From the Florida Times-Union:
All Souls Church-Anglican will begin its final service at 9 a.m. Sunday, July 15, in the sanctuary at 10679 Old St. Augustine Road, where members worshipped for 28 years. The first rector, Whitey Haugan (1979-1999), will then lock up for the last time before the congregation walks to a temporary Sunday home at Mandarin Middle School at 5100 Hood Road to complete services.
“The people who are coming will make it [the school auditorium] a church – almost 400, and they are all going with us,” said the Rev. Gene Strickland, the church’s current rector. “While the [Episcopal] diocese may own the property, we have the people.”
Frank Griffin, a member since the early 1990s, is helping search for a new church site. He said there will be mixed emotions during the 2-mile walk to the middle school.
“If you are going to be orthodox and committed to your religion, than the move is the right thing,” Griffin said. “[I will miss] the comfort and the memories there. However, the church family, which is strongly bonded, will stay intact. … We could have capitulated and stayed, or left and started anew.”
I think the diocese should have allowed this parish to at least purchase the property. What hateful spite motivated this action? They will sell it you know, just not to their departing congregation. Pure evil if you ask me.
Two thoughts come to mind, I read an article on Virtue on Line about TEC taking over another Church and running the Rector out ,the Church went from ASA of 1600 to zip and then I am thinking of Bonnie Anderson’s sermon in Canada from Mark 2:15-17 and about the self important powerful.
May God bless them. What a powerful witness that 2 mile walk will be!
Sad to think how Bp. Howard and his allies justify the heartless, heavy-handed tactics as faithful to “fiduciary duty” under secular law. The fact is that if the bishop and the standing committee had wanted to, they could—consistent with their fiduciary duties—have freely GIVEN All Souls whatever interest the diocese had in this property. Now it will stand empty.
The diocese is reeling financially from other empty properties, like that of Grace Church Orange Park, which similarly walked away last Easter–and them promptly raised $4 million to build a bigger and better edifice. Bp Howard’s refusal to sell these properties to the departing parishes is the epitome of cutting of one’s nose to spite one’s face. Not only is he allowing bitterness and meanness to possess him, he is also removing the single biggest potential buyer of the properties, and thus NOT fulfilling his fiduciary duties in even the most truncated financial sense. Moreover, for PR reasons he now cannot really sell the properties to anyone, meaning the diocese will underwrite the costs of yet another empty building. His remains a case study of how to destroy an organization, and do so quickly.
Would be nice if someone from All Soul’s would give us all here a first-hand report here today on their faithful walk from heresy and to faithfulness.
At the rate they are going TEC is going to run out of $. And more groups of people will leave if TEC tries to raise each church assessment to help pay for the legal expenses.
It is my understanding that Bisho Howard has already backed off of his commitment to not sell any church properties and is in fact negotiating to do so — just not with the departing congregations. I do not have this first hand but trust the source.