Grace Episcopal Church sits on the east side of the 300 block of South King Street in Morganton, North Carolina, where a granite church holding the largest collection of stained glass windows in Burke County has anchored Episcopal worship since 1896. The parish itself traces back to 1845, when twenty-two households were admitted to the Diocese of North Carolina, and it is widely regarded as the mother church of the western North Carolina region. A welcoming and affirming congregation, Grace today lives out a single, repeated mission: "We are a community of Christ the servant."
From a Mission on John's River to a Granite Landmark
The story of Grace begins with Robert Johnstone Miller, known as "Parson Miller," an evangelist ordained first by the Lutheran Synod of North Carolina and later by the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina. In 1821 he founded St. Andrew's Mission, the first Episcopal church in western North Carolina, on what is now the site of First Baptist Church in Hudson. After Miller's death in 1831, scattered Episcopalians in Burke County worshipped at a chapel on John's River, at the old meeting house in Morganton, and at the Burke County Courthouse. Seven missioners guided the flock through these peripatetic years, until twenty-two households, among them a woman named Hannah who was enslaved, were admitted to the Diocese of North Carolina on May 22, 1845.
In 1846 the parish bought a lot at the corner of King and McDowell streets and built a clapboard church seating about fifty. It was consecrated on July 10, 1847, with John Collett, James Avery, and Joseph J. Erwin as the first wardens. By 1858, Thomas Walton had become senior warden and would serve until his death in 1905. After the Civil War, financial hardship gripped both the parish and the county for several decades. By the 1890s, however, members judged the original building "not sufficiently grand, architecturally," and construction began on a new church of native granite from a Burke County quarry, finished "rubble style." That building, consecrated November 22, 1896, is the church that holds services today, and it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The whole Grace Church complex now occupies the entire east side of the 300 block of South King Street.
A Rector Who Reborn the Parish
Around the same time the new granite church opened, a visionary rector, the Rev. Churchill Satterlee, arrived and transformed the congregation. Members began living out their baptismal vows through the Brotherhood of St. Andrew and took up a sweeping outreach effort. Satterlee established five holistic missions in Burke County offering worship, schooling, and limited health care, and his successors added six more, most with a chapel, a school, and often a mission house for teachers. Most had closed by 1935 as public schools and better roads spread, but two of the surviving missions, St. Mary's and St. Paul's, are now full-fledged parishes in their own right. St. Stephen's, begun in 1891 across McDowell Street as a mission for African Americans, also grew into another Morganton parish.
A Century of Service Beyond the Walls
Grace's call to serve has reached well beyond its own grounds. In 1906, the Rev. Walter Hughson, his activist wife Mary, missionary nurse Maria Allen, and physician Dr. Edward Phifer founded Grace Hospital on the old Mumford property on King Street. That hospital became the first hospital in Burke County and is today part of Carolinas HealthCare System - Blue Ridge; its associated nursing school is now part of Lenoir-Rhyne University in nearby Hickory. Other institutions born from Grace Church or its members include the first Red Cross chapter in Burke County, the first Boy Scout troop, the first Boy Scout troop for the deaf in the United States, the Community Chest (now United Way), Burke United Christian Ministries, Hospice, and Burke County Habitat for Humanity. The parish's commitment to service, the church's history notes, "has often been disproportionately large in comparison to its size."
Sunday Worship and the Rhythm of the Week
The principal service of the week is the Sunday Holy Eucharist at 10:30 a.m., celebrated using Rite II with contemporary language. After the service, the parish gathers in the Parish Hall for Coffee Hour, a long-running time of fellowship with light refreshments. On Wednesdays at 10:00 a.m., a brief Healing Service takes place in the chapel in the Parish Hall, featuring scripture, discussion, prayers for healing, and Eucharist. On the third Thursday of each month at 11:00 a.m., the rector brings Holy Eucharist to residents of the Grace Ridge retirement community.
For those who want to go deeper between services, the Adult Forum meets in the Church Library on Sunday mornings from 9:30 to 10:15 a.m., with prayer, the Gospel reading appointed for the day, and a gently facilitated group discussion. Each session stands on its own, so newcomers can drop in at any time. Sunday services are livestreamed on YouTube for those unable to attend in person.
Music, the Labyrinth, and a Quieter Worship
Music holds a central place at Grace. The Adult Choir, open to anyone high-school age and older, supports congregational singing and enhances worship, singing for the weekly 10:30 a.m. service from September through May and rehearsing on Wednesday evenings at 6:00 p.m. No previous experience is necessary. Throughout the year the parish hosts special musical services, including an Outdoor Jazz Mass and an annual saxophone concert with the Lenoir Sax ensemble.
On the quieter end of worship life, Grace maintains an outdoor labyrinth, modeled on the design of Chartres Cathedral in France. Open to the community at any time, the labyrinth invites walkers along a winding path toward the center and back out again as a moving prayer. Guided walks and programs about the labyrinth take place throughout the year.
Children and Youth
Grace takes seriously that spiritual development begins at birth. A staffed nursery is provided every Sunday morning from 9:30 a.m. until the close of the 10:30 service for children from birth through kindergarten, though infants and children are always welcome in the main service, too. Sunday School runs from September through May, with classes from Pre-K through fifth grade and a separate sixth through twelfth grade class meeting downstairs in the Parish Hall. Older children and youth can serve as acolytes, carrying the processional cross, lighting candles, and assisting the deacon or rector in worship, an apprenticeship that doubles as a hands-on introduction to Episcopal liturgy.
The formation team is led by Alex Kneen, who holds a master's in theological studies from Nashotah House Theological Seminary and has worked in ministry since 1999. The nursery is supervised by Justina Keene and Savannah Ann.
Outreach in Morganton
Grace's outreach work reaches into the everyday life of Burke County. The Tiny Pantry, a small outdoor pantry placed on the church's downtown grounds in 2017, invites neighbors to "Take what they need, leave what they can," and has since inspired similar pantries at other churches and organizations throughout the region. The Backpack Ministry, launched in 2010 with Hillcrest Elementary School, sends children home with backpacks packed with about ten pounds of food each Friday; the program has grown to more than 225 backpacks and roughly 2,000 pounds of food a month, with First Baptist Church joining as a partner in 2012.
Circle of Friends serves a 4 p.m. meal every Wednesday to unsheltered and food-insecure neighbors in the Parish Hall, with First United Methodist Church of Morganton helping prepare the food and a retired local veterinarian caring for the pets of guests. The ministry typically serves more than thirty meals a week. Saturdays began with brown-bag lunches prepared in the Parish Hall and handed out from a parking-lot table in February 2022; that effort has now shifted into a partnership with Burke United Christian Ministries, and Grace fields a brunch team on the first Saturday of each month and a lunch team on the first Wednesday, both at BUCM. The Dignity Matters program supplies feminine hygiene bags and underwear to women and girls in local schools and to those without housing, supported by a grant from the Burke Women's Fund at the Community Foundation of Burke County. Inside the parish, the Meals of Grace Freezer keeps casseroles and desserts on hand so members can quietly share a meal with a neighbor in need. Grace Church is also a partner agency of Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina.
Parish Life, ECW, and the Building
Fellowship is woven into the week. Coffee Hour follows every Sunday service, and the parish life team plans summer picnics, a Shrove Tuesday pancake supper, scavenger hunts, outings, and seasonal celebrations in a full-service kitchen with both indoor and outdoor gathering space. The Episcopal Church Women, locally called ECW, has been a part of parish life since 1891, when it was known as the Women's Guild, gathers all women of Grace for worship, fellowship, and outreach support, and is currently focused on revitalizing the Parish Hall kitchen under the theme "2024 A Year of Grace." The parish's Altar Guild is a lay ministry of women and men who set up and care for the furnishings in the nave, sanctuary, and sacristy under the direction of the rector.
The Grace Episcopal Church Foundation, established in 1969, receives and distributes funds for religious, educational, scientific, missionary, and charitable purposes; in 2025 it awarded a total of $70,000 to fourteen organizations across Burke County, including Burke United Christian Ministries, the Burke County Literacy Council, Burke County Young Life, the Hispanic Mission, and the North Carolina School for the Deaf Foundation. A separate endowment, established in 1998, maintains the historic campus and seeds new ministry initiatives; its first distribution came in 2016.
Stewardship of the Earth
The Green Team, formed from a 2007 ministry fair and later partnered with GreenFaith, treats care of the earth as a core spiritual discipline. The team has established recycling, composting, and rain barrel programs at the church, planted a pollination garden on campus, hosted an annual Green Forum featuring speakers such as the Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, organized quarterly church-wide hikes, installed a bicycle rack on church grounds, and supported other faith communities developing their own green teams. Members collect plastic bottle caps through the ABC Promise Partnership to be turned into benches, diverting plastic from local landfills.
Leadership and What to Expect
The parish is led by the Rev. John C. Simpson IV, who was ordained in 2021 after seminary at the University of the South and earlier careers in lay youth ministry and economics. Br. Travis White serves as choirmaster in addition to his work directing the chorus at Liberty Middle School. Alex Kneen leads formation, and Kathy Peters coordinates pastoral care as a trained spiritual director and SoulCollage and Labyrinth facilitator.
Grace is part of the Diocese of Western North Carolina and the larger Episcopal Church, a member of the worldwide Anglican Communion whose mission is "to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ." Visitors of any background, the parish notes, will find "newcomers to Christianity, and people whose great grandparents were Episcopalians," and a community serious about creating "brave and vulnerable spaces" where people can bring their whole selves. Holy Eucharist on Sunday at 10:30 a.m. is the main gathering, followed by Coffee Hour in the Parish Hall.