The area’s largest Episcopal parish plans to split from the Diocese of Western New York and leave behind the Town of Tonawanda church buildings it has called home for 48 years.
Members of St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church will become the first local congregation to break ties with the Episcopal Church since the contentious 2003 ratification of an openly homosexual bishop by the national governing body.
“The gay issue is the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said the Rev. Arthur W. Ward Jr., rector of St. Bartholomew’s Church. “The Episcopal Church from our perspective has turned its back on the Lord, it’s turned its back on scripture and the word of God.”
Why do they keep going back to the MDG’s .6% seems like a Monthy Python skit/parody. Surely they can get better talking points.
Hey, it’s 0.[i]7[/i]%, h8r!!
I must say that it’s refreshing to read about a parish and diocese that are able to work things out without rancor or litigation. Good luck and Godspeed to St. Bartholomew’s.
At least it sounds as though +Garrison will transfer the departing clergy rather than defrocking them for “abandonment of communion”.
I understand and sympathize with both approaches to the issue of property (remain in the old, or find new lodgings, which departing congregations should decide on particular local grounds), but I applaud St Bart’s decision about the property, and it has clearly been blessed by the Lord in their being able to purchase the other property.
Apart from the theological issues, I have always been underwhelmed by the extent of the 0.7% committment. It’s as though I rushed, breathless, to a coffee date with a friend, and told him/her that I had found a cause so compelling, so life-changing, so important, that I will, unstintingly and without reservation, devote to it….
0.7% of my income.
Or, to just pull out a round figure, if my annual draw was $50,000.00, I would throw all caution to the wind, and trusting in God only for all my life, and motion, and being, peel off for that cause….
$350.00.
The allegedly compelling nature of the cause just doesn’t seem to line up with the magnitutude of the committment, it seems to me.
“small percentage”? Small, but growing percentage?
All is wellâ„¢.
I wonder when anyone will think that maybe, just maybe the church is not going in the right direction? When it shrinks to 500,000 people? 250,000?
Hey, anybody heard about a majority of St Mary’s, Elk Grove, California leaving to form a new Anglican parish with +Schofield in nearby Lodi, California? Let’s hear about it…anybody?
Bishop Garrison has seen a lot of bad news. From 1996 through 2006 the diocese lost about 35 percent of its members. From 1996 through 2002 Plate & Pledge increased a meager 13 percent and from 2002 through 2006 Plate & Pledge decreased about 3 percent. He voted with the majority in deposing Bishop Duncan but then lost a lawsuit. And in 2006 there were 321 burials and only 194 infant baptisms. And now this. Selling the property and using the funds for a golden parachute early retirement might be in the making. Statmann
St. Bart’s in Tonawanda has an ASA of around 500, placing it in the top 5% of TEC parishes in the country. It instantly becomes one of the largest churches in the Province of the Southern Cone. Now that they are moving into a building three times larger than their current, outgrown one, may they double or triple in size!
Buffalo is, of course, famous for getting hit hard by lots of snow in the winter, due to the well known lake effect. But the “All is well” spin by Bp. Garrison is one incredible snow job. Talk about piling it up! That is an awful lot of artificial snow (or misinformation).
David Handy+
How large is the Episcopal Church USA? I see 2.3 to 2.4 million members often cited. Is this true? Is there recent data?
[url=http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/Members_by_Prov__Diocese_96-06.pdf]Active Baptized Members[/url] 2,320,505 in 2006
[url=http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/Average_Sunday_Attendance_by_Prov.__Diocese_1996-061.pdf]Average Sunday Attendance[/url] 804,688 in 2006
Thanks Michele, I wonder about the numbers. My family of 6 left in 2005 for another denomination when we moved to Florida. I guess we are still in that 2,320,505 number.
If one looks at domestic dioceses then the numbers are:
Membership 2,154,572
ASA 765,326
If I hear Ms Schori’s “Greetings from Micronesia, Taiwan,…” again, I think I will throw up. We have Ms Schori’s “The Episcopal Communion” which she has apparently made reference to. My prediction: As the crisis continues (sorry, it is not [url=http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/16844/ ]abating[/url]), there will be less and less money for these non-domestic dioceses. Without TEC lucre, they will disappear.
To follow with Statman’s analysis. Western New York’s 33% drop in membership in the past ten years puts it in the ignominious 3rd place behind the tiny Navaho Missions diocese which saw a 60% drop and Rochester which saw a 35% drop.
In just one day, the ASA dropped 10%. Ouch.
Statistics with 2007 data should be coming out soon!
And let’s not forget the historical backdrop, TEC’s ominous steady decline for over 40 years now. I don’t have the data at my fingertips, but ECUSA peaked in 1965 or 1966 with roughly 3.6 million members. Thus, in the last 40 years, TEC has dropped over 1/3 in terms of its raw membership numbers (from 3.6 mil to under 2.2 mil). But bad as that is, what’s even worse is that the national population has more than doubled during that 40 year period, and so our market share of the population has declined even more precipitously. That is, we’ve lost about 2/3 of our former market share among American denominations.
Now what Fortune 500 Corporation would tolerate a 1/3 drop in sales, or a 2/3 drop in market share, without making RADICAL changes in its policies or modus operandi, and without cleaning house in the executive offices? In the business world, the bums who run TEC would’ve been thrown out long ago for ruining the company.
David Handy+
And TEC will not transfer you out of the church. They will transfer your letter to another TEC parish, but they will not let you withdraw it nor will they let you transfer it to an Anglican church. When you vote with your feet they will still count you as a member.
Is faith the size of the MDGs smaller than or equal to a mustard seed? I thought real faith was trusting in a governmental or UN agency to actually provide relief given the track record of each institution since the mid-20th century.
But actual results are supposedly required by the materialistic mindset before placing faith, right?
Perhaps the resolution of contraries is alchemically possible, but not even God can believe two contradictions at the same time. Which is why faithful adherence to God may require separation from even the ECUSA/TEC/GCC/EO-PAC.
Asking again: anyone have news on the new Anglican congregation formed by +Schofield in Lodi, Calif. that many families from St. Mary’s, Elk Grove (+Beisner) have joined? Is this the newest church plant for San Joaquin?
It is not just about mere numbers. they are important, to be sure, but the significance of whole dioceses leaving is of paramount importance.
And, mind you, not tiny dioceses. This is like taking out a kidney and then saying, “This is of small importance, a tiny minority of my organs, all of the rest of which I have.” Larry