtic Eucharists, choral evensong, and the Advent Festival of Lessons and Carols that has become one of the most anticipated services of the church year.

Compline Every Weekday Evening

Each night from Sunday through Thursday at 8:00 p.m., the deacon reads Compline, the church's ancient bedtime prayer, on the parish's Facebook page. The brief office has become a steady point of connection for parishioners at home, members traveling for work, and friends of Grace across the diocese who drop in for a few minutes of quiet prayer before sleep.

A Meal and a Prayer on Tuesday Evenings

On Tuesdays at 5:30 p.m., Grace opens its doors for a ministry that has become a hallmark of the parish. The service of Evening Prayer lasts about thirty minutes and is rooted in the historic Anglican and Episcopal tradition. Afterward, sack meals are offered to anyone in the community who would like one, with no questions asked and no expectation of return.

The program has grown into a small neighborhood gathering. About every other Sunday after church, members stay to prepare the next week's meals together, an act of fellowship as well as service. Visitors and regulars alike describe the Tuesday evenings as one of the friendliest groups in town, a place where guests often shake hands, hug, and offer honest feedback during the liturgy. The parish sees the ministry as a way to offer both spiritual fulfillment and plain hospitality to Hopkinsville, a respite from the world beyond the church doors.

An Adult Forum on Thursdays

On Thursday nights the parish hosts an Adult Forum that has drawn participants from other Christian congregations in town. The format varies: sometimes the group works through a book, sometimes a DVD series, sometimes a documentary, but the topics always orbit theology, Scripture, and the life of faith. The forum is widely regarded as one of the most popular midweek offerings in the parish.

The Labyrinth and Grace Commons

Behind the sanctuary sits the parish's most unusual gift to the city. The labyrinth at Grace Commons is modeled after the famous labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral near Paris and is always open for walking, sitting, praying, or meditating. The surrounding Grace Commons is described by the parish as an inviting and peaceful place for the entire city, an open green space that anyone can use, whether they are members of Grace or not.

The space hosts occasional worship services, including the annual Blessing of the Animals. It is the kind of offering that is rare for a town Hopkinsville's size, and Grace treats it less as a churchyard and more as a public garden that happens to belong to a church.

Music and the Estey Pipe Organ

The Choir at Grace carries on a historically remarkable music program. Its repertoire blends traditional and contemporary expressions of Anglican choral music with sacred works drawn from other classical traditions. The Choir sings at the 10:15 a.m. service each Sunday and leads the congregation in the annual Community Service of Lessons and Carols.

The instrument beneath the choir loft has its own story. In 1906 John C. Latham Jr., the same benefactor who financed the main sanctuary, gave Grace an Estey Pipe Organ in memory of his mother Virginia; the organ cost $2,700 at the time. The Estey Organ Company had begun building pipe organs in 1901, shortly before this gift, and within a few years would install instruments in places as varied as New York's Capitol Theatre, the Sacramento Municipal Auditorium, and Henry Ford's home in Dearborn, Michigan. By 1960, when the company went out of business, it had built more than 3,200 pipe organs worldwide. In 2009 the Milner Organ Company of Eagleville, Tennessee, completely rebuilt Grace's instrument. Today it contains more than 850 pipes across fifteen ranks, played from two manuals and a pedal keyboard; the largest pipes are wooden and about ten feet long.

A Building Campaign Told in Stone and Glass

The first Grace Church building was completed in 1857 at a final cost of $3,000, plus $1,250 for the rectory. The rector at the time wrote that the active strength of the parish had shrunk to ten women, none of them affluent, and that if there were ever an excuse for giving up it existed here. But, as he noted, these noble-hearted women never faltered.

The main sanctuary, the heart of the present campus, was constructed in 1884 in the English Gothic Revival style. Its outstanding features include a realistic hammer beam ceiling and a rose window above the main entrance. The building was financed by a gift of $50,000 from John Latham Jr., a sum worth well over a million dollars in today's economy. The same donor gave the Estey organ in 1906 and established a fund for the stained glass windows, of which there are now forty-six spread throughout the various buildings on the property.

The Gaither addition, also in the Gothic style, was annexed to the main church in 1906. During World War I, Abbitt Hall was built as the rectory and later became the church school and kindergarten facility. In 1985 the All Saints building was completed to house a new parish hall, kindergarten space, and church school; Abbitt Hall was torn down and that footprint is now part of the memorial garden.

Ministry Partners: Aaron McNeil House

Grace has been a long-standing mission partner with Aaron McNeil House, Inc., a local organization whose purpose is to promote the well-being of families through crisis relief and adult educational programs. Grace supports the ministry with regular food drives, including Thanksgiving and Christmas gifts contributed by the children of the day school. Parish members also help distribute commodities when Aaron McNeil House receives them.

Several Grace members tutor school children through Aaron McNeil House after school. Each December the parish hosts an Angel Tree to provide toys and clothing for families suggested by the partner agency. On a Sunday evening just before Christmas, the parish hosts a children's party in the parish hall with singing, crafts, dessert, and a visit from Santa Claus. The annual rhythm has become a small Advent tradition in its own right.

The Community Garden at Fifth and Liberty

Behind the little red house at the corner of Fifth and Liberty sits Grace's Community Garden. The garden is dedicated to providing vegetables and herbs to neighbors who need them. Each spring the parish publishes a wish list of plants, seeds, and crowns by type, and the wider community is invited to purchase from the list and drop off donations. Those who cannot shop are welcome to give financially so that others can buy on the garden's behalf. Whatever is grown is given away.

The Rector and the Deacon

The Rev. Stephen Spicer has served as rector of Grace since August 2021. He graduated in 2014 with a Master of Divinity from the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, and was ordained a priest in the Diocese of Colorado. After ordination he served as curate at Trinity Episcopal Church in Midtown Houston under the Diocese of Texas and the Rev. Hannah Atkins, then accepted a call as Priest-in-Charge and later Rector of Christ Church in Eagle Lake, Texas. Before seminary he worked for nineteen years in nuclear medicine, providing diagnostic imaging to rural communities in Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado, and later at hospitals in Longmont and Fort Morgan, Colorado. He is currently the Dean of the Four Rivers Deanery, a Trustee of the University of the South, a member of the Advisory Board of the Salvation Army of Hopkinsville, and a Commissioner for the Hopkinsville Human Rights Commission; he chairs the Episcopal Diocese of Kentucky's Budgeting Committee and serves on the Mission Funding Committee. He and his wife Amy have four children and three dogs and two cats.

The deacon, Megan Willenborg, leads the daily office of Compline each weekday evening on Facebook and serves alongside the rector in the congregation's worship and pastoral life.

Stewardship and the Three-Legged Stool

Grace frames its stewardship around the classic three-legged stool of time, talent, and treasure. The parish sees the giving of time as the most irreplaceable gift, and its ministry culture reflects that. Members run ministries, volunteer in the community, call one another on the phone, sit with one another in hard seasons, and keep the buildings, gardens, and programs of the parish going. Online giving is available through the parish, and the regular bulletin can be downloaded in advance of Sunday worship.

What Visitors Can Expect

Grace welcomes anyone who walks through the doors, whether they are passing through Hopkinsville or have lived in the area their whole life. The Sunday service at 10:15 a.m. is the main gathering, with adult education offered before it. The nursery is available for young children, the music draws on both classic Anglican choral repertoire and more contemporary hymnody, and the language of worship is Rite II contemporary English. Compline is offered every evening of the week at 8:00 p.m. online, and Tuesday evenings bring the brief Evening Prayer service followed by sack meals. The labyrinth behind the church is open to the public for walking, prayer, or quiet meditation. The office can be reached at (270) 885-8757 or at office@gracehopkinsville.org.