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All Saints Episcopal Church

500 Lake Avenue
732-892-7478

We are pleased that your spiritual journey has brought you to All Saints. We hope you will find here a home and a community of faith, hope, and love.

God has poured out many blessings on us at All Saints in every generation. He offers us great challenges and opportunities to serve and witness.

Join us in finding God's presence and love in All Saints Church, to hear His Word, to be nourished by His sacraments, and to serve and to be served in this our fellowship of "followers of His Son." If you believe you would like to know more about the Parish, come and share first of all in our worship. Feel free to ask questions, talk with people, get the feel of this community.

We hope that in All Saints you, too, will find the marvelous joy of the Risen Christ in your life; that you will know the happiness of being called to follow Him in the great adventure of faith.

History:

Until 1888 the summer residents of Bay Head, the majority from Philadelphia, met in private homes for Sunday services. In that year, they had a local builder design and build the church, and it was completed in time for the first service in July 1889.

This first church was just the nave of today's church, with the entry on the Howe Street side. The cost of the building seems to have been $2,163.00, and the pews $1.50 each. The remainder of the church was built in stages. The crossing and the sanctuary were added about 1901, and shortly after the bell tower. The sacristy was added about 1958, the narthex in 1960, and Bristol Hall in 1980. Today, All Saints' architecture and its interior still retain the rustic charm reflecting its seaside location--from the weathered cedar shakes outside to the altar cross that is fashioned from the aged piling of a local boatworks.

In the early years, the church was open from June to Labor Day, and visiting clergy, including Bishops, would live in the Rectory in exchange for their services. In 1977, visiting clergy included The Most Rev. and Rt. Hon. F. Donald Coggan, Archbishop of Canterbury, who officiated September 4--"wearing shorts and sandals" and "leaving a few grains of sand on the rug." He dubbed All Saints the "little church on Scow Ditch." As years went by, the "Season" expanded, and in 1979 we became a year-round church, instead of "just a summer chapel." Official parish status followed in succeeding years.

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