Music
The choir of St. Anne’s boasts four-five-and six part harmonies with anywhere between eighteen and twenty-five voices. Two compensated vocal students from Coastal Carolina University join our service weekly to lend their voices and lead the congregation in responsively sung Psalms.
Our part-time Director of Music, Sarah Abushakra, has both a B.A. in Music and a M.M. in Piano Pedagogy and Performance. She leads our Sunday services on both a grand piano and organ. A parishioner donated money for an organ and the director found a beautiful instrument we purchased from another congregation. With the piano, organ, and talented choir and director, our worship is greatly enhanced.
Our music director and congregation actively maintain strong collaborations with our sister churches of St. James Catholic, Kingston Presbyterian, and First United Methodist, particularly around Advent and Lent.
Education
St. Anne’s enjoys one of the few Education for Ministry (EfM) Programs in our region, which is unusual for St. Anne’s size. Following the tradition of St. Anne’s quickly employing the gifts of our congregants, when Dan Hutchins and Jim Gross stepped through the doors at St. Anne’s; Father Rob, in greeting them, immediately noticed Jim was wearing an EfM pin, having completed all four years of the program. Within the year, the first class of seven congregants met, and this year, we will enjoy a course of fourteen. In 2023, our first class will graduate out of its fourth year under the leadership of Susan Slavin, who became the EfM mentor in 2022.
Outreach
Our main Community Outreach efforts support Churches Assisting People (CAP), The Shepherd’s Table, Eastern Carolina Housing Organization (ECHO), Freedom Readers, and Episcopal Relief and Development. Every month, we send volunteers and financial support to these missions to love our community through Christ’s mission.
The addition of our church building has created even more opportunities to provide space for community organizations, including a monthly PFLAG meeting, Grand Strand Episcopal Youth & Children’s Ministry, summer Bible school of the Palmetto Missionary Baptist Church, among others. We hope to continue to grow our outreach, as you can read in our future visions.
The reputation of St. Anne’s as a welcoming place of all genders and sexualities has given us positive media attention, several new congregants, and our first protester. While we have received consultations on safety measures to take to keep our congregation safe during worship and other times, we affirm the mission of St. Anne’s.