St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church is a place to love and be loved. Whether you’re single, widowed, divorced, married, or re-married and blending a family, you are welcome to enter into the heart of worship and life in the community. Our worship draws  on ancient prayers and words of Jesus to praise God and to renew ourselves. Our life together focuses on reaching out to  others in the name of Jesus, realizing our lives are blessed through service.

 We invite you to move deeper into the website to get a closer look at our life together, and pray you will join us Sunday for  worship. Whether you are poor or wealthy, sick or well, young or elderly, married or single, broken or restored, come as you are!

OUR PASTOR

 The Reverend Mary Siegmund

 Her ministry informed and shaped by her work as a priest, counselor, and mediator focuses on reaching modern families: singles,  widowed, married, and re-married with blended families.   A mother herself, she strives to bring children and youth into the  fullness of faith.  While serving as the Youth Pastor at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church, Nashua, New Hampshire, Mary and the  Christian Education Director began a Family Eucharist, a kid-friendly service, which continues to this day. Through her ministry,  she created opportunities for children and youth to serve others through worship and outreach.

 In the parish, she conducts Adult Forums and Workshops on spiritual topics and practices and daily life issues, such as Praying at  Home,  Serving as a Family, Step-Parenting,  Redeeming Our Time, Finding Balance, Grief and Bereavement, and Peacemaking  Skills for Families.  She also works with individuals and families facing challenges, serving as a coach and offering spiritual  guidance.

 Mary has been a leader in social concerns. While serving In New Hampshire, she sat on the Board of Domestic Violence  Prevention, served on the ground floor of the Granite State Organizing Project, and worked with local groups to alleviate poverty,  abuse, and suffering.

 Mary has an open mind about matters of faith because of her exposure to Roman Catholicism as a child, her experience in the  Episcopal Church as an adult, and her training at a Southern Baptist Seminary.  What she values most about the Episcopal faith  is the belief that God gave us a mind to use for the betterment of society and His glory. We are a “thinking person’s” Church.

 Her first pastorate was a start-up church created to reach the unchurched by using modern music and instruments (jazz band)  with ancient and modern prayers.  In her second pastorate, she served as an Assistant Rector and Youth Pastor at Good  Shepherd Church, Nashua, New Hampshire.  In her most recent ministry, prior to her arrival at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church,  Newton, she served as Canon to the Ordinary for the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas. Her work as the Canon to the  Ordinary (the bishop’s right hand person) included recruiting and searching for rectors, church growth and development,  fostering problem-solving skills, teaching peacemaking skills, and reconciliation.

 A native of Missouri, the Reverend Mary Siegmund holds a Bachelor of Arts in Management from Park College, Parkville, Missouri;  a Master of Arts in Counseling and Guidance from University of Missouri, Kansas City; a Master of Divinity from Midwestern  Baptist Theological Seminary, Kansas City, Missouri; and a certificate of Anglican Individualized Studies from the Episcopal  Seminary of the Southwest, Austin, Texas.