PITTSBURGH: Convention could create four parishes in midst of realignment vote
Episcopal News Service. October 3, 2008 [100308-03]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
When the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh meets in convention October 4, in addition to considering whether to align with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, deputies will be asked to create four new parishes.
Seeds of Hope, Bloomfield; Charis247 Community, Coraopolis; Somerset Anglican Fellowship, Somerset; and Grace Anglican Church, Slippery Rock, are all asking for admission to the diocese.
Admitting the four as parishes would add at least 12 votes (two deputies and one clergy person from each congregation) to total of those who will be asked to approve resolutions (see resolutions one, two and three here) to align with the Buenos Aires-based Southern Cone.
"This is the most important organizational decision that Pittsburgh congregations will face for years to come," Jenni Bartling, the diocese's congregational developer for church plants, said in July while announcing the anticipated vote. "Because all of our church plants will be directly affected by the decision[s] of Diocesan Convention, we believe it is important that as many as possible are able to vote on this issue, just like any other congregation of the diocese."
While the resolution (Resolution A located here) notes that the diocese has a goal of planting ten new congregations by 2010, at least one of the parishes-to-be is a community formed earlier this year after some members of St. Francis-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church in Somerset followed the then-rector, Mark Zimmerman, out of the parish. A January 22 diocesan statement said that Zimmerman and the others "desired immediate action to separate from the national church" while others in the parish "while deeply disturbed with the direction of the national church, wished to take a slower course."
At the time of the split the Associated Press reported that Zimmerman and his followers may instead join with St. Paul's Presbyterian Church in Somerset, which had voted the month before to cut its ties to Presbyterian Church USA and join the more conservative Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
The remaining members of St. Francis do not intend to follow the diocesan leadership in its anticipated realignment with the Southern Cone. St. Francis celebrated its 50th anniversary with a dinner and a special worship service September 27-28. "It was a nice celebration after a period of healing," senior warden Karen Stitler told ENS. "We've tried to keep it amiable and civil," she said of the split and its aftermath.
St. Francis is one of at least 16 Pittsburgh congregations (out of the diocese's approximately 70) whose members have said they will remain in the Episcopal Church. A list of those congregations is available here and a compilation of some of the statements from the leadership of the congregations can be found here. None of the parishes-to-be is on either list.
The congregations' websites carry very few, if any, references to the Episcopal Church or the Diocese of Pittsburgh. Charis247 calls itself "a missional church community" of the diocese.
Seeds of Hope notes on its calendar-page listing for its Sunday service time that the community follows the "Eucharistic Rite II service from the Episcopal prayer book." The congregation says that its order is "grounded in Holy Scripture, the Ancient Creeds and Liturgies of the Early Church and the first four centuries as received and adapted by the Anglican Communion in America."
Grace Anglican notes the upcoming convention vote on its request for parish status. The congregation notes on its website that its members are "Christians in the Protestant, Reformed tradition whose roots are in the Church of England."
Only the Rev. John Paul Chaney, the pastor of Seeds of Hope, responded to ENS' email and telephone requests for interviews. In an email, Chaney said Seeds of Hope began as a church plant in 2002 and was a spin-off of Shepherd's Heart Fellowship in Pittsburgh's Uptown neighborhood. Seeds of Hope is located in a 12-bedroom home in the Bloomfield/Garfield/Friendship area of Pittsburgh and concentrates on serving the needs of area children and youth. Chaney and his wife are also part of Earthen Vessels Outreach, a neighborhood development organization.
Chaney said the decision to request parish status now has nothing to do with the proposed realignment, "but because we believe that we are ready. We had plans to become a parish last year, but after prayer decided to wait another year."
Charis247 is also involved in neighborhood development through the Coraopolis Community Development Foundation, which it founded and where it meets for weekly worship. "We try to keep first things first," the FAQs section of the Chrais247's website says. "Love has consequence. Where it is practiced, restoration and healing will result and so a loving community of Jesus-learners will live in a way that tries to meet the spiritual, emotional, intellectual and material needs of those around them. And if we're going to do that, we have to be connected to the community that we're a part of."