Episcopal Press and News
ATLANTA: New Vinings church to begin worship January 13
Episcopal News Service. January 11, 2008 [011108-04]
Lisa B. Hamilton, Correspondent for Episcopal Life Media in Provinces I and IV
At a time when attendance in America's mainline churches seems to be at an all time low, the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta is planting new parishes at the rate of nearly one a year.
On January 13, an estimated 200 people are expected to worship at St. Benedict's Episcopal Church in New Vinings, Georgia, the third such parish plant in five years, and one which plans to grow to a 1000-member church.
"Numbers may be declining in mainline churches, but there are thousands and thousands of people who are hungry for the gospel who need to be reached," says the Rev. Alicia Schuster Weltner, Canon for Congregational Development and Ministry in the Diocese of Atlanta.
All indications are that "St. B's" -- as it's affectionately known -- is well on its way. Within one year, with financial support from the Diocese of Atlanta and several of its parishes, a website was launched, offices opened with a vicar, parish secretary, program director and director of congregational development. Since then, an organist/choirmaster has come on board.
"I believe Jesus is calling the Episcopal Church to look through walls of all kinds, to make connections with people across walls," says the Rev. Lang Lowrey, St. Benedict's vicar. "At St. Benedict's, like the early Church, we're able to follow Jesus without walls of any kind."
Instead of following the "build it and they will come model," St. Benedict's, from a core of 50 people, has built a community that will eventually build a church building when it outgrows the current worship space in a Middle School gymnasium. Although this "apostolic model" is considered a cutting edge congregational development technique, the idea of a congregation growing from people meeting without a church building harkens to early Christianity. The first so-called "house church" is recorded in Acts 1:13, where the disciples of Jesus met together in a home's upper room.
Lowrey admits that "some day, we'll need to worry about buildings and grounds," but right now he -- and his flock -- simply relish making connections throughout the community, largely through outreach activities. All activities, including those for youth from sixth grade and up -- which usually attract several dozen -- have the objective of building community by following Jesus' example of serving the poor and the needy.
On "Undie Sunday," for instance, St. B's middle and high school students brought new underwear and socks to donate to the poor via MUST Ministries, a community organization, in lieu of money for a movie ticket to see The Bee Movie that afternoon.
Parish planting isn't likely to end anytime soon in the Diocese of Atlanta. At the diocesan convention last November, Bishop J. Neil Alexander promised, "As long as I am blessed to be the bishop of this extraordinary diocese, we're going to talk about growth, [although]…I don't believe in growth for growth's sake. Numbers for the sake of numbers alone are simply another form of idolatry. But that's not why we grow.
"We grow because we are the hands and feet of the Great Commission of Jesus. We grow because we serve a Risen Savior who invites everyone into a life-transforming relationship…We grow because we can offer a New Testament vision of an inclusive church, powered by the resurrection, driven by gospel justice, and nourished by holy living."