The Staff...
The Reverend Richard Ressler, Rector
The Reverend Jo Hedin, Deacon
JoAnn Edstrom, Organist and Chancel Choir Director
Kim Kelly, Administrative Secretary
Your Vestry...
Mark Rude, Senior Warden
Les Koss, Junior Warden
Pamela Barnett Key Parker
Donna Burnap Tim Pederson
Kibbe Conti Karen Psiaki
Steve Flanery Father Richard Ressler
Nancy Janak Sande Riemenschneider
Lisa Kautz Chris Trull
Clark Moyle
Our Vision...
Emmanuel Parish is a community where members are encouraged, nurtured and supported in their various and unique journeys toward knowing and loving our Lord deeply and more completely. We are a community who strives to be sensitive, respectful, loving, and responsive to the needs of its individual members. We pray and work that we may be open and tolerant to all people. We are a community who values the depth and stability of our Anglican traditions while embracing the challenges and changes brought by our ever emerging, adapting, and evolving life together. We do so, in order that we might have deeper understandings, mature and eager commitments to Christ and joyous celebrations of our lives together as Christians.
As members of this community, we will be equipped, encouraged and expected to make our Lord known; to share our faith, our traditions, and our parish life with those who are seeking God, especially remembering those who are the least of our brothers and sisters. We will act toward others with a belief that this community, our expressions of faith, and our commitment to Christ and to each other, will make an essential difference in their lives and that, by the Grace of God, we will spark in them a spiritual awakening and a loving challenge that will bring joy, devotion and spiritual growth.
About Us...
Emmanuel Episcopal Church is the only downtown Rapid City church still in its original building. A small group began holding services in Rapid City in 1887, under the leadership of George G. Ware, a lay reader who was later ordained and became the first rector. The cornerstone of the little sandstone church was laid November 10, 1887, and the first services were held in the new building in 1888.
The church is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The original church building was enlarged by an addition to the south in the early 1940s, which also incorporated a stone Parish Hall adjacent on the east. In 1954, a large, new Parish Hall with a stage, kitchen and basement classrooms was added and, in 1991, an addition for office space and additional classrooms was completed.
Our longest-serving Rector was the Rev. Mr. E. Jerome Pipes, who was here from 1934 until 1960. Perhaps the best-remembered event of his tenure was the attendance of President Franklin D. Roosevelt at a regular Sunday service in 1936.
Rectors have included the Rev. Dr. Hanford L. King, Jr. (later Bishop of Idaho), 1960-1972; the Rev. Mr. Hewes “Doc” Phillips, 1972-1977; the Rev. Mr. David Anderson, 1978-1987; The Rev. Mr. David A. Cameron,1987-2006; the Very Rev. Dr. Robert Wagner, 2006 interim rector; the Rev. Canon David L. Seger, 2006-2008 interim rector; and the Rev. Richard Ressler, 2008-present.
Emmanuel Episcopal Church
To Know Our Lord & To Make Him Known
(605) 342-0909
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