About Us
150+
Years of faith,
fellowship and song
St. John’s Elora is a Christian community within the Anglican Church of Canada with a strong history of liturgical worship and choral music.
In a spirit of service, self-giving, and thanksgiving, we offer to the glory of God, ourselves, our souls and bodies, endeavouring to foster a faith in Jesus Christ and facilitate human flourishing. We strive to be a thriving, spiritually nourishing, healthy, welcoming and missional community.
Reaching out and reaching in, community engagement, and partnerships are all critical as we build on our past and present strengths. Our ministry together depends on factors such as spiritual authenticity, intellectual integrity, respectful behaviour, the ability to listen attentively, and community hospitality. We move towards the 2030s in a spirit of love with thanksgiving for what we have been given.
In January 2021, the Rector launched a Visioning Process to help us discern where we need to invest our time and resources as we think about ministry into the 2030’s. People met in small groups to engage in guided conversation to help identify what was important to us.
At a Special Vestry on June 15, 2021, the parish approved the following four areas of ministry to be priorities:
Proclaim the Love of Christ
We are being called to foster faith and human flourishing in others by authentically celebrating who we are and what we have done through God’s grace and not to imitate others programming.
Engage and Involve
We are being called to partner with the community and engage broadly through a hybrid of in-person and expanded online programming.
Musical Outreach
We are being called to invest in our music programming to foster faith for people from all geographies, age groups, and those thirsty for spiritual engagement and fulfillment.
Open Doors
We are being called to ensure that our facilities are welcoming to those who are not currently able to access many parts of our building. Hospitality is part of Jesus’ call to mission, and for us to fulfill that mission we need welcoming and accessible spaces. We are being called to create a new space to be hospitable to the broader community. To host more community functions and have more social elements in our parish life, we need an accessible space.
Our History
As you enter Elora on the Elora Road from Guelph or from Conestoga, you will find a cairn at the southwest corner of Highways 7 and 21. This cairn, constructed of original cemetery stones, marks the plot of land where the original Church of St. John the Evangelist was first built in 1842. The parish was established in 1830.
The present building, a red brick structure in the Gothic revival style, is located on the corner of Henderson and Smith Street, in the upper end of the village. It was designed by Henry Langley and built in 1875. Adjacent to the church is the Parish Centre, a restored heritage building, which houses our office space, meeting rooms, and music library. Presently, we are building the new St. John’s Commons, an accessible gathering space which will be open to the whole community.
In 1972 St John’s established St. John’s School for Boys on site, and in 1975 St Margaret’s Girls School, as a way to provide education for local children that had at its foundation an Anglican tradition of music and liturgy. In 1985 the two schools amalgamated and in 1990 the initiative formed what is now known as St John’s-Kilmarnock School, the only International Baccalaureate School in southwest Ontario providing a JK to Grade 12 education, located on a beautiful 36 acre campus in Breslau.
Even though there is no historical evidence that they ever met, the first Rector, Rev’d John Smithurst, held Florence Nightingale, the founder of the profession of nursing, as his beloved. There is a stained glass window to both of them in the southwest corner of the church. It is thought that Florence Nightingale sent John Smithurst a gift of communion vessels, a silver chalice and paten, in gratitude for his ministry and as an expression of her love. The chalice and paten are presently in a display case at the church.
With the warm and rich acoustics in the building, St. John’s has been blessed with a long tradition of sacred choral music. Presently we support one of Canada’s only fully professional church choirs, the Choir of St. John’s Elora. We partner with the Elora Festival every July, and we are the home venue for the Elora Singers since 1979.