Background

St. David’s is located in the Town of West Seneca, next to Southgate Plaza near the intersection of Seneca Street and Union Road. Southgate Plaza is one of the primary retail centers in the area, which is home to over 100 retailers and offices.

St. David’s membership is approximately 120 people ranging in age from infants to seniors. St David’s formation began in 1946 and formally started as a mission in 1949 holding its first service July 10, 1949. The first service in the present building was held in 1955. An addition was made to the church (2006) to make it handicapped accessible. It includes a Rector’s office, administrative office, and meeting space. These were previously housed in a church house located behind and across the driveway from the church.

In 2009, most of our church house was offered to the West Seneca Food Pantry who had just lost their home. In 2012, an addition was added to the church house for a food pantry expansion. In the fall of 2013, an electronic sign was installed on the Seneca Street side of our property. This has raised our awareness in the community and has brought in people looking for a church, some of whom have become members. 

The Area

The Town of West Seneca, with a population of about 45,000 people, is a Buffalo, NY suburb, centrally located in Erie County. The county population is approximately 920,000 and we draw parishioners from West Seneca as well as neighboring towns. The West Seneca School District consists of 5 elementary, 2 middle and 2 high schools. The town has many recreational facilities available, including parks, swimming pools, playgrounds, enclosed ice rink, soccer fields, baseball diamonds, basketball courts, tennis courts, golf course, library and band shell. Also within the town is the Burchfield Nature & Art Center and 29 acres of nature trails and woods, wild and cultivated gardens and sculpture, situated on the banks of scenic Buffalo Creek.

Greater Buffalo Median and Average House Sale Prices are approximately $128,000 and $143,000 respectively. http://www.bnar.org
Greater Buffalo Highlights

Gifts & Skills

Our incoming priest would appeal to young families, support our Sunday school activities and involve youth in our worship services. Working well with parishioners to attract and retain new members including young families would be important. 

Succinct, interesting, meaningful sermons are important to our parishioners. We also find relating the readings to everyday life and incorporating personal experience is helpful. An incoming priest should feel comfortable addressing national, local, diocesan and parish issues when appropriate. 

Our incoming priest would ideally be friendly, enthusiastic, easy to talk to, a good listener, thoughtful and confidential. We have strong lay leadership and it would be important for an incoming priest to recognize this and work well with existing leadership. Our priest would have the ability to identify and nurture potential leaders. 

Hope for the Future

St. David’s membership has lacked growth in recent years. While we have added new people, we have also lost members primarily due to death and relocation. There is a feeling among many who have been here for years that they would like to see the return of a vibrant growing parish. 

An incoming priest should embrace our mission statement and strategies. In developing our mission statement we realized the potential our location has to offer. 

The Mission of St. David’s Church is to offer hospitality, healing, and hope in the name of Jesus at the crossroads of West Seneca and beyond.


Search Committee: Barbara Bracco, Jim Stegner, Kathy Stegner, Amy Turner, Julie Woodward, Bob Woollacott, Valerie Moden-Zlateff