“It is our prayer that, when our pupils become adults, the principles and practice of worship of daily chapel will guide them to a faithful church home when they start their own families.”
Chapel at Good Shepherd School
GSS is the educational ministry of Good Shepherd Reformed Episcopal Church.
All students attend daily chapel, a sung service of Morning Prayer, in which they very quickly and easily learn the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, the Creeds, and the singing of Psalms and Canticles, thus learning the grammar of worship. Lessons from Holy Scripture are drawn from the Psalms, Proverbs, gospels, or from the systematic reading of Bible stories. They also sing approximately 200 significant hymns from the common Christian heritage of our denominationally diverse student body as they are used in the cycle of worship throughout the Christian year. Thus, students are active participants in the daily worship of God. In addition to the Daily Office, our Chapel Service book includes an office of Instruction and several daily Litanies, thus encouraging active student participation in the service. In filling the memories of our pupils with the rich heritage of Christian worship, we trust that, like bread cast upon water, it will return after many days (cf. Eccl. 11:1). It is our prayer that, when our pupils become adults, the principles and practice of worship of daily chapel will guide them to a faithful church home when they start their own families.
Good Shepherd Reformed Episcopal Church
Situated in the heart of East Texas you will find Good Shepherd Reformed Episcopal Church, where it has ministered in the community since 1977.
Constituted as a Reformed Episcopal parish in 1989, Good Shepherd has over 130 communicant members. The Rector, the Rt. Rev’d Walter R. Banek, has served in the parish since 1981, first as Headmaster of the parish dayschool until 1993, when he was installed as Rector.
Church dinners and seasonal banquets, English contra-dances, Sunday School Bible studies and programs, hymn sings, hospitality, altar guild, and service projects each help round out a rich covenant life. Parish activities join with the busy and many events of the parish dayschool to occupy fully the 16,000 square feet in our two buildings, seven days a week. In the Reformed Anglican tradition, Good Shepherd Church makes education a central part of its ministry. Anglicans have historically worked to shape and discipline minds by the authoritative Word of God, the best of the humanities, and the wisdom of history. In that tradition, Good Shepherd School, founded in 1979, provides a classical education from Preschool through 12th grade.
Statement of Faith
- We believe the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments of the Bible to be the only inspired, infallible, and authoritative Word of God.
- We believe in one God, infinitely perfect and eternally co-existent in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
- We believe in the full deity and humanity of Jesus Christ.
- We believe that through divine creation, in a literal six-day period, all life and matter came into being.
- We believe in the real, historical fall of man in the Garden of Eden, resulting in mankind being under the wrath and curse of God. Hence, all men are born with a sinful nature, are spiritually dead and under judgment, and are in need of salvation
- We believe that justification before God comes by grace through faith in the substitutionary atonement of Christ apart from our own works.
- We believe in the literal, physical resurrection of Christ in a glorified body and His ascension to the right hand of God the Father, from where He rules the universe and intercedes for His people.
- We believe in the Church’s obligation to live under the lordship of Christ by obeying the Ten Commandments, upholding godliness as set forth in the Bible, and to evangelize and spread His kingdom by making obedient disciples of all nations.
- We believe in the spiritual unity of all believers within the body of Christ.
- We believe in the literal second coming of Christ, a final judgment of all men by God, and an actual, eternal heaven and hell.
A fuller statement of faith may be found in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the doctrinal standard of the Reformed Episcopal Church.
