Conference Explores New Congregations
Episcopal News Service. July 10, 1980 [80243]
Barbara White, The Florida Episcopalian
Hendersonville, N. C. -- During the 1960s at least one Episcopal diocese called a moratorium on founding new churches and placed major emphasis on dealing with social issues and racial justice.
This year four new congregations are being formed in that diocese and requests to start a dozen more are pending.
As the church moves into the '80s, it finds that new family formations have begun, new communities created and the demand for new congregations is increasing. After the years of emphasizing social outreach at the alleged expense of forming new congregations, the Episcopal Church is being called to look for new ways to fulfill the Great Commission to go into all the world and make disciples.
Diocesan leaders, clergy and lay persons from Province IV and from other areas of the church, including Colorado, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas, heard this theme expressed again and again recently at a Conference on Starting New Congregations at the Kanuga Conference Center, here in mid-June.
Conference leaders and resource persons from various diocesan and national organizations of the Episcopal Church were joined by experts in the field of church expansion from the United Methodist Church and the Southern Baptist Convention. The conference was coordinated by the Rev. Arnold Bush, Rector of St. Anne's, Tifton, Ga. and Regional Associate in Evangelism and Renewal for Province IV.
"Why should the Episcopal denomination be in a new community unless it has something to offer?" asked the Rev. Ezra Earl Jones, associate general secretary of the General Council on Ministries for the United Methodist Church and author of "Strategies for New Churches" and "New Church Development in the '80s."
"Are you willing to pay the price?" challenged the Rev. Nelson Tilton, associate director of the Division of Church Extension, Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. "Do you want to start new churches, whatever the cost?"
But it is not enough simply to start new Episcopal congregations, conference leaders said, unless they are started for the purpose of bringing people to Christ.
The way to bring Christ to His people and His people to Christ is not to find a few Episcopalians and build a church for them, but to take a few Episcopalians and let them reach out to the unchurched, who have never been Episcopalians, and bring them into the Body of Christ, conference participants were told.
This is a new concept in church expansion for the Episcopal Church and will require new methods of implementation.
Participants were able to discuss issues of individual concern with conference leaders and resource persons in small-group workshops. Topics ranged from starting in small towns, financing and loans, developing diocesan policy and procedures, site location and finding potential members, redevelopment of declining congregations and beginning new congregations in the inner city, and what happens in a new congregation during the first, second and third years.
Other staff persons were: the Rev. A. Wayne Schwab, evangelism and renewal officer of the Episcopal Church Center; the Rev. Nelson Longnecker, JSAC Task Force; Mr. William Paddock, congregational development officer for the Diocese of Southern Ohio; the Rev. Sherrill Scales, Jr., executive vice president, Episcopal Church Building Fund; and the Rev. Robert B. Greene of the Resource Center for Small Churches.
All sessions were taped; tapes may be ordered from Mr. Bush, P.O. Box 889, Tifton, Ga. 31794.