The first organizational meeting of our Church, then named St. Chrysostom’s, was convened on September 19, 1978 with the Rt. Rev. C. Judson Child, Jr. presiding. Fifty people representing 27 families were present. A petition to organize as a mission was signed by the members and the first service was held at Whitley-Garner Funeral Chapel on October 22, 1978. When the vestry was formed, the first order of business was to choose a name for the congregation. Our name commemorated the consecration of the Rt. Rev. Bennett J. Sims, Bishop of the Atlanta Diocese, which took place on St. John Chrysostom’s Day in January of 1972.
In the spring of 1979, a seven-acre plot was purchased on Stewart’s Mill Road to build a home for the new congregation. Members built a portable Altar and Processional Cross for our services; our Altar Guild chairwoman carried the Altar appointments in the trunk of her car. We have had three temporary homes, including the chapel at Whitley-Garner and the use of one of the rooms for a nursery and Sunday School. The Douglas County Retardation Association Work Center provided a place for worship services in their lunch room. During a fire at the center, one of the volunteer firemen, who was a church member and knew where we stored our Altar and supplies, rescued our things before the fire destroyed them. We then met at our picnic pavilion on the property. We brought our lawn chairs and held services there for about six weeks. Our next home was the old Bright Star United Methodist Church. After meeting there for a few years, we continued to grow and purchased two trailers for office and Sunday School space and then moved into our new church home in March of 1995.
Since then, our congregation has grown from the original 27 families to over 200 families, and in the early 1990’s, we changed our name from St. Chrysostom’s to St. Julian’s. Saint Julian’s Episcopal Church has emerged a vital and tenacious community eager for the mission of the Episcopal Church in Douglas County.