The Church of St. James the Less

Very warm and welcoming community with lots of opportunity to participate in a variety of programs. The Christian education program starts at preschool and runs through high school and often includes inter-​generational programs. They church just presented its 71^st Christmas pageant! There is an active youth group for both junior high and high school students with field trips, outreach and fellowship. The music program is first rate with children, youth and adult choirs. In addition, there are other concerts held at the church. The church is very involved in outreach supporting among others the Midnight Run program, Habitat for Humanity, and Interfaith Food Bank.

I don’t know whether it’s simply the Episcopal churches I end up visiting, but I have yet to attend a service at one where I was anything but warmly welcomed by the rector and the congregation. St. James the Less in Scarsdale was no exception to this rule, and they were quite hospitable to this obvious visitor amongst them.
Having attended numerous services at the lovely and highly recommended St. Mary-​in-​the-​Highlands in Cold Spring, N.Y., I had come to realize what I expected from an Episcopal service and what I wanted from a church community as a whole. In addition, I had been spoiled by the quality of the services at St. Mary-​in-​the-​Highlands and was seeking a church that would provide something similar, and I was seeking it with a fairly critical eye. The poor parishioners of St. James the Less had absolutely no idea what they were up against.
Fast forward: I am very much looking forward to returning to St. James the Less for a future service. The lovely historic church, which sits on a hill overlooking the only cemetery in Scarsdale — and a peaceful, well-​maintained cemetery it is, too — is home to a very nice group of people led by Fr. Tom, who was eager to make sure I had filled out a «newcomer» card when he greeted me at the end of the service. The church itself is beautiful, made of dark stone, with lovely, thin stained-​glass windows decorated with saints and flowers; the altar, with its plush embroidered kneelers and delicate carvings, is a site to behold.
Fr. Tom’s sermon was reflective of the Gospel reading for that day. I generally have no liking for sermons that center their orbit directly on the Gospel if the lector’s main message is nothing more than «you should do thus-​and-​so because it is laid out thus-​and-​so in the Book of (fill in the name of the appropriate Apostle here).» Sermons with the Gospel as their framework get lost unless the message is tied into real life in some way, thereby showing people how they can apply the Gospel’s tenets to themselves; the most effective sermons that I have heard, both Catholic and Episcopal, managed to do this in some manner. The least effective ones, the ones that set me to daydreaming in the pews, were the ones that told me that I must profess X because St. Paul professed X, for example. Um, no thank you.
Happily, Fr. Tom’s sermon was headed towards the former category with its reflection on Genesis and something to the effect of how mankind was called to value creation. I liked that he added that the passages caused him to reflect personally on nature and how much it moved him. All in all, Fr. Tom gave a good sermon, and the congregation was certainly engaged throughout, some rather thoughtfully. The coffee hour after service was a particularly lively affair, and everyone I met was genuinely friendly. Two people even waved to me as I left the parking lot in my car, which was especially nice given that I’d never met these people before.
From what I could gather, St. James the Less appears to be a very nice church that is home to a nice group of people. Scarsdale itself is fairly upscale, but St. James the Less seems to be a down-​to-​earth congregation, so don’t be afraid to give them a try.