Sunday mornings at All Souls Charlottesville are fairly common for an Anglican congregation.
The Book of Common Prayer and the Revised Common Lectionary are standard, creeds are spoken together, the Eucharist is the central focus of the liturgy and the minister blesses the congregation before it scatters back into the world.
But the Charlottesville, Va., congregation isn’t an Episcopal church. It’s Baptist ”” in fact it’s a plant of the Baptist General Association of Virginia and is celebrating its fifth anniversary in 2014.
– Ceramic chalices? Ick.
РTaiz̩ services? Ick.
– Breath prayer? I don’t know what that is, but I’m afraid to Google it.
– “The common denominator of being Baptist — the authority of Scripture, the divinity of Christ, priesthood of the believer…” (I think that’s a common denominator of Christianity.)
– Nothing said about music…
#1 Ralph — What is so icky about ceramic chalices and Taizé services?
Reading this article reminded me of the pastor at New Life Church in Colorado Springs who was ordained to the Anglican diaconate. There does seem to be increasing interest among some Evangelicals in Anglicanism.
I doubt they will be Baptist for much longer once the higher ups hear about what they are doing. Sounds like a good parish waiting for an ACNA person to help them find their way into the Anglican world where it seems they belong.
Perhaps #4 but then this simply may be an example of a congregation discovering the values and virtues of ‘Ancient-Future Worship’ (as the late Robert Webber championed) without feeling any need or having any desire to embrace Anglican style polity.
As a former student at Wheaton College of the late, great Bob Webber, I rejoice whenever I hear about evangelicals who are making the pilgrimage to what he called “ancient future” worship. The second edition of his famous book, Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, contains additional testimonies not found in the first edition, and notes that the destination even of those making their way into Anglicanism no longer necessarily runs through Cantergury. A few additional comments:
1. Growing from a core group of 15 to an ASA of 160 in five years isn’t bad. I wish more of our new ACNA plants in VA were doing that well. Some are, some aren’t. FWIW, +John Guernsey just ordained a new deacon, David (Dave) Petty, on March 25th, who is starting an ACNA congregation in Charlottesville (meeting at the Mennonite church there).
2. When I served for a year on the staff of an evangelical retreat center in Newport News, VA, I was amazed that the center was owned and operated by a very unusual Southern Baptist Church. Hope Community Church was fully charismatic for one thing, which is unusual enough in the SBC, but it also featured communion every Sunday, which may be even more unusual (though it was done in a very low church and non-liturgical style). It was also into the IHOP (that’s International House of PRAYER) style of 24/7 prayer and worship. So yes, there are remarkable signs of ferment among some Baptists in North America, even among Southern Baptists (and the Charlottesville group is not SBC).
3. Ralph, FWIW, I love the ceramic chalice that my sister-in-law, a gifted potter, made for me. I sometimes use it for small groups and midweek celebrations. And I’m crazy about Taize music and services. Finally, I’m a big fan of using the breath prayer as an aid to Christian contemplation. It’s a venerable, ancient Christian practice, which resonates so naturally with the biblical connection between the Holy Spirit and both wind and breath (the Greek word pneuma can mean all three, depending on the context).
David Handy+
Many years ago I was privileged to be at St. David’s, Austin during the last years of The Rev. Mr. Charles Sumner. About once a month, at the end of Morning Prayer, he would go to the altar and lead a prayer of repentance and acceptance of Christ as Lord and Savior that was reminiscent of my Baptist youth. It was sort of an altar call, but you didn’t go forward. Good times.