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Denmark Industrial School in Denmark, South Carolina was founded in 1897 by Elizabeth Evelyn Wright, a graduate of Tuskegee Institute. Its name changed to Voorhees Industrial School in1902, in honor of donors Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Voorhees of Clinton, New Jersey.

In 1929 the curriculum expanded to include post-secondary education and the school was renamed Voorhees Normal and Industrial School. The name changed again in 1947 to Voorhees School and Junior College.

In 1962 it was accredited as four-year Voorhees College, and in 2022 it became Voorhees University. The school was affiliated with the American Church Institute from 1924 to 1967.

Organized lay ministries work developed during the late 1960s, beginning with The Episcopal Church’s effort to integrate women more fully into the institutional Church. In 1968, the Executive Council created the Ad Hoc Committee on Lay Ministries, and in 1969 the Committee was reappointed as the Special Committee on Lay Ministries. The 1970 General Convention adopted the recommendations of the Committee and created a Program Group of the Executive Council with members from the Special Committee on Lay Ministries, the Committee for Women, and the Executive Council. The first staff officer for Lay Ministries, Francis Young, began work in 1971.

The purpose of the Lay Ministries Office was to further the ministry of the laity in the secular structure of society, spurring the Church towards greater support of this ministry, and promoting participation of all kinds of laity in the work and decision-making of the Church. Lay Ministries pursued these goals through various activities including the publication of the “The 99%” magazine for lay ministers, the organization of conferences and consultations on topics relevant to lay ministry, and the facilitation of networks and programs to connect various stakeholders in the field of lay ministry. Although the Lay Ministries Office disappeared as a distinct entity in 1980, its work was carried out under different titles.

Lyman Cunningham Ogilby was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1922. After receiving his B.D. from the Episcopal Theological School in 1949, Ogilby became a teacher and chaplain at the Brent School, a position he held until 1952. From 1953 to 1967, he served as a bishop in the Philippines, first as Suffragan Bishop of the Philippines (1953-1957) and then as Missionary Bishop of the Philippines (1957-1967).

In spite of his attachment to the Brent School and to the Philippines, Ogilby saw his true ministry as a missionary bishop, whose calling was, in part, to prepare missionary dioceses of the Church for self-support. In 1967, Ogilby resigned as Bishop of the Philippines in order to give the leadership role to Benito Cabanban, a native Filipino who had served as Suffragan Bishop since 1959. Upon his return to the United States in 1967, Ogilby served as Bishop Coadjutor in South Dakota, which was then still a Missionary District. His address to the diocesan convention in that year shows that he expected to assist briefly and then take over the diocese. In January of 1970 he did briefly became Bishop in-charge of South Dakota upon the retirement of Bishop Conrad Gesner, but he served only long enough to guide the election of a new Bishop Diocesan before resigning in March of 1970. From 1971 to 1973, he served as Assistant Bishop of Pennsylvania, supervising missions and aiding parishes under Bishop Robert DeWitt. He became Bishop Coadjutor in 1973, and upon DeWitt’s resignation in 1974, Ogilby became Bishop of Pennsylvania. He held that position until his retirement in 1987. After retirement, he continued to carry out Episcopal duties in the dioceses of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Washington DC.

Lyman Cunningham Ogilby died on November 3 1990.

The educational agency of the Executive Council has had a variety of titles and roles within the organizational structure of the Church over the years. From 1947 to 1968, it was known as the Department of Christian Education. In 1968, major elements of Council’s educational program were combined with divisions of the Home Department and other bodies as the “Services to Dioceses section” of Council; in subsequent years it seems to have been renamed the “Program Group on Education,” until about 1975, when it became the Office of Religious Education.

An Education Officer, David Perry, was appointed in 1973. Other aspects of the Church’s educational program were handled by ad hoc committees during this period, such as the Program Advisory Committee on Higher Education. Another major restructuring in 1976 eliminated ad hoc committees in favor of a system of standing committees and subcommittees. In 1979, a further wave of consolidation brought the staff and work together under the cluster title of Education for Mission and Ministry.

The Education for Mission and Ministry Unit was listed in The Church Annual up until 1991, with David Perry as its Executive Director. In 1992,the name was changed to Education, Evangelism, and Ministry Development, with David Perry still listed as Executive Director. It is unclear how and why the named changed and if the program functions also changed.

Henri Alexandre Stines was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on October 29, 1923. He completed his theological training at Seminaire Theologique, the Episcopal seminary in Port-au-Prince, and was ordained in Haiti as a deacon in 1945 and a priest in 1947. The following year, Stines received his Master of Divinity from General Theological Seminary.

After immigrating to the United States in 1950, Stines first served as vicar at St. James Episcopal Church in Charleston, West Virginia. In 1953 Stines began a long career of revitalizing struggling churches when he assumed leadership of Grace Episcopal Church, Detroit, Michigan. Under eleven years of his stewardship, Grace Church grew from fewer than 100 members to over 1200, making it one of the most active multiracial Episcopal churches in Detroit.

After a stint as Director of Southern Field Service for the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Race Unity (1964-1966), during which time he led protests against segregation and coordinated Southern congregations involved in justice ministry, Stines returned to direct ministry by accepting a position at the Church of the Atonement in Washington, D.C. In 1969, he moved to All Souls Episcopal Church in Berkeley, California, broadening its membership to the entire Bay area and offering educational programs attuned to social concerns of the community. Stines returned to Chicago in 1972, this time to Trinity Episcopal Church, growing it from fewer than 25 members in 1972 to more than 225 members by 1984 with a committed vestry, innovative liturgies in French and Spanish, and special ministries to the elderly and homebound. Stines retired from parish ministry in 1986, although he continued to serve as an interim priest in Chicago and New Jersey until 1990.

Henri Alexandre Stines died on March 8, 1995.

Malcolm Riker was born on February 12, 1925, in Austin, Texas. At the age of 18 he enlisted in the Navy and was sent to the South Pacific during World War II. After returning home in February of 1946, he enrolled at the University of Texas, graduating three years later with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history. From there he attended seminary in New York City and Berkeley, California where he graduated in the top of his class in 1951.

Upon being ordained, Riker became the first priest at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in La Marque, TX. During his time in the Galveston area he started several more missions. After moving back to Austin in 1958, he revived St. George’s Episcopal Church and proceeded to initiate or take a leading role in the founding of a series of parishes in the Austin area, including missions established at St. Paul’s of Pflugerville and St. Richard’s of Round Rock during his retirement. While at St. Luke’s on the Lake, Riker presented several of the largest Confirmation classes ever confirmed in the history of the Diocese of Texas. In total, Riker founded eleven Episcopal churches in Texas, all of which are thriving today.

Malcolm Riker died on November 17, 2002.

At the 1973 General Convention, the Joint Commission on Church Music (JCCM) was renewed as the Standing Commission on Church Music (SCCM). The newly formed Standing Commission now served the Church in all matters pertaining to music, including serving as a link between associations of professional Church musicians and diocesan music commissions, assisting individual dioceses with courses and conferences on Church music, and collecting and collating material for future revisions of the Church Hymnal. It was also charged with reviewing The Hymnal 1940 and preparing recommendations to the next General Convention for a revision, which was ultimately approved in 1982 and published in 1985.

At the 1997 General Convention, the Committee on Structure recommended that the Standing Liturgical Commission and the Standing Commission on Church Music be merged into a single commission on worship, incorporating the current work of the two existing bodies, thus becoming the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music.

In 1871, the General Convention authorized The Woman's Auxiliary to the Board of Missions to coordinate the work formerly conducted by a large number of isolated women's missionary societies. This work included raising funds, publicizing the missionary programs, and recruiting and training women missionaries. The Emery sisters–Mary Abbott, Julia Chester, Susan Lavinia, and Margaret Theresa–were all instrumental in the founding of the organization.

The first General Meeting of the Auxiliary was held in 1874, at which time the women resolved to meet concurrently with General Convention. These meetings came to be known as the Triennial Meetings of the Woman's Auxiliary. In 1889 Julia Chester Emery, who at the time was secretary of the Woman’s Auxiliary, began the United Offering (later renamed United Thank Offering) which provided funds for a wide range of innovative missionary projects.

In 1919, the first National Council Executive Board of the Woman’s Auxiliary was formed to oversee the direction of the work of the women, not only in supporting missionaries, but in social service, religious education, and prayer and worship.

At the 1958 Triennial Meeting, under the direction of the National Council, necessary bylaws were adopted to rename the Executive Board of the Woman’s Auxiliary as the General Division of Women’s Work, which included a designation that diocesan groups would be known as Episcopal Church Women.

Symbolic of the turbulent social climate of the late 1960s, the role of women in the Church went through numerous and significant changes, rendering the Episcopal Church Women unsure of where they fit. Structural reorganizations were initiated aiming to integrate women into the Church on every level. As a part of these changes, Executive Council (formerly National Council) dissolved the General Division of Women's Work in 1968.

Subsequently, the Triennial Meetings were organized by various ad hoc committees until the 1985 gathering, at which time bylaws were adopted forming the Episcopal Church Women (ECW) at the national level. A resolution was filed at the June 1986 meeting of Executive Council confirming that the newly formed Episcopal Church Women “is the same or successor organization to the Woman’s Auxiliary, the General Division of Women’s Work, the Committee for Women, the Triennial Program and Planning Committee, and the Triennial Committee”.

The ECW assumed responsibility for coordinating women's activities in the Church and for organizing the Triennial gatherings.