Group Three: Christianity (Protestant)
Alyssa Blumenthal, Corina Yee, Daniel Stalbow
St. George’s Church
St. George’s Episcopal/Anglican Church is an intercultural, multilingual congregation which represents over twenty different nations of origin. A landmark church, located on Main Street in Flushing Queens, New York between 38th and 39th Avenues, it has served an ever changing congregation for over 300 years. Weekly Eucharist services are held in English, Chinese and Spanish.
The Church was originally organized as a mission of the Church of England by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in in Foreign Parts. Its first meeting was held in Flushing in 1702.
The current church building was built in 1854 and was the third home for this congregation.
To adapt to changing demographics, St. George’s Church instated a Chinese service in 1988 and a Hispanic service in 1993.
Community- St. George’s Church serves three different communities through three different services. there are services in English, Spanish, and Mandarin. the Spanish and mandarin services were added to appeal to the changing populations of flushing. as the English speaking communities have grown older and the younger population moved away, the church needed to find a new community to serve in order to stay alive. When the Chinese population of flushing increased, the church added a Mandarin service to cater to the new members of the flushing community.
Demographics of the services: the different services depict the demographics of the neighborhood. the smallest service is now the English service. The population of Flushing is no longer mainly English speaking. The people who go to the English service are also generally of an older generation who came to the community in the 1960s and 70s. There children have moved out of the community. The Hispanic community is slightly larger than the English speaking community. The people who attend this service are much younger than the attendees of the English service. We met a young woman who was helping organize a mothers day event who attends the Spanish service. The Mandarin service is the largest of the three services. it is also the youngest.
the way the communities interact: on big holidays such as Easter, the three communities come together and the church holds one trilingual mass.
