St. James Church

The Foundations of Saint James Parish

St. James Parish in Randall began in 1896, five years after the founding of the Diocese of St. Cloud. There were fourteen families who wanted to have a Church as their own. It was a mission Church until 1919 when we received our resident pastor Daniel O'Driscoll. In 1941 one and a half acres of land was purchased across from the church. A parish hall was built in the property and that is where we taught the Catechism and we also used it for various parish activities.

Through the years the Parish grew to the point where the little church was overflowing especially in the summer time when the visitors came. In 1958 Rev. Donald Rieder became the Pastor and he had the task of building a new Church and 80 acres of land was purchased in 1960. In 1961 the construction of the new Church was began, completed, and we moved into the new Church in December 24th, 1961. We held the first Mass at Midnight on Christmas Day.

Where we are today

As a growing parish now St. James has 266 families and around 600 members. We server our community through various apostolic ministries. We hold our Faith Formation classes on every Wednesday evening during the School year. OUr gathering hall is used for various Church related functions. On the second Sunday of August each year we hold 'August Fest' as  a fundraiser for the parish and also as asocial gathering for our parishioners, the surrounding community and the former parishoners.

Where we look to the future

Our hope for the future is to build an addition to our Church to better accomodate larger gatherings and to provide better classrooms for our Faith Formation Program and also for adult education.

Saint James, Pray for us.