James Rowe Adams · 1995 Honoree

Jim Adams, rector of St. Mark’s Church, presides over one of the strongest community institutions on Capitol Hill. It was not always so. When Jim came to St. Mark’s in 1966, the congregation had narrowly averted complete collapse by developing a strong lay leadership and a budget of $53,000 supported by 130 pledges. By 1994 the operating budget grew to $570,000, the church was managing another $90,000 in self-supporting programs, and parishioners had finished raising $1.7 million to renovate the one hundred year old building.

Unlike so many of our neighborhood churches, whose commuter congregations left us years ago for the suburbs, the well-spring of St. Mark’s vitality is the Capitol Hill community. During Jim’s tenure, St. Mark’s has developed and sustained a flourishing community outreach program that includes granting space for self-help group meetings, pastoral counseling, and a long tradition of being supportive of the arts as a way of exploring life’s meaning. St. Mark’s supports a dance studio, 3 choirs, a music instruction studio, a theater troop, and a gallery space for artists to display their work. The Christian education and pastoral care programs have developed around the pressures people face in day to day living; with family relationships, at work, and in the community. Through the years the church has developed a reputation for being a place where lay people can develop their capacity for leadership in the wider community by practicing in the congregation.

St. Mark’s has also become known throughout the Capitol Hill community as a parish where theological diversity is not only welcomed, it is embraced. While Jim is clear in his role as a Episcopalian priest, he fosters an open and progressive atmosphere that attracts parishioners of all backgrounds, beliefs, and perhaps most interestingly, non-beliefs. Even the Sunday Communion has been designed to include all congregants. With Jim leading the way, the roof of St. Mark’s has become broad enough to include any and all views.

Jim and his wife Ginny live just off Lincoln Park and have raised three children right here on the Hill.