Parish history

In the mid-1990s the Rev. Joe Mazza, a retired priest from the Diocese of Chicago, organized worship services for Episcopalians in northern Door County. The congregation initially met in members’ homes for a few years and then held services in the Gathering Room of the Scandia Village continuing care facility in Sister Bay. In 2002 the congregation, now an organized mission of the Diocese of Fond du Lac known as St. Luke’s, purchased a half-timbered Tudor style structure owned by Jim and Mary Jo Scandin who operated the Serendipity gift shop there. The building, just a block away from the Scandia Village, was originally built as a barn for Fred and Minnie Smith’s farm. It later was used as a farm equipment shed, and then housed migrant workers who tended nearby apple and cherry orchards.

Lacking a kitchen and fellowship space, the congregation built a $300,000 addition to the church in 2011. Along with a large fellowship hall and kitchen, the addition includes an ADA restroom, another restroom, a sacristy, an office and a utility room. The congregation was able to retire the mortgage three years after the addition was completed. Additional improvements since then include a hearing loop system, an audio system for the nave and the fellowship hall, sound buffering panels in the fellowship hall, UV air purifier lights for the HVAC system, and the rebuilding of the church’s front wall.

The Rev. Barbara Sajna succeeded the Rev. Joe Mazza as rector of St. Luke’s in 2004 and served until January 2021 when she retired from active ministry. The vestry then called the Rev. Frank Maxwell, a retired pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America,  to serve as interim rector during the search for a permanent rector. The Rev. Brit Bjurstrom Frazier assumed her new ministry as rector of St. Luke’s on April 1, 2023 and celebrated her first Eucharist at St. Luke’s as rector on April 16 that year.