What makes a Servant Year? |
Servant Year invites young adults ages 21–32 into an intentional year of Christian community, prayer, service, hospitality, and vocational discernment within the Community of St. James. Rooted in the Episcopal tradition, the program is designed for those seeking a deeper way of living — one shaped by common prayer, shared responsibility, mutual care, and service alongside neighbors in Philadelphia.
Servant Year is centered around five core commitments:
Members commit not only to a year of service, but also to a shared Rule of Common Life that orders the rhythms of worship, meals, community responsibilities, formation, Sabbath, and hospitality. Life in the program includes participation in worship at the Church of St. James the Less, leadership in community ministries such as The Welcome Table Saturday Market, intentional living in community at Audrey’s House, weekly formation gatherings, retreats, spiritual direction, therapy, and ongoing vocational reflection.
Servant Year understands service not as charity from a distance, but as mutual relationship rooted in dignity, presence, and shared humanity. Members are invited to become active participants in the life of the neighborhood and community, while also learning how to serve one another through the ordinary responsibilities of common life.
In return for their commitment, members are invited into a community that seeks to form people spiritually, emotionally, and vocationally for lives of faithful service and leadership.
For many participants, Servant Year becomes an important season of discernment and transformation — a time to ask deeper questions about faith, purpose, work, relationships, and the kind of life they hope to build. The program is not simply preparation for a career, but formation for a life grounded in service, community, and the ongoing search for God’s call.
Servant Year is centered around five core commitments:
- serving others in solidarity,
- promoting justice through community and relationship,
- deepening spiritual awareness and practice,
- discerning vocation and developing gifts for future work and ministry,
- and learning to live simply and faithfully alongside others.
Members commit not only to a year of service, but also to a shared Rule of Common Life that orders the rhythms of worship, meals, community responsibilities, formation, Sabbath, and hospitality. Life in the program includes participation in worship at the Church of St. James the Less, leadership in community ministries such as The Welcome Table Saturday Market, intentional living in community at Audrey’s House, weekly formation gatherings, retreats, spiritual direction, therapy, and ongoing vocational reflection.
Servant Year understands service not as charity from a distance, but as mutual relationship rooted in dignity, presence, and shared humanity. Members are invited to become active participants in the life of the neighborhood and community, while also learning how to serve one another through the ordinary responsibilities of common life.
In return for their commitment, members are invited into a community that seeks to form people spiritually, emotionally, and vocationally for lives of faithful service and leadership.
For many participants, Servant Year becomes an important season of discernment and transformation — a time to ask deeper questions about faith, purpose, work, relationships, and the kind of life they hope to build. The program is not simply preparation for a career, but formation for a life grounded in service, community, and the ongoing search for God’s call.
|
|