St. Simeon’s-By-The-Sea Finds Reverend After Seven Years

NORTH WILDWOOD — Before the Reverend Father Thomas Meyers began his work at St. Simeon’s-By-The-Sea Episcopal Church in July 2008, the church had gone nearly seven years without a priest.
Likening it to a flock without a shepherd, Meyers said that many members of the church were starved for direction.
“One challenge was to help them reawaken their sense of faith through the worship that we have,” said Meyers who comes from the Anglo-Catholic high-church tradition. “But the biggest challenge was to reach out to former members that for one reason or another had left the church.”
He noted that reconnecting with those that had left the church was a problem faced by all churches.
Meyers said that many of the church programs had fallen by the wayside and he is working to rectify that. He is planning a men’s bible study, a women’s prayer group and hopes to establish a music program.
“I would love to have a children’s choir here,” he said.
Meyers, 66, was born and raised in Monmouth, but his first profession as an English language teacher brought him to France, where he lived from 1973 to 2008. Most of his family still resides in Monmouth, while his three adult sons live in France.
Meyers said that as his teaching career wound down, he turned his desire to do something for the Lord.
Meyers said he studied for three years in a theological school and two years at Cambridge in England. In 2006, at 67 years old, Meyers enrolled in the Seminary.
“I was living in the dorm with practically teenagers,” Meyers said with a laugh. “But we all got along really well.”
He also joked that he got “nothing but A’s” in his classes, something that “hasn’t happened to me since the third grade.”
Meyers came to St. Simeon’s six months after he was ordained. It is church that is truly unique, he said.
“It is the only Episcopal church on the island and the only Anglo-Catholic church in the county,” he noted.
Meyers said he is delighted to live in North Wildwood and be involved with “such a warm, loving, open and tender church,” he said.