I wrote about the new church we’re attending here. I thought I should close off by letting you know what happened at our old church, Blessed Sacrament, since I wrote so much about what was happening when we were leaving.
Our old parish’s idea of being a “diversified parish” has undergone some changes since we left. They dropped the Roman Catholic option; I gather most of the Catholics decided to actually go and attend Catholic churches, which makes sense to me.
They did end up with a diversified parish though. There is a small group that’s formed a church plant under an ACNA bishop. They are officially a church plant, but they still attend Blessed Sacrament’s services. What I’ve been told is that they have the same preaching, the same Sunday schools, the same coffee hour, the same choir, the same mass, the same ministries. (This is all my understanding from afar, I should point out. I'm not part of it, so I'm sure I'm missing some details.)
So, that’s what’s happened, as far as I can gather. I still think it’s a bad idea. Which some would say means that I still just don’t get it. :) But I still hope, for my friends’ sake, that it all works out somehow. I remember being in the Episcopal Church, and all the stress and hardship that goes with being at serious odds with the people who are supposed to be shepherding you, and my friends are still in the midst of that mess (or at least connected to it), so I still hope they find their way clear of it, one way or another. The way out for me might not be the way out for them. But I hope still hope it ends well for them. We don't agree about how the battle should be fought, but we're certainly on the same side.
Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell
3 comments:
To clarify (as I am a member of the ACNA church plant Jessica is referencing): yes, we share services and ministries, but they do not all "belong" to the episcopal parish. The ACNA parish also has masses, bible studies, and fellowship events - under our own name, I guess you could say. All members of either parish are welcome to attend all events offered by either parish. So in that sense, yes, we do share.
I know there are some things you hold in common and some that you don't. But since I'm not there, I didn't feel competent to make an exhaustive list for both sides. :) So, thanks for the clarification!
For our family, the fact that there’s now an Anglican church plant at Blessed Sacrament doesn’t make much difference, because the church plant is AT Blessed Sacrament, that is, it’s still part of the Episcopal Church, under Episcopal leadership. I know you don't agree with this interpretation. However, in our view, by forming a church plant that purposefully can’t be separated from the parish life of the organization it’s leaving, you've formed a church plant that’s still PART of the organization it was supposed to be leaving. This may serve some purposes - preparation for a later exodus, maybe? - but since we’ve been called to leave the Episcopal Church, it doesn’t serve ours.
(excuse the capitalization - I'm rubbish at HTML codes and don't know how to italicize!)
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