A recent telephone call to our office recounted a person's visit to a new congregation. Our caller, while visiting family members far from home during the holidays, spotted the familiar blue-and-white Episcopal Church sign in front of a non-church building and decided to investigate the situation the following Sunday. She found the experience upsetting. Other than the sermon, the Peace and distribution of communion, she found "virtually no elements of Anglican worship" - no prayer books, no hymnals, no familiar music, no psalm. "Other than the sign, I would have had no clue that I was in an Episcopal church," she said. When we checked the situation, we found that the woman had come across one of three new congregations in a particular diocese. "Our church plants" was the description of the diocesan staff person. We were told that all three congregations were similar in worship, and that varying degrees of response to the new missions had been reported.

While realizing that it cannot be business as usual for the Episcopal Church, we are concerned that church leaders may be willing to give up much of the trappings of Anglicanism for the sake of trying something new. New congregations of all sorts of denominations and independent status are springing up all over this country. Surely the Episcopal Church can offer church shoppers something different from the rest.