The Continuing Anglican Churchman

One of the authors whose books the Anglican1000 site recommend is Ed Stetzer. His name jumped out at me because I read one of his books recently about church revitalization. In preparing to come to St. Francis I devoured a number of those types of books written from all sorts of perspectives, ranging from liberal Episcopalian to conservative Evangelical. Did I find them helpful? Well, marginally so. Most of these types of books (especially Stetzer's "Comeback Churches") assume that the minister has free reign with the structure of the service and can make radical changes with it at will so as to spur growth. Unfortunately this type of ecclesiastical free-styling typically does not jive with hierarchical churches that are governed by canons. In the APA, and in most other 1928 BCP jurisdictions, the canons dictate what music is allowed and what liturgical books are authorized - which books contain rubrics which govern the celebration of the liturgy. And while those rubrics are vague in certain areas, and thus allow for a certain amount of leeway, that freedom goes only so far. This is a good thing, as it keeps our worship Catholic, and free from heretical innovations that may mislead the faithful. On the other hand, it can be somewhat constricting and make planting new churches and revitalizing old ones a lot harder.

There still remains much work to be done on planting churches in the Anglican tradition. This site is a start, as are the various initiatives by some of the 1928 BCP jurisdictions (e.g. the DEUS of the APA has as part of its strategic plan church planting), but these are only starts. They are all, in my opinion, and based on what I have seen and studied about them, still somewhat lacking. The weakness of the ACNA plan is that it is more Methodist than Anglican (like ACNA itself). While they desire to plant Anglican churches, the churches are not very Anglican at all either liturgically or theologically, and they suggest using models (e.g. Presbyterian or Baptist) that are fundamentally at odds with the Anglican way and tradition. An Anglican church is not a church that simply has an icon on its homepage and where the minister wears a collar sometimes. The weakness of the APA plan from what I have seen of it thus far is that it is focused almost entirely on parish organization and structure, and is lacking in an overall outreach plan and strategy (e.g. there is no APA parish in town X... let's try to start one there.). Further, there seems to be no discussion as to how to reach out to and evangelize the unchurched with an antiquarian liturgy and tradition, or even a set liturgy to begin with. That is what we need to be discussing, and so far has not been given any meaningful discussion that I have seen.

There is no question in my mind that using an old liturgy and an obscure liturgical language (e.g. Ecclesiastical Latin, Old Church Slavonic, or Elizabethan English) is a good thing, and that it is no barrier whatsoever to church growth, missions, and evangelism. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs to study the history of missions especially of the Roman Catholic Church. But we do have to have a passionate interest in church planting and missions (as some of these ACNA folk do), and then also think about how we do that and remain Anglican (as we continuers do). That is the real challenge.

There are lessons in this for parishes, and other organizations too, I guess. The main one is that it is possible for a church to be so weakened by years and years of stagnation, inept leadership, and plain bad luck that it is impossible to turn the situation around. A church can be so damaged by ongoing trouble that no matter who comes in or what happens recovery is a mere pipe dream. This is a very real possibility with my parish of St. Francis, one that I face every day. I truly hope that we will be able to turn things around here, and we are making some progress thanks be to God, but the progress has to come more quickly that the rot, or we could be in trouble.

This should serve as a warning to parishes that are just drifting along stagnating, and suffering with the status quo. Deal with the rot before it is too late!

As an outsider Rowan Williams strikes me as being a complete flop as an archbishop. He seems to be equally reviled by conservatives and liberals in the Church. Bishop Spong, of all people, publicly criticized Rowan Williams for putting unity before truth! I think the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church is a much better bishop and leader than Williams, even though I radically disagree with her. Why? Because she is very clear about where she stands on these important issues, and has the courage to stand up for what she believes to be true.

A bishop - especially a presiding bishop - besides being well-educated and having lots of ministry experience, must also have clear convictions on the nature and purpose of the Gospel and the Catholic Church. Nothing hurts a church more than when theological murkiness and ambiguity run amok.

Many Anglo-Catholics oppose Mass and the Offices and make it their effort to stamp the offices out of the Sunday schedule so people come to mass instead. But while Holy Communion is undoubtedly the more important service of the two, it is wrong to oppose them to each other. Almost every knows that Cranmer's original intention was for Offices, Litany, and (at least) the Ante-Communion to make up the Sunday service. Most the classic Anglo-Catholic parishes I have known always offer Matins on Sundays, even if it is early and simply "said".

While MP and Mass are two separate services, the Offices help prepare one for Holy Communion, and are an excellent prelude to Mass. How? For one, the Scripture readings help bring out the meaning of the Epistle and Gospel from the Mass even better (almost like that old Protestant adage... that Scripture is interpreted through Scripture). I always study the Scriptures appointed for the Sunday Offices when preparing a sermon because they bring greater insight into the Gospel reading for that Sunday!

Here I should mention that some think that the additional Scripture readings are the only redeeming value of the Offices, and so there is created a "mongrel" service consisting of the 1928 Prayer Book with additional readings thrown in. But that is contrary to spirit of the liturgies, and makes a liturgy that is too long. Plus it ignores the fact that the singing the great canticles of the Church and the Psalms, and reciting the prayers of the office - especially the beautiful General Thanksgiving - are also critical parts of the service.

But the problem clergy face is this idea that God can only have one hour or so on Sunday... or that one can only attend one service on Sunday. This despite the fact that statistics show that the average "Facebook" user spends one hour a day on FB! Attendance at our Sunday Morning Prayer is anywhere from 3-8, even though it is a short (20 minutes tops) service, and even though a good number of parishioners live very close by. I am hoping that by having the organist play the service, and by preaching and teaching on it that we can increase attendance, and the reason I want the attendance to go up for MP is because it is spiritually beneficial, and as the service grows and we can do more with it - with a choir, etc. - that will help the church grow and prosper since the Offices are a "signature" Anglican service.