The Anglican Church in North America will be holding informational meetings April 1, 6 and 9 regarding plans to open a new church under the leadership of the Rev. Brian Chase of Hartville.
The Anglican Church in North America will be holding informational meetings April 1, 6 and 9 regarding plans to open a new church under the leadership of the Rev. Brian Chase of Hartville.
My first reaction was: why start a new mission in a dying city which already has two TEC churches? Then, I took a closer look at the TEC churches. St. Mark has two temporary Priests in Charge and still can’t find a full-time one. Its 2002 through 2009 experience was quite bad with Members dropping from 700 to 250, ASA from 260 to 160, and Plate & Pledge (inflation adjusted) down about 20 percent. Not much vitality here. The other is St. Paul with Rev. Barbara Bond as rector since 2006. For 2002 through 2009, its stats are Members down from 240 to 205, ASA down from 100 to 80, and adjusted Plate & Pledge also down about 20 percent. Again, no signs of vitality. So, ACNA may well be correct. If they can just find the 450 Members missing from St. Mark, they will have a great start. Statmann
Very good point from Statman, as always.
I think also, that when a church has a missionary vision (which most churches have had at some point in their history, but don’t always retain) the difficulties have a tendency to melt away.
We have seen on other threads that more traditional anglicans complain about the lack of knowledge of Anglican tradition among those joining ACNA. That is a real problem, but one positive side of it is that it shows ACNA is tending to evangelise outside of “former Episcopalians”. So the harvest field available to ACNA in Canton Ohio may be much wider than just the 450 members missing from St Marks!