More than 800 people –including 80 from Bakersfield and Kern County — celebrated the consecration of the Rev. Dr. Eric Menees recently at the Peoples Church in Fresno.
Bishop Menees formally will become the fifth bishop of the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin when he will be enthroned as diocesan bishop next Saturday when the current bishop, John-David Schofield, retires. Bishop Schofield has led this diocese since Oct. 9, 1988.
“I think the key is to see this worshipping community come together with such joy and such inspiration —- the journey they’ve been on has given them perseverance, a sense of being safe on the road,” said the congregation’s rector, the Rev. Joe Rees. “This is what it means to overcome.
“It’s not so much about the four walls as it is the journey,” he added.
Father Rees’ congregation left the Episcopal Church USA in 2006, citing numerous theological and practical grievances, and last year lost the subsequent lawsuit with the Diocese of San Diego over the use of the original St. Anne’s property at 701 West St., near Coast Highway.
You can see a bit about Kevin here. The service occurred at a Lutheran parish in West Seattle which was filled beyond capacity.
Here’s a quick test for you. On the tenth anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks, the senior bishops of the two Anglican provinces in the United States gave sermons commemorating the events of that fateful day. See whether you can identify who made the following statements””a) Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori or b) Anglican Church in North America Archbishop Robert Duncan.
Since it severed ties with the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of South Carolina, St. Andrew’s Church-Mount Pleasant has grown. And now it has secured a central role in a new diocese in formation, part of the Anglican Church in North America.
The Rev. Steve Wood, rector of St. Andrew’s, was appointed vicar general of the not-yet-official Diocese of the Carolinas, which includes eight churches in North and South Carolina and one more that’s still being established.
Another congregation in the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh has decided to abandon its building, saying that it couldn’t meet the financial or ecclesiastical demands that the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh made during negotiations for the property.
On Oct. 2 the 104 members of All Saints Church in Penn Hills will begin holding services in nearby Rosedale United Methodist Church….
Holy Spirit “Abundantly Present” during Worship in a Converted Garage
Tom Kay can sum up the first Spanish-language Faith Alive weekend in five words: “The Lord was with us!”
Kay, a Faith Alive team leader based east of Dallas, Texas, says the June 10-12 event at Iglesia San Miguel, a burgeoning Anglican mission in the Diocese of Fort Worth, was the best he ever has attended, despite the fact that he does not speak Spanish.
From Kay’s first meeting with San Miguel’s vicar, Fr. Sergio Diaz, “the Spirit of the Lord was abundantly present … and intensified through the planning process.
When members of St. Bartholomew’s Church in the Town of Tonawanda decided in 2008 to leave the Episcopal Church, they didn’t know for sure where they fit in the larger structure of Anglicanism.
Less than three years later, the parish has become a pivotal congregation within the Anglican Church in North America, a rival to the Episcopal Church that grew from a rift between theological conservatives and liberal Episcopalians over Bible interpretation and the ordination of a gay bishop.
This week, the congregation served as host for a conference of the International Diocese, the new diocese to which it belongs as part of the Anglican Church in North America.
The segment description is as follows:
Kevin and George take you back to 2003 and the ultimate challenge for the Anglican Communion. They also discuss the London Riots and Potter-mania. Our guest Bishop this week is Archbishop Duncan who brings Kevin up to speed on the new Ordinal for the Anglican Church in North America.
Watch it all.
This Sunday, the local Anglican church, Christ Our Savior, will hold services in its first permanent home in Old Torrance. The Rev. Dale Smith, a former Episcopal priest from South Pasadena, has led the church for more than a year.
“It’s been a difficult time for more than 50 years during this gradual split,” Smith said.
After 2003, he said, “We knew there were effectively two churches, one that believed the historic faith and one that didn’t.”
The murders, beatings and state-sanctioned violence suffered by Anglicans in Harare under the Mugabe regime are akin to the discomforts faced by Episcopalians loyal to the national Church who reside in dioceses that have departed for the Anglican Church in North America.
This summary of the situation in Harare from Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori came in an August 2 report released by the Episcopal News Service (ENS) summarizing her trip to Central Africa. Her remarks are similar to claims made at the Jamaica meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council in 2009. However, in Kingston delegates from the Global South rejected the Presiding Bishop’s attempt to cloak the Episcopal Church with the victim’s mantle, arguing in the United States it was the Episcopal Church who was the aggressor in its legal battles….
“One of the major things that we sought to do was to craft an Ordinal that was written in contemporary English, but also was clearly in the Prayer Book tradition. Of particular focus was the strengthening of the vows that those who are ordained ascribe to,” said Bishop Bill Thompson, Chair of Prayer Book and Common Liturgy task force.
“We were very deliberate about the tone and content of the Ordinal and the fact that it is clearly connected to our Anglican roots. Our intention is for the other liturgies that we put forth to have that same quality,” Bishop Thompson said.
Read it all and take the time to examine the document itself there.
Anglicanism has begun a global and North American reformation, according to Archbishop Robert Duncan of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), who recently delivered his annual state of the church address, describing the growth and challenges faced by orthodox Anglicans. Duncan serves as both head of the ACNA and bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh.
The worldwide Anglican Church has 39 provinces, and historically the Anglican province in the United States has been the Episcopal Church. But because of the theological and numerical decline of the Episcopal Church, American Anglicans hope the ACNA soon will be recognized as an alternative province.
Church leaders in the US and UK have called upon their governments to take a stand against Sharia law,
On June 9 the former Bishop of Rochester urged the government to support legislation outlawing the use of Sharia law in Britain when it conflicts with English law, while an American bishop has written to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voicing his dismay over NATO negotiations with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Bishop-elect Julian Dobbs of the Anglican Church in North America, and founder of the Church and Islam Project, told Mrs. Clinton that too many people were willing to ignore the implications of Sharia law and believe that Islam is a religion of peace.
We are now 22 dioceses stretching from Arctic Canada to the Rio Grande, and from Newfoundland to California. Three new dioceses were organized in preparation for this meeting of Provincial Council: the Mid-Atlantic, the Carolinas and the Southwest. A fourth, Cascadia ”“ originally built from congregations that had been under Recife and from congregations of the Reformed Episcopal Church ”“ sought change of status from diocese-in-formation to diocese. One Diocese has asked this Council for discharge, for recognition that its call as a diocese has been completed. The Diocese of the Holy Spirit grew out of the Missionary Convocation of Uganda. All of its congregations and clergy have now been dispersed to other dioceses and a remarkable chapter in our early history is closing. Holy Spirit’s bishop, John Guernsey, has been elected Bishop of the Mid-Atlantic, a diocese principally formed by parishes that had been under Nigeria (chiefly in CANA’s Anglican District of Virginia). But Mid-Atlantic also draws in some congregations that had been part of Southern Cone and others part of Uganda. In microcosm we see the transition from our early history of global protection and sponsorship toward domestic geographical coherence.
There are many evidences of God’s favor toward us, not because we deserve it, but because we continue to work so hard to align ourselves with His will. As this Provincial Council meets, I am announcing a re-organization of my team of advisors (my “cabinet”) to reflect where we are headed, rather than where we have been. This change is like the change represented in the diocesan stories just told. The Lead Bishops of the Common Cause Partnership ”“ representing all the jurisdictions and organizations out of which the Anglican Church in North America was gathered ”“ were the original Executive Committee of the Anglican Church in North America. Last June the transition was made to an Executive Committee of six clergy and six laity, chaired by the Archbishop. Yet because we are ”“ in the best Anglican fashion ”“ to be “episcopally led and synodically governed” [Lambeth Conference, 1930] the need for wisdom from Lead Bishops representing our jurisdictional and organizational roots caused me to retain a body that had literally led us together into unity. They ceased to be the Province’s Executive Committee, but became the Archbishop’s Cabinet.
McGee grew up in Denton, and his father was a Methodist minister in the city. When his daughter enrolled at UNT, Denton felt like a much bigger place than it used to ”” like a small town with a growing metropolitan feel.
“Looking at Denton, going from 45,000 to over 100,000 in population, it seemed like it was time to consider doing something here,” McGee said.
That something became Holy Trinity Anglican Church, a local congregation that is organizing for a Sept. 11 launch.
The first meeting of the newly elected Standing Committee of the Anglican Fellowship of the Southwest took place Thursday, May 26. Nine Anglican churches in New Mexico and West Texas agreed by votes of their respective Vestries to apply to the Anglican Church in North America’s Provincial Council to become a Diocese-in-Formation (DIF). The Provincial Council starts its meeting on June 21 in Long Beach, California. The proposed name for the DIF is the Anglican Diocese of the Southwest (Diocese-in-Formation.)
At the first Synod meeting of the Anglican Fellowship of the Southwest, held at Christ the King Anglican Church, Albuquerque, NM on May 13-14, a constitution was adopted for the proposed DIF. Along with the election of a Standing Committee, Bishop Win Mott was unanimously nominated by the Synod to serve as Vicar General, subject to the approval of Archbishop Duncan and the Provincial Council. These are exciting times for Anglicans in the American Southwest.
Bishop Mott said: “The rapid growth of Anglicans in our area has necessitated the formation of a diocese. It is impressive and exciting to see the emergence of a strong Anglican presence here.”
The website of the Anglican Fellowship of the Southwest is found at www.anglicansw.org.
Delegates to a special May 14 convention in Fresno, where the diocese is headquartered, chose Rev. Eric Menees, rector of the Anglican Church of the Resurrection in San Marcos, as the new diocesan bishop following two ballots.
Bishop-elect Menees will replace current Bishop John-David Schofield, who will retire in October.
“We are extremely grateful for the dedication of Bishop Schofield and are thankful for the Spirit-led deliberations among the people of the San Joaquin Diocese to elect a Godly leader to continue to grow the flock,” said the Most Rev. Robert Duncan, Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America, in a prepared statement released on May 20. “Bishop-elect Menees has shown that he has a true passion for the Gospel and a servant’s heart. I am confident the Diocese of San Joaquin will be greatly blessed while in his care. Our prayers are with Bishop-elect Menees and the whole diocese.”
The Anglican District of Virginia (ADV) held a Constitutional Convention on May 20-21, 2011 at Church of the Epiphany in Herndon, Va. At this event, ADV delegates voted to petition the Anglican Church in North America to become a diocese and adopted new governing documents (Constitutions and Canons). Pending approval of the diocesan petition, the Anglican District of Virginia elected The Rt. Rev. John Guernsey to serve as bishop of the diocese, to be named the Anglican Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic.
Bishop John Guernsey has served in various clergy roles during his years of ordained ministry in Virginia. He served as rector of All Saints’ Church in Dale City, Va., for 29 years before serving as the head of the Diocese of the Holy Spirit in the Anglican Church in North America….
Bishop Roger Ames was officially installed as the first bishop of the Anglican Diocese of the Great Lakes within the Anglican Church in North America on Saturday, April 30 at St. Luke’s Anglican Church in Fairlawn, Ohio. Archbishop Duncan, head of the Anglican Church in North America, presided over the service.
The Anglican Diocese of the Great Lakes is one of many stories of growth within the Anglican Church in North America, resulting, in part, from the Spirit-led call by Archbishop Duncan to plant 1000 new churches in five years.
The Great Lakes Diocese was formed in 2010 and includes 21 congregations in Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan. Ames has played a pivotal role in planting churches across the region.
The Episcopal Church will remain a work in progress as it rebuilds from a 2008 schism and seeks to attract members, its leader said on Tuesday.
“We’re a community that is on the road together, wrestling with what it means to be a Christian in this particular age,” Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said before a morning service at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Wilkinsburg. “In order to communicate that message, we have to go out into the community.”
That may or may not include establishing traditional churches, said Jefferts Schori, who last visited the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh about a month after a majority of clergy and lay deputies voted to break with the church she leads to follow their more theologically conservative bishop, Robert Duncan, who formed the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh.
Although the two churches battled over property in court, Jefferts Schori said she forsees a day when churches will become something different.
As the Diocese of Virginia and several Anglican District of Virginia congregations approach a new round in court April 25, the diocese has reached a settlement with a second congregation.
Under the settlement, announced April 19 by the diocese and by Church of the Word, Gainesville, the parish keeps the property and the diocese keeps $1.95 million of a payment made by the Virginia Department of Transportation for construction-related damage to the property.
The settlement, like others reached in recent months, requires the parish to cut its ties with the Anglican Church in North America for five years. Church of the Word also must cut its ties to the Anglican District of Virginia, which will vote in May on whether to become a diocese of the ACNA.
Church of the Word (COTW), one of a handful of Northern Virginia churches embroiled in a four-year long lawsuit with The Episcopal Church (TEC), will retain its church property after an out-of-court settlement signed Monday, April 18, released it from the pending litigation.
The leadership of COTW, which is a multiracial congregation made up of predominantly young families, is relieved to have achieved their major goals of separating from TEC, retaining their property, and preserving their tradition of worship and ministry.
Church of the Word is one of a number of formerly Episcopal congregations that had severed ties with the denomination over matters of doctrinal drift and novel pastoral practices. Upon breaking away from the denomination in December 2006, TEC filed a lawsuit against eleven Northern Virginia churches in an attempt to keep them from retaining their property. Currently, the next phase of this litigation will continue for the remaining seven churches with the commencement of a late-April 2011 trial in the Fairfax County, Virginia, Circuit Court.
COTW’s settlement allows it to keep its property, and now free of litigation, may concentrate on its vision, which is to ”˜Encounter and Share Jesus Christ’. It does, however, require that COTW sever its affiliation with the newly established Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), and the Anglican District of Virginia (ADV) for a period of five years.
A thirteen hour time difference, over 9,000 miles, and the International dateline separate St. Vincent’s Cathedral in Texas from a new church plant in Cambodia’s province of Pursat.
That kind of distance might make a direct partnership between Cambodia and Texas seem nearly inconceivable, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
In fact, St. Vincent’s put up half the funds necessary to make the new church plant a reality and has sent teams over to work directly on the project.
I belong to a small beautiful Episcopal church in McKeesport that is caught in the [Pittsburgh] bishops’ war. Like the Civil War, the church members were pitted against each other. Family members split on which bishop to follow and lifelong friends parted ways. Empty pews far outweigh the occupied pews. The church will survive or fail because of the good people who go there to praise God each week, not from any help from higher up in whatever diocese wins the next round.
I will take comments on this submitted by email only to at KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.
(The writer is a laywoman now in the Orthodox Church–KSH).
I hesitate to write on this subject because I’m no longer in the Anglican Communion. However, what I write has been on my mind and heart for some time and I hope that it will be received as helpful criticism. I recognize that these are critical days for Anglicans in North America and I don’t wish either to offend or to stir trouble. I hope that this might encourage continued conversation about Anglican identity.
I worship each Sunday with other former Anglicans who have found their way to Orthodoxy and we discuss our impressions of what seems to be happening in Anglicanism in this country.
Two senior priests of the Diocese of Fort Worth have left the breakaway Anglo-Catholic diocese for the Anglican Ordinariate.
On March 8, Bishop Jack Iker announced that his number two man, Canon Charles Hough, and Fr. Louis Tobola had resigned their posts effective March 31.
The bishop noted Canon Hough had served as Canon to the Ordinary for the past 17 years, and he and Fr. Tobola had each served for over 30 years in the diocese. “Though they have not yet resigned from the ordained ministry, they are expected to do so at the time the Ordinariate is established for former Anglicans who wish to come into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church,” Bishop Iker said.
Christ Church is welcoming a new building for a new era.
The Fallbrook congregation, formerly known as St. John’s Anglican Church, has been conducting services at Living Waters Christian Fellowship Assembly of God Church for the past two years. The church began sharing space with Living Waters after legal battles over property rights and organizational authority allowed the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego to take over the former church property (which is now operating as St. John’s Episcopal).
The members at St. John’s Anglican had previously voted to secede from the Episcopal Church, which is the North American branch of the global Anglican…[Communion], and reaffiliated with a more theologically traditional conservative archdiocese in Africa. Disagreements regarding homosexuality and biblical authority are at the core of an ongoing dispute between the Episcopal Church and hundreds of its congregations, as well as Anglican bishops in other countries.