WHAT WE BELIEVE

As Episcopalians, we believe in and follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, whose life, death, and resurrection saved the world. 

We believe that God loves everyone.

No exceptions. 



see more at The Episcopal Church website

Our Beliefs

We often encapsulate our vision and mission statements in these words: 

Love inclusively

 Serve faithfully

 Share generously


Vision Statement

 The Church of the Messiah is an intentionally inclusive community called to love the Lord and to serve God’s world in a spirit of reconciliation, hope, and healing.

Mission Statement

The Church of the Messiah follows Jesus through our liturgy and music while sharing the love of Jesus by serving the Myrtle Beach community. 

Our History

Myrtle Beach began to grow as a resort in the 1930's. In the summers of 1935 and 1936, the Rev. Thomas S. Tisdale worked with interested persons in Myrtle Beach to organize a congregation of Episcopalians. Also instrumental was The Reverend Henry D. Bull, Rector of Prince George Church in Georgetown. The first services were in Presbyterian and Methodist Churches on Sunday afternoons.

In March of 1937, a lot on Highway 17 at 30th Avenue North was donated by Myrtle Beach Farms for an Episcopal Church building and construction began on November 23, 1937. At the 1940 convention of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, The Episcopal Church of the Messiah was admitted as a mission church. A priest-in-charge was appointed that year.

The Church of the Messiah was made a parish church in union with the diocese in the spring of 1949. In 1951, the name of the church was changed to Trinity Episcopal Church. The next decades experienced building expansion and growth in numbers of parishioners.


A sad division took place on December 3, 2012, when Trinity Church joined the then Bishop Mark Lawrence in a schism that took Trinity and a number of other Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina parishes out of the Episcopal Church and eventually created a new denomination. It took ten years for the courts and the two dioceses to decide which Church properties belonged to the Episcopal Diocese and which Church facilities were to be owned by the Schismatic group, the Anglican Church in North America. At the final court decision in August, 2022, Trinity learned that they would continue as part of the ACNA group.


In response to the 2012 scism, a group of faithful Episcopalians who had been part of Trinity met on January 6, 2013 to re-establish  the Episcopal Church in Myrtle Beach. A worshipping community began holding regular services on August 4, 2013, with the assistance of the Rev. Wilmot Merchant, Rector of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in North Myrtle Beach. With guest priests serving, the Holy Eucharist was offered each Sunday according to the Episcopal Book of Common prayer. When the time came to select a name for the church, the Episcopal Church of the Messiah was chosen to mark our true and historic continuity with the beloved chain of an Episcopal presence in Myrtle Beach for over eighty years. The Church of the Messiah once again became a congregation of the diocese of the Episcopal Church of South Carolina in 2014. We are thankful to Coastal Carolina University, the Brittain Center and St. Phillip Lutheran Church for providing us with temporary homes from 2013 to 2020.


In 2019 we began a search for a place to call our own. In March of 2020, we moved into our present location in retail space at "Pink House Square", a shopping center at 4201 North Kings Highway. After only two weeks of worshipping at our new location, COVID struck. This held back our full use of our new facilities for a few years. But our Vicar since 2014,  Father Randy Ferebee and our faithful parishioners kept worship and our Episcopal traditions alive with innovative solutions. These included car-communion in the back parking lot, with the priest leading worship through the car radio and worshippers receiving the communion wafer in an individually wrapped packet.  We continued growing through the pandemic. As the Pandemic was winding down, Fr. Randy retired a second time, moved back to his native North Carolina, and our Current Vicar, Fr. John Sorensen, recently retired from the Diocese of Pennsylvania, joined us in early 2022.


The Episcopal Church of the Messiah continues to grow in our faith, in our ministry programs, in our mission in the community as well as in our numbers. Our "Church" building is a first floor room that seats as many as 80 for Easter Sunday, 2024. Our Church "Parish Hall" is upstairs, including office space, choir room, Childcare and Coffee Hour facilities. We hope you'll join us! Let's make history together!


As of Summer, 2024, the Parish leadership has completed a Vision and Business plan to partner with the Diocese and move forward over the next five years, growing the congregation and building a new permanent church in Myrtle Beach. This is an exciting time to be part of the Episcopal Church of the Messiah. Please join us!


Foot Prints

Our Vision. Our Future.

Our Visioning Retreat II Concludes with Recommendations for Building a New Messiah Church


Our second visioning retreat with Ann Fleming of the Episcopal Church Building Fund concluded October 30, 2023 with specific recommendations for building the new Messiah Episcopal Church on a new property in Myrtle Beach. Here is a brief (updated 2024) Summary of the Recommendations of our team.

(1) begin the process of calling a full-time residential priest to Messiah by Summer of 2024, and provide a paid support staff for the office to support our clergy and ministry.

(2) Grow and Expand the Messiah Congregation, and redevelop and improve existing parish program and ministry offerings. In 2023 we began a regular Children's Sunday School for young children with five regular attendees and a beloved teacher. A Women's Bible Study began Spring 2024. Another Tuesday Study group has been meeting for a decade. Membership is growing as is average Sunday attendance (both in person and online.)

(3) Proceed with the purchase of a property, in partnership with the diocese that will become the future location of the Episcopal Church of the Messiah in Myrtle Beach.

(4) Develop a Vision and business plan to lay out the timeline and steps that will lead to the construction of our new church within five years. This report was submitted to Diocese in May 2024.


Stay tuned for more news, and keep our congregation in prayer. This will require the time, talent and treasure of each of us!


Many Blessings,


Fr. John


Messiah's Visioning Report

A message from Vestry Warden Rick Stall about Messiah's Vision Report and Business Plan

Good People of Messiah: 

This is a "status report" on our request to the diocese to enter into a partnership to purchase property for our new home and grow the mission and ministry of The Episcopal Church of the Messiah in Myrtle Beach. I write here to update your about where we are in the overall process. Click here for the report.

 

The majority of the Messiah family participated in our four days of visioning sessions with Ann Fleming in July and October, 2023. Our many interests, passions and hopes for Messiah's future were then compiled by Kristi Burch and the Steering Committee over many weeks, which included finding and incorporating related statistical data to support our request. As we have shared with you, the resulting document or "Visioning Report & Business Plan" was submitted to the bishop's office in late May. 

 

Bishop Ruth and the diocesan treasurer and chancellors (attorneys) have already begun their study and review of our report, which must be presented formally to the Standing Committee of the diocese, the leadership body having canonical responsibility for property matters. The date for our presentation has not yet been set, and we know that several key review process participants have long been obligated to General Convention, which convenes later this month. 

 

Additional diocesan bodies are involved in the process of determining the support we hope to receive: the Diocesan Council (which is akin to the "vestry" of the diocese) and the Trustees (the group overseeing the financial investments of the diocese). The diocese also retains a real estate professional (who assisted Messiah with relevant statistical reports that provide important perspective on our request), and a diocesan Comptroller has recently been hired with responsibility for overall financial management of the diocese. These key participants have been informed of the selling price of the property we have identified as our best prospect for a meaningful future as the Episcopal Church for Myrtle Beach.

 

My hope for this process is that Messiah will soon know the funding arrangements for buying property to be our permanent home. We also envision a capital campaign to solicit support from members, friends and interested supporters outside our immediate area with the goal of eventually constructing a building. Also being discussed is ongoing financial support that will enable us to grow the mission and ministry of our Congregation.

 

This is a hopeful and exciting time in the life of Messiah and it comes as has everything in our eleven years together has come: with a leap of faith, with some obvious challenges and - most significantly - with the powerful support of the Holy Spirit. From my perspective, we have truly been both guided and supported by The Divine from our zero-based start and throughout many shifts and changes over the last decade! Keep praying that we hold faithfully to the path the Holy Spirit is engineering, and may God continue to bless our progress! 

Rick

Forward Day by Day

Daily Devotions

Forward Day by Day is a collection of daily inspirational meditations reflecting on a specific Bible passage, chosen from the daily lectionary readings as listed in the Revised Common Lectionary or the Daily Office from the Episcopal Church's Book of Common Prayer. Forward Movement, the publisher, is an agency of The Episcopal Church.


Daily podcast: Available here or anywhere you listen to podcasts

• Smartphone App: App Store and Google Play

• Visit our daily prayer website (mirrors app content): English | Español

Braille and Spanish versions are available on their website. Large-print and pocket-sized booklets are available in our chapel.

Daily Devotions

 Faith in Action Journey

Here is a meditation by Patty Tate, our parish secretary. It's an on-going challenge to put our faith into action but that is exactly what is asked us of in James 2:17: So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. Daily we must love our neighbors through our actions.

We will falter.

We will take a deep breath and with God's help try again.

We will speak without thinking.

We will ask both God and the person we hurt for forgiveness.

We will ignore someone in need.

We will ask God to open our eyes so that we see others and their needs..

We will think only of ourselves.

We will ask God to open our hearts as we extend a hand to someone else.

As we grow bit by bit, we will continue to stumble but with God's help we will have faith with works.

Please walk with us on our faith with works journey!



Faith with Works Opportunities

The Three Legged Stool



Scripture, tradition and reason are the cornerstones of our faith.

These three sources uphold and critique each other in a dynamic way. Scripture is the normative source for God's revelation and the source for all Christian teaching and reflection. Tradition passes down from generation to generation the church's ongoing experience of God's presence and activity. Reason is understood to include the human capacity to discern the truth in both rational and intuitive ways. It is not limited to logic as such. It takes into account and includes experience. Each of the three sources of authority must be perceived and interpreted in light of the other two. 

What's the meaning of the logo?

The emblem of the Episcopal Church of the Messiah is composed of a Latin cross and the bow of a boat. Captured in these images is our mission to follow the Messiah and to move with God's spirit into the world. Particularly appropriate for a church by the sea, a boat is an early symbol of the people of God who gather as disciples and go out to "fish for people" (Matthew 4:19) as apostles.

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