The Rev. Karen Matthews is the new priest-in-charge at St. James Episcopal Church, the architectural icon and tourism magnet known as the Red Church at the top of North Washington Street in Sonora.
She is also the new priest-in-charge at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in San Andreas. Formal installation and blessing ceremonies for Matthews are scheduled at 10 a.
m. Sunday, Sept. 29 at the Red Church, and at 1 p.
m. the same day at St. Matthew’s in San Andreas.
Matthews is the first woman priest-in-charge in the history of St. James Episcopal Church, which dates to 1860. The Episcopal Church celebrated the 50th anniversary of the ordination of its first women priests — the Philadelphia Eleven — in July.
Matthews’ installation and blessing in Sonora and the 10 a.m. service will be followed by a potluck lunch.
Her installation and blessing in San Andreas will be followed by a reception. Matthews came to Sonora in mid-July from New Zealand, where she has led five congregations at five different Episcopalean churches, including the Maori Tangi te Keo Rohe of Wellington. The Maori are the indigenous Polynesian people of mainland New Zealand.
She emphasizes that St. James Episcopal Church in Sonora welcomes people of all faiths and backgrounds, including the LGBTQ+ community. Matthews came to the Mother Lode with her husband, the Rev.
Brian Dawson, who will be serving at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Modesto. Matthews and Dawson and their dog, Wicket, live in Angels Camp.
“We've been searching for a new priest for about two years,” said Mary Lynn Ashburn, who oversees the Red Church’s business side as bishop’s warden. “People in the church pulled together and kept it going with visiting priests. “We have this beautiful building that’s a distinctive local landmark, but the people are the church,” Ashburn said.
“And she is really bringing enthusiasm and inspiration. Her beliefs, she is so loving and inclusive. The Episcopalian church is known for that.
It's wonderful to have a priest who exudes that. She is a very outgoing personality.” The Red Church has a reputation for helping the Mother Lode’s poor and the shelterless, and that will continue under Matthews’ leadership.
St. James Episcopal Church is a base for the New Life Lighthouse Ministries food pantry and prayers on Friday mornings, the Give Someone a Chance shower bus on Fridays, and monthly meetings for NAMI Tuolumne County, a local group aligned with the National Association for Mental Illness. The church also hosts events at Christmas and Easter.
St. James Episcopal Church has worship services at 10 a.m.
Sundays, and people of all beliefs are welcome, Matthews said Thursday in an interview at the Red Church. Matthews will officiate worship services at 10 a.m.
this Sunday at the Red Church. The following Sunday she will be in Sonora at 10 a.m.
and in San Andreas at 1 p.m. for installation and blessing ceremonies at both churches.
Thereafter, she plans to officiate 10 a.m. Sunday worship services the first and third Sundays each month in San Andreas, and the second and fourth Sundays each month in Sonora.
There will always be 10 a.m. Sunday services in San Andreas and in Sonora, every Sunday year-round, Matthews emphasized.
When she is in San Andreas, someone else will deliver the service in Sonora, and vice-versa. Matthews was born in Whanganui, a coastal river city on New Zealand’s North Island, the same island that is home to the nation’s capital, Wellington to the south, and Auckland, the nation’s largest city, to the north. She grew up on a modest, rural eight-hectare poultry farm, about 20 acres, surrounded by much larger dairy farms outside Whanganui.
In Maori language, Whanga nui means “big bay” or “big harbor.” Her father drove poultry trucks and farmed, and her mother worked on the farm. She had two older brothers, Craig and Glen, who were seven and five years older than her, respectively.
She collected eggs, occasionally milked the cow, and helped raise sheep. They rode motorbikes and taught her how to play rugby and cricket, and they came to her ballet and modern dance performances when she started dancing. She grew up Roman Catholic, but she wasn’t a devoted churchgoer.
Many people in New Zealand are laid back and enjoy the beaches and the mountains, she said. One of her earliest memories of religion and church leadership was when she was about 6 years old and her brother Glen pretended to be a priest to marry her teddy bear and a friend’s doll. At age 12, she remembers her first Roman Catholic confession, and how she took it so seriously that the priest she confessed to was visibly pleased.
“It shaped who I am,” Matthews said. “That’s my identity. I believe in forgiveness.
” She attended a rural primary state school from age 5 to 13 and then a five-year Roman Catholic secondary school similar to American high schools. She was finishing her honors degree in economics at Massey University and she was living in Palmerston North when she had a vision. “I’m in the dark, there are branches around me, and a light is burning behind me,” Matthews said.
“I turned to the light and interpreted this as ‘go back to church.’ ” The vision came to her so strongly, and affected her so immediately, she decided the message meant ‘go to the nearest church.’ So she did.
A few doors down from her home was an Episcopalian church and that’s where she went. She later studied at St. John’s Theological College in Auckland, she earned a post-graduate Diploma of Theology at Auckland University, and she continued studying at Victoria University.
She has been ordained for 17 years. “Kia ora from your soon to be priest-in-charge,” Matthews wrote in a recent letter to the St. James and St.
Matthews’ congregations before she came to the Central Sierra. “Kia ora is a Maori greeting from New Zealand, which is where I am currently living. “You may be asking yourself, ‘Why would someone be moving all the way from New Zealand?’ ” she asked.
Auckland is about 6,600 miles from Sacramento. “Well, as I follow God who is love I have learnt to risk more and stretch myself outside of my comfort zones,” Matthews wrote. “Outside of my comfort zone is where I grow, learn about myself as well as learn more about this wonderful world we live in.
“My passion in ministry is walking beside people, helping people grow, learning from them, being challenged by different perspectives, supporting and caring for people,” Matthews wrote. “I am excited about being in your midst and continuing this ministry with you.” Matthews says she’s OK with people calling her “Rev.
Karen” and “Karen.” St. James Episcopal Church is at 42 Snell St.
in Sonora. St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church is at 414 Oak St.
in San Andreas. The Fresno-based Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, a part of the Episcopal Church, consists of 19 faith communities in the Central Valley and Central Sierra foothills as well as the Episcopal Conference Center at Oakhurst. For more information about St.
James Episcopal Church and the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, go to www.diosanjoaquin.org .
Contact Guy McCarthy at [email protected] or (209) 770-0405. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @GuyMcCarthy.
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